Robin, my understanding of the Williams' poem is that it was a note to his
wife, Flossie. I can almost see it stock on the refrigerator (with magnets!)
Kenneth Koch has a great parody of it, pointing to how very annoying
a poet of this poem might be. It's called Variations on a Theme by
William Carlos Williams. I'd love to post the whole poem but John
Kinsella said no. Here's a stanza or two:
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me, I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next
ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
-- Mairead
On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> I had was on the phone last night, and +inter alia+, something strange
> emerged with regard to interpretations of Williams' "This is Just to Say"
> and Pound's "In a Station of the Metro".
>
> I'd always (and it never occured to me there was any other way of reading)
> taken the Williams poem as describing a guest's note of apology to a host,
> and the "petals" of Pound's Metro as petals blown off a blossom and
> sticking to a black branch.
>
> My interlocutor (equally unquestioningly) had taken the Williams poem as a
> husband's aplogy to his wife, and the petals in Metro as flowers blooming
> on a branch.
>
> Any comments (either personal, or in reference to published criticism of
> these two poems) would be appreciated.
>
> Robin Hamilton
>
>
>
>
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