Paterson
by William Carlos Williamspublished
April 1995
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
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binding
Paperback, 328 pages
isbn
081121298X
(isbn13: 9780811212984)
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recommended to Lanny by:
Ron Silliman
recommends it for: WCW fans, New Jersey fans, Poetry lovers, etc.
recommends it for: WCW fans, New Jersey fans, Poetry lovers, etc.
I haven't finished this yet, and I suspect I will be returning to it for all kinds of things. The small section on the Tri-racial isolates dove-tails with Sakolsky and Koehnline's Gone to Croatan which I hadn't expected. I am really enjoying spending the day with Paterson. Since I can't foresee when I will review this work in full or if such a thing would be meaningful in this format, I'll just post this short essay on a small element in the poem which I thought merited further attention, at lea...more
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Read in November, 2002
William Carlos Williams, Paterson (New Directions, 1963)
To hear the staff at New Directions tell it, Paterson is the be-all and end-all of the American long poem; there is no work being done today that is not influenced in some way by Williams' milestone of American verse. And there may be some truth in that statement, but it neglects to address the question of whether Paterson is, in fact, a good poem; after all, the album title tells us ten million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Well, guess what...more
To hear the staff at New Directions tell it, Paterson is the be-all and end-all of the American long poem; there is no work being done today that is not influenced in some way by Williams' milestone of American verse. And there may be some truth in that statement, but it neglects to address the question of whether Paterson is, in fact, a good poem; after all, the album title tells us ten million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Well, guess what...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
People from Jersey. People who have never been to Jersey
"Paterson" marked my foray into the canon of mid twentieth century long poems/epic poems (Walt Whitman--Song of Myself; Robert Duncan--Opening of the Field; Ezra Pound--Pisan Cantos; Charles Olson--Maximus Poems) and despite knowing little of WCW's work save for "so much depends upon a red wheel barrow..." and his dedication to creating strong images he deemed "American", it served as an intriguing and accessible introduction.
Written in 5 books between 1946 ...more
Written in 5 books between 1946 ...more
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Read in January, 2008
I bought this book by accident for a course my senior year of college, when it turned out the course's sections all had different reading lists and this one wasn't on my syllabus. It's been kicking around on my to-read pile ever since, and I didn't know anything about it, until I finally tossed it into my bag for a trip last week.
I opened it up and saw "Whoa, Poetry!". And poetry it was; sort of felt like Whitman, but more gritty and less enthused. It's centered on Paterson, N...more
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recommended to Brooklyn by:
A thousand and one academic-friends.
UPDATE: I have spent the past week falling in love with Paterson. It might be my sappy Americana-mood, but I was SO open to reading book, and I'm glad I brought it along when so many others were left behind... basically, if this is how you're going to "do" poetry, then this is how you need to "do" poetry. I can't help reading more WCW in Paterson than the "character" Paterson- the bits of letters are fascinating, the bits of history are heartbreaking, and the verse,...more
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11 comments
My favorite prose work of William Carlos Williams. Williams seeks to establish his voice in prose, but more firmly and aggressively, to establish and advocate the American voice in the midst of Ezra Pound et al, chanting their disillusionment of America abroad. The book is, in many ways, academic. It's not necessarily a leisure read. But it does establish Williams as a pervasive American voice. It challenges the conventional ways in which historians write history. In it Williams declares, "...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
patient long-poem aficianados
Williams' epic reads like a work in progress, but that's part of its strange, expansive pleasure. "Anything is good material for poetry," he writes (quoting himself) in Book 5, and in Paterson he lets as much of the world into the poem as he can. He ignores conventions and expectations, leaves gaps, jumps from one poetic project to another, not too apparently concerned with whether his reader is following his lead. I'm not convinced that it all belongs in the same poem, but appr...more
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Ugh. I am obviously way too stupid to appreciate this. Ok, I'm only on page 12, but so far I see nothing to like and have no desire to go on reading. Not only do I have no idea what's going on, I can barely muster the desire to care what's going on. Tedious and boring.
Sorry if this review isn't sophisticated enough for you academic types (all I have is a bachelor's degree, sorry), but I'll keep at it and maybe update this review as I go along. Maybe I'll find something I like. It can o...more
Sorry if this review isn't sophisticated enough for you academic types (all I have is a bachelor's degree, sorry), but I'll keep at it and maybe update this review as I go along. Maybe I'll find something I like. It can o...more
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1 comments
We like this, it's special. A good way of seeing the object as it stands. Things as they are they are those things that are now appearing now.....
It might be devolving into a relatively basic allegory of reading/representation, but still strong formally, and with every once in a while a passage shockingly beautiful...
The prose provides a good foil for the verse, forming background
After you learn how he argues it's quite smooth, before that can be tangled
It might be devolving into a relatively basic allegory of reading/representation, but still strong formally, and with every once in a while a passage shockingly beautiful...
The prose provides a good foil for the verse, forming background
After you learn how he argues it's quite smooth, before that can be tangled
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
Tim, who has altready read it.
This books is right between three and four stars. I can imagine diving back into it, and really trying to embrace it especially during/after a reading of Pound's "Cantos" and nudging it up that extra star.
At the moment, however I just don't have a unified enough sense of the intention of the poem, especially as compared to its execution, to merit that extra bit of praise. It's five very interesting long poems, which might tie together, and might not.
At the moment, however I just don't have a unified enough sense of the intention of the poem, especially as compared to its execution, to merit that extra bit of praise. It's five very interesting long poems, which might tie together, and might not.
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Two kinds of American books: house books (Walden), and river books (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers). One teaches you how to build a house, the other teaches you how to destroy the house you built. Patterson has got to be one of the great river books.
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Read in May, 2008
I'm a big fan of WCW because i love the way his poems capture a moment - almost like an American form of haiku. So i was intrigued to see what a longer form poem would be like. And i have to say, it's way way way over my head. Some beautiful and memorably images, but the structure, the themes, i'm lost. oh well.
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This was my first lesson into prose poetry. I couldn't sit down and read it through, but I read in small segments over a period of time until I was familiar with his rhythm. I wish he had edited more, but who am I to suggest anything to WCW.
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recommends it for:
you
immense. williams uses paterson to tie together personal identity, national identity and personification of land. this is some kind of mind-fuck and it's not a quick read by any means, but absolutely beautiful and worth the journey.
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It took me years to finally read this. As Jarrell says, it's best at the beginning, though the second half of it is not the waste Jarrell makes it out to be. It's Williams playing, for a long time, wiht his favorite toy.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 1994
recommends it for:
the resolute
Among the 20th century's top long poems, best read after Pound's Cantos and before Olson's Maximus Poems. Wash down with Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" and "The System."
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Read in February, 2008
What many consider a hybrid text. I enjoyed his play with language, although Joyce is more well known. I also like the idea of how the text was never finished for WCW. It gives us writers hope.
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I have a ton of respect for WCW, but the fact that he was not well is apparent in this book and in the writing. He has a dozen masterful pieces of writing, this is not one of them.
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recommends it for:
dopers
Reminds me of naked lunch almost, but a lot less dark. Visual & Hallucinogenic & Imaginative.
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The number of babies delivered during composition must be astounding.
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