Don’t tell me This is Just to Say was a note that William Carlos Williams jotted off and left on the kitchen table for his wife:
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Did she–Mrs. Williams (or Mrs. Carlos Williams)–read it and laugh? As she headed back out to the grocery, did she scribble her answer in the margin?
I have spoofed
the poem
that you wrote
about plumsand which
you were probably
saving
for serious readersForgive me
it was beautiful
so sweet
and so cold
sweat and sprezzatura 
Welcome back.
I thought
you’d left for
pastures new.
Did Zumba
take up
all your
writing time?
As for plums
in an icebox,
They would
freeze hard.
Carlos Williams
must have had
teeth of steel
to eat them.
Hi Philippe! I got sidetracked for a while listening to THE MOTH and dreaming of how to get myself on the show. It sounds like fun.
How could I leave for pastures new when I still don’t know the outcome of the family saga over on your blog?
Eating those plums
He must have felt a bum.
Ms William was so bold
As to hold
Her own
Against the known.
As we say in French: “Excusez la”.
Nice to hear from you, Paul. A little poem that concludes with a phrase in French is pure class! Thanks. 🙂
Poetic in its own way is Ben Franklin’s postscript to Catherine Ray:
“P.S. The Plums came safe, and were so sweet from the Cause you mentioned, that I could scarce taste the Sugar.”
http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/letter22.htm
Jim,
That’s a very funny Ben Franklin letter! It reminded me of my favorite Alexander Pope poem, his Epistle to Miss Blount. OK, I’ll read more of Franklin’s letters. A fine thing in the morning before I go among the Grave ones…
Very funny too, the catty doggerel from you, The Non-Grave One.
@Jim:
“Catty Doggerel” — the name of my next blog. 🙂
My darling Roman
had washed two for me
and though tempted to
fondle and squeeze
a bit longer
I suddenly sucked them
down, skins and all
pits grating my tongue
Even though they say
small words
have more punch
my husband’s plums
frescas, juzgosas
gozosas y sabrozas
made me smile a blush
(I wipe my chin).
Hi Lynda of the snazzy last name! You’re writing some wild stuff for a girl from Meadville. 🙂 So nice to hear from you, dear. Thanks.
Plums?!
Samples for the vet –
The cat’s been bleeding.
Richard, I’m so afraid now. What have you done to my simple domestic scene?
Hi. 🙂
poem-y
I know it’s goofy, this playing with form, Mr C, but I like it. It’s a kind of conversation with the author.
Here’s one. Robert Pinsky has this ABC poem:
Any body can die, evidently. Few
Go happily, irradiating joy,
Knowledge, love. Many
Need oblivion, painkillers,
Quickest respite.
Sweet time unafflicted,
Various world:
X=your zenith.
Fun, right? I wish he hadn’t used the word “irradiating” and I’m not sure I like the end, but when I try to answer Mr. Pinsky, in his form, I become less critical real fast. It’s friggin hard.
I don’t think I can do it without a xylophone.
I never said goofy. Goofy would be my rendition of Big Bird’s alphabet song. Or my Italian alphabet song. I’m just glad you posted something.
I would have to take the day off to write an ABC poem. Maybe a sonnet. Can I xeriscape your zoo?
Mr C,
Xeriscaping your zoo is just the thing!
Look, who can read an ABC poem without wondering from the start how the xyz problem will be resolved? It’s really all the reader can think about. So, the thing to do is write with a winking recognition of the absurdity of the problem. I like it. There’s life in it. 🙂
One more thing: Kevin Young’s “Ode to the Midwest” — you posted it here way back when in a comment. I quote from it all the time. Thanks.
“…Few
Go happily….”
How many die
wishing they’d spent
more time
at the office?
I am one, Philippe, going rather unhappily to the office this very Saturday morning. Enjoy your day!
I don’t know what to write. I was gonna post something and hit Enter after every second or third word, but I see this has been done to death by previous commenters.
Therefore, I shall sit this subject out.
Hi Cyberquill,
Don’t you mean to say that you would sit this subject out, if there were a subject? 🙂
Clearly, the topic here is whether PLBs (Premature Line Breaks) turn any sentence into a poem.
Stand clear of the closing doors.
Stand clear
of the closing
doors.
Poetry? Tough call.
Allow me just to offer one brief word,
OBedience to the form is all but lost.
It Cannot be enough, it won’t be heard
To iDolise a way in part riposte.
If ever this can safely be denied,
All diFficulty yet must be o’ercome.
Like anGels, praise the muse from deep inside
The very Heart, but make no racks like some.
This precIous language yearns a loyal soul
Else empty Joking dissipates life’s force.
There are no Kinder ways I can enrol
Or cut the sweLling river from its course.
For playful gaMes are but a masquerade.
Come, join me shuN them, or the stars will fade.
Pay heed, make prOper virtue of your pen,
Untie those roPes of blessings and of scope,
Sing lighter, Quell you not the joy of men.
Shed light, a Ray, on present, blessed hope.
‘Tis easier, Sadly, to renounce the toll.
Fear less, Take well the bolder, rockier faith.
A specioUs misery can have no role
When loVe carves mankind on a turning lathe.
Leave Wallowing in painful circumstance,
DetoX your spirit, and proceed in peace,
ObeY the truth, proclaimed at our instance
RaZe nought, lest you delay your sweet release.
For otherwise the beauty’s left unmade
And truth indeed is finally betrayed.
👿
jenny – would you capitalise the X, Y and Z for me, please. 😦
CQ: Come back next week for the Vilanelle: Do ULRs (Unnecessary Line Repetitions) make a poem?
OK. I’ll be back.
Abgemacht. Ich komme wieder.
D’accord. Je reviendrai.
Above banal competition,
Dream!
Excessively
Feverish gropings have inevitably just kept leading many nervously
Onwards, persistently quashing rhyme.
Spirituality tries untrodden, vital ways,
Xenophobia yields zilch.
Anyone been caught?
Dead easy for geeks
Hopeless if jaded
Keep laughing!
Most never overcome.
Parsing quaint rhythms sometimes
troubles undisciplined versers, withal:
Xanthe yoked Zeus?!
Aardvarks beg confinement,
dolphins evade freedom,
giraffes hale incarceration,
just knowing landscape moisture
needs only pools quixotic.
Robust succulent trees
under value water.
Xeriscape your zoo.
Richard and Mr. C,
I feel totally outclassed now. My poem about better life through pharmacology (“Xanax, yea, Zoloft”) and the one I’ve been trying to sell to Z-life magazine convincing midwestern women that exercise is fun (“X-rated Ypsilanti Zumba”) now feel like excessively feverish gropings without the earnest environmental significance of the (now flourishing, so to speak) ‘xeriscape your zoo’ movement.
At the blogging convention, I will buy you both a drink. Cheers!
A beautiful composition doesn’t exasperate — featuring goofily hidden ideas.
Just kindly lend me nuance — over poetic quirkiness.
Respectfully — sense that unbridled verbosity will ‘xactly yield zip.
Jim,
You had something to say (what an idea!), you said it with simple words (no irradiating) in phrases that a real person might use, and you made the form work.
I think it’s better than Pinsky’s poem–more natural, more compact, more honest.
Nov. 9, 2011
Sweat and Sprezzatura
Chicagoland, IL 60609
Attn: Framing Dept.
Dear Sweat and Sprezzatura,
I wish to place an order for a framed reproduction of the above comment, preferably with gold leaf, two-inch beige matting, beveled, under non-reflective glass, for immediate delivery.
Sincerely,
Jim M.
Jim,
🙂
I meant it.
Jim,
I can so do that for you! Come from a family of glass cutters, and actually your poem is remarkable.
jenny,
you were right… we have slightly more girls than boys who are attending. and very few adults –
i so wish you had a contact button. major tszouris. make sure to chime in when philippe gets to his midrash on Jacob and Esau… i’d could use some merry discourse.
Dafna,
sweatandsprezzatura@gmail.com
Anyway, what does Jacob care about adults? 🙂 It’ll be terrific.
“that’s what she said”, a fan of the t.v. show “Office”?
yeppers…yesh. 🙂
Trying to write
A poem on plums
My head feels dizzy
(And a bit numb.)
I guffawed at your parenthetical musing on the proper name of William Carlos William’s wife. Before making any comment about it, I decided to look her up. According to Wikipedia, “Williams married Florence Herman (1891–1976) in 1912, after his first proposal to her older sister was refused.”
How does that work? What were family dinners like? This whole plum thing only seems to be scratching the surface of some very tricky family dynamics.
Hieronymo,
I had to investigate. Here’s what I found:
“Williams began to date Charlotte Herman, as did his brother Edgar. The two brothers squabbled over the attractive girl until Edgar asked her to marry him, to which she agreed. William Carlos locked himself in his room until he realized that he should marry Charlotte’s sister Florence.”
Florence married William Carlos Williams, and Charlotte married Edgar Carlos 😉 Williams. That’s some family dynamics.
http://rutherfordlibrary.typepad.com/williamcarloswilliams/
“…….Florence married William Carlos Williams, and Charlotte married Edgar Carlos Williams. That’s some family dynamics…..”.
Happily, neither William nor Edgar took to wife both Charlotte and Florence.
Philippe, this is my favorite kind of echoing. 🙂
At a dull holiday party, as I complained about dull holiday parties, a friend said to me:
You know that Billy Joel song “Just the Way You Are” with the line “Don’t want clever conversation…”? Well, I do want clever conversation.
And I do. Thanks.