Ignatow, David (Vol. 14) - William Carlos Williams
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
[The poems in "Poems"], the best of them, ought to be printed on pulp and offered at Woolworth's, a dime a copy. They'd sell, too. For these are poems for the millions, in the cities and out of them, those who would read, and read poems too, poems such as these, if only they could get to them: manna in the wilderness….
[The] work can be respected by those who know what good writing means and yet it touches and illuminates the humblest lives about us—without that offensive patronage which uses humanity for the effects of art. When I first picked up the book I paged through it lightly in the usual way, but soon came to a poem that attracted me, "To a Friend Who Has Moved to the East Side." It starts:
What did you expect you were getting?
That's enough, in a short review, to give the effect of my meaning. There's the language and there's the straight look that goes with it. From that point on I...
[The entire page is 395 words long]
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