To All Gentleness (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Carlos Williams
- First Published: 1944
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Nature, Art or artists, World War II, Poetry or poets, Life, biological
The Poem
Gentleness, even all gentleness, may sound restrictive, but the poem “To All Gentleness” asserts that apparent opposites are akin. The first simile, likening “pink roses bending ragged in the rain” to a plumber’s silvered cylindrical tank, posits a relationship between apparent incomparables. The speaker encounters both on a trip through the rain, the cylinder advertising a plumber’s shop. Both, the speaker finds, invoke “enduring” gentleness. Surrounded by rain, the roses support a cylinder of raindrops above them, linking them surprisingly but with...
[The entire page is 1427 words long]
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