Tuesday, June 12, 2007

This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
--William Carlos Williams


This poem is another new one for me. Mom suggested it when I told her it was time for a short poem. I'm not generally a fan of free verse, but as long as it's not overused, it can be forgiven. I think that to qualify as a poem (in my book at least), and not just fancily formatted prose, it has to act like a poem. this one certainly provides us a glimpse of a moment in time, and of a person who's feeling a little guilty--but not really.

6 comments:

  1. I've always imagined this hurriedly scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck with a magnet to the refrigerator. The man who wrote it has gone to sleep and his wife is coming home late.
    -Heather

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  2. I remember this from elementary school. There was another one in the same chapter about a red wagon.
    -Mike

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  3. When I read your email, I thought, " no : chickens and a wheelbarrow. " So I googled it. I have often wondered what depended upon the red wheelbarrow . . . ?
    Mom


    The Red Wheelbarrow

    so much depends
    upon

    a red wheel
    barrow

    glazed with rain
    water

    beside the white
    chickens.
    -- William Carlos Williams

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  4. Ah, yes, that was it.
    -Mike

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  5. That's funny. I always pictured that it was a woman, writing the same kind of note to her husband.
    -Doug

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  6. It amazes me which poems get people talking

    ReplyDelete