An episode from 12/15/22: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems from the American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). In the same generation as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Williams is perhaps best known for never becoming an expatriate, and instead living most of his life as a family doctor in Rutherford, New Jersey.

His poems can be found in ⁠The Collected Poems Volume I: 1909-1939⁠, ⁠The Collected Poems Volume II: 1939-1962⁠, and ⁠Paterson⁠. The biographies I read from are Paul Mariani’s ⁠William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked⁠, and the essay on Williams’ life at ⁠The Poetry Foundation⁠.

The poems I read are:

• Pastoral (1917)
• Danse Russe (1917)
• Waiting (1921)
• The Great Figure (1921)
• The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)
• Flowers by the Sea (first version) (1931)
• War, the Destroyer! (1942)
• Approach to a City (1946)
• To a Dog Injured in the Street (1954)
• Deep Religious Faith (1954)
• from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower (1955)

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