An Unorthodox Structure in Williams Poems

We live in a world with no definite definition of what constitutes as good. As a

modernist poet, William Carlos Williams employs an unorthodox structure in his poems, most

noticeably seen in The Red Wheelbarrow and To a Poor Old Woman, to subtly insert

equality among poetic structures and show the delicacy of a poem composition that would be

otherwise seen as heretical in the preceding era.

One notable example of how Williams shows the charm of such an outlandish structure is

in his manifesto, The Red Wheelbarrow, which shows appreciation of mundanity; an

appreciation on what is simple and commonplace. Previously, poems were written to follow a set

form, such as iambic meters, end rhymes, and a set syllable count. However, this is not presented

in any of Williams poem. Indeed, the first stanza of this poem, which is so much depends /

upon (1-2), has already conveyed the short, choppy, and unconventional structure of this poem.

In fact, the whole poem consists of only fourteen words where all of them are not capitalized,

none of them are punctuated, some of them are even broken by line breaks, and none of them

rhymes with each other at all. This mundanity is annexed by the fact that Williams use a

instead of the in the poem, undeniably showing that this presented setting is incredibly normal

and uninteresting. However, the poem itself argues for the importance of this prosaic life, that

many things depend upon humdrum objects and that one should not neglect them. Upon close

inspection, one can now see that actually, the lack of structure does indeed convey much more

emotion than how a conventional poem ever could, as this lack of structure induces us to

contemplate on the value of the said structure that has always been there before, paralleling the

argument for the appreciation of mundanity of what has always been there before.
 This beautiful subversion of Williams poem is not limited in his manifesto, as in To a

Poor Old Woman, the insertion of the title as a part of the text and the use of line breaks to

accentuate different words in a repetition a relatively unprecedented move gives the reader a

more thorough understanding of the poem. Almost every poems from Williams break the

traditional poetic structure, but To a Poor Old Woman is one of the most monumental poems

from him, as it was a response to the previous era where people romanticize young maidens. In

the poem, Williams creates equality among subjects, elevating and celebrating overlooked

subjects such as a poor old woman by writing munching a plum on / the street a paper bag / of

them in her hand (1-3) on the first stanza. By noticing that every other stanza has four lines, that

the first word is not capitalized only in the first stanza, and that the words from the title links

with the first stanza without any grammatical errors, one can see that the author intended to have

the title also as the true first line of the first stanza. This gives importance on the subject of a

poor old woman as, arguably, its importance is so overreaching that the insertion of the subject is

unnecessary, just like how the sentence Because I love this. sounds complete as a sentence

even when it is a dependent clause. Unusual line breaks are also present in this poem, as in the

second stanza, Williams wrote, They taste good to her / They taste good / to her. They taste /

good to her (4-7). Just like how an abnormal title insertion works to convey the importance of

the poor old woman, this structure is used to descriptively explain the feelings of eating a plum.

Specifically, the structure empathizes the word at the end of each line so that its accumulation of

these words show the different aspects of the action of savoring this plum, that they are good for

her, that tasted good, that they are indeed being tasted. Those understandings we obtain from an

unorthodoxly structured poem would be strenuous to convey in a traditional poem, and thus once

again, Williams has shown us the benefits of this revolutionary poetic structure.
 To summarize back to the main point, an unorthodox structure in his poem has shown

insights that would be difficult to pass on through using a conventional poetic form, an

ultimately inserts equality between an unconventional structure and a normal poetic construction.

Merits of Williams unorganized poetic structure were shown in The Red Wheelbarrow, as its

lack of structure brings us to the appreciation of mundanity, and To a Poor Old Woman, as the

unprecedented insertion of the title into the text shows us the importance of the poor old woman,

and the equally unprecedented line breaks lets us appreciate the action of munching a plum more

thoroughly. With many benefits to such an unconventional poetic structure being shown, one

might ask the ultimate question of why formalism is being overused when an unorganized

structure could communicate to the readers in such an enlightening way a formal structure could

never dream to achieve.

Whats up for dinner today?

Hyphens, colons, clauses, dashes,

with quotes and cites, brackets and all,
with milliards of exceptions, none could recall.

Like nights and knights and queues and cues

Like sine and shine but wine and whine
Like flow and flowed but blow and blew
Like all, those things are none, just nein

None of all those should exist in a perfect language they are all traditions
and I guess we are blessed enough to have a legible way to express ourselves
yet my perfectionist view still kicks in and screams for a less confusing language
but then it dawns

That it doesnt matter

How good you are
At this language
Native or not
K?
See:

As long as you communicate clearly,

its ok.
Just like what I typed yesterday:
wats up fer diner tday?
Reflection:

After an observation on Williams attempt on breaking the tradition of creating a poem, I

became inspired to further crack the standards of the English language, not in its application to

literature, but as a whole.

The first instance of this act, the one that signals on whats to come, lies at the end of the

first stanza, where I broke the implicit 8-syllables per line and 4 lines per stanza rule. However,

the rhythm of the poem still stands, as the reader compresses the word milliards and

exceptions into one unit, making the total count of eight units in the line. Furthermore, the

summary tone of the last line works perfectly to indicate a stop for the stanza, and thus the flow

does not end abruptly even though it was the third line of the stanza. Siding with Williams

supposed argument, we understand that those poetic structures can still shine even when it is not

in-line with tradition, as an unnecessary extra line would further obfuscate the main point.

But whats the main point of this poem? Well, it is shown on the third stanza that the

passage of this poem revolves around the narrators frustration that English language will never

be perfect, with examples of milliards of exceptions of the English grammar shown in the

second stanza. Also, take note that the second stanza exhibits a rather traditional tone, with end

rhymes, 8 syllables per line, 4 line per stanza, and an easily recognizable iambic meter. This is

much different from the third stanza, with totally no structure at all whatsoever. In a way, this

could represent the narrators confusion of why formalism is being overused when an

unorganized structure could communicate to the readers in such an enlightening way a formal

structure could never dream to achieve. Indeed, the natural, conversational tone portrayed in the

third stanza could never be done with a structured poem.

 The narrator proceeds to solve the frustration at stanza four, implicitly abandoning

perfection and then stating that it doesnt matter how good people are at the language, as long as

they communicate clearly. See, a closer look on the language shows you that language evolves

over time, like how K? is now widely accepted as an informal question equivalent to Ok?.

Therefore, it would be inefficient to learn every intricacies of English, as even a native speaker

stumbles from time to time.

Lastly, the narrator provides an anecdote, that he just typed wats up fer diner tday?

yesterday, and that seems to be communicating clearly. The narrator ultimately argues: If

writing like this saves time and communicates clearly to the recipient, then why is it looked

down on? To end this reflection, I would like to ask for appreciation, or at least acceptance, of

grammatically wrong sentences, especially in the context of an informal conversation.