Spring and All

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast – a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines –

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches –

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind –

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined –
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance – Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

William Carlos Williams, 1883 – 1963

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William Carlos Williams is one of my favourite poets and also one of the defining voices of 20th century American poetry.  In this poem, the title poem of his 1923 collection Spring and All, I particularly like the way he defies contemporary poetic dictum by the powerful use of multiple adjectives to create a ‘more is [much] more’ effect in the following stanza:

“All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines – ”

Overall though, I just love the acute observation inherent in the poem and its powerful sense of energy, however “sluggish” and “dazed” the spring that approaches—but oh, that imagery! And the wonder of:

” … Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken”

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