{"id":4122,"date":"2011-03-08T06:30:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T17:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=4122"},"modified":"2011-03-07T21:27:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T08:27:32","slug":"tuesday-poem-to-a-poor-old-woman-by-william-carlos-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/03\/08\/tuesday-poem-to-a-poor-old-woman-by-william-carlos-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “To a Poor Old Woman” by William Carlos Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

To a Poor Old Woman<\/strong><\/p>\n

munching a plum on
\nthe street a paper bag
\nof them in her hand<\/p>\n

They taste good to her
\nThey taste good
\nto her. They taste
\ngood to her<\/p>\n

You can see it by
\nthe way she gives herself
\nto the one half
\nsucked out in her hand<\/p>\n

Comforted
\na solace of ripe plums
\nseeming to fill the air
\nThey taste good to her<\/p>\n

by<\/em> William Carlos Williams<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

On November 2, 2010 I posted Spring and All<\/em><\/a>, which is also a poem by William Carlos Williams. I said at the time that Williams is one of my favourite poets, but even so I would not normally have posted another poem of his so soon. There is a particular reason for choosing this poem, however.<\/p>\n

In the immediate few days after the earthquake, when we had no power or other services, and were subsisting on food from a can that could be cooked over a spirit burner, a neighbour brought me fresh plums from her tree. They were great plums, but the delight of eating something fresh, with that borderline between sweet and tart that the best plums manage to achieve, reminded me strongly of this poem: they tasted good to me, in fact.<\/p>\n

Hence my choice of To a Poor Old Woman<\/em> for this week’s Tuesday Poem. (Although I’m not having having a bar of either the poor or the old, no matter the circumstances.)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog<\/strong>\u2014and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world\u2014either click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To a Poor Old Woman munching a plum on the street a paper bag of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good to her. They taste good to her You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand Comforted a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4122"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4131,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions\/4131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}