Daranporn Tuntiwarasakul

Matthew Bishop

1202

3 October 2017

The Greatness of Nature in William Carlos Williams Poem

In The Desolate Field, Williams use setting to support that the effect of disruption by

nature is severe. This poem was written in 1921 when the World War I ended for two years.

World War I leaves depression on most people around the world. Some people losing their

family, and some people losing their friends in the war. This poem describes a sky and the field

using hopeless adjective. The sky is gray and the field has only died grasses. There is one goat,

on the field, try to searching for food. In the text it says, Vast and gray, the sky and In the tall,

dried grasses / a goat stirs / with nozzle searching the ground. The setting of this poem is in the

field filled with dry grasses. We can know that serious disaster just happened and makes all the

grasses died. The drought over the field has a huge impact to the goat. The goat need to eat but

all it can find is the dried grasses. The goat will die if the grasses not thrive again. The disaster

does not affect only the field but also the goat. One disaster can influence many people and many

objects. The vast field full with dried grass and extensive sky show the effect of natural disaster

is very terrible and influence both the goat and the grasses.

In Complete Destruction, Williams uses structure of poem to reinforce the demolition

caused by nature. In this poem, Williams discusses about the fleas that living on a dead cat. The

cat was buried in the ground and the box of the cat was set on fire. The fleas that can survive

from being buried and burned are finally frozen and died. This poem is written in two equal

stanzas. Each stanza has four equal lines and each line contains about four words. Because each
line contains only four words, it is considered as a short line. Williams noted in the back yard. /

Those fleas that escaped / earth and fire / died by the cold (5-8). From the quote, Williams

divided one sentence which is Those fleas that escape earth and fire died by the cold. into three

lines. The divisions of sentence into many lines stress the disruption power. The short stanzas

represent the fragment that left over from destruction. The destroying of fleas by the earth, the

fire and the cold represent in this fragment of lines. The fragment of sentence mimics the result

of destruction that every object just broke and divided into many part. Williams not only use

short line to emphasize the power of destroying of nature, but also use two equal stanzas to

support this idea. Two equal stanzas show that the poem is breaking into two pieces because it is

destroyed by the nature. The power of this destruction is very strong so the poem breaks into two

stanzas. Two equal stanzas and short line structure of poem stress the damaging ability of nature

as mentioned in the poem.

In Willow Poem, Williams use the action of the leaves to emphasize that nothing can

escape from the destruction power of nature. In this poem, Williams mentions about willow tree

standing near the river. The time of this poem is in autumn. The color of the leaves is changing

from green to be red and orange. The willows leaves are falling into the river and onto the

ground. To captures this action, Williams writes The leaves cling and grow paler (6), as if

loath to let go (9) and the last to let go and fall / into the water and on the ground (13). Action

that happens in these quotes is willows leaves holding the tree and eventually falling down. The

word loath stresses that the leaves reject to fall down from the willow tree. The action of

leaves falling down without willingness reinforce the idea that everything included trees get

destroyed by nature. This poem comparing season and time as nature and willow tree as every

object in the world. The willow leaves cannot stick to the tree forever. Lastly, the leaves will fall
down even though they do not want to fall. When the season changes, the willow leaves also

change. This change, for willow tree, is certain and inescapable same as the season that come

every year in a certain month. Unwilling of willow leaves to fall down support that change

created by nature is absolute and cannot escape.

That Day

The tables arrange separately from each other.

Some students shouting, some student
talking, some student reading and review the lessons
and some students sleeping.
I am thinking with myself.
What should I do?
Should I read, Should I talk, Should I laugh
What should I do?

The bell rings.

The door opens.
Every student comes out
some talking and planning about party, some students
asking and arguing the answer.
Why they need to do this?
I never understand why they always ask the question,
the question that I dont want to answer.
However, I always answer with smile on my face. My empty space fulfilled all my heart.
I want to disappear and go to the place that no one can find me.

After all, it just ended.

That day is coming.
See You Again
Reflection:

This poem is talking about an exam day. I choose to write about this day because now it is at the
end of the quarter and exam is coming. Every student has this experience where they need to take
exams. I want to express my feeling on exam day through this poem so my friends would know
how I feel about their actions. First stanza describes the picture of my friends and me before
taking the exam. Some of my friend looks happy and ready for the test while other looks sleepy
and unprepared. Being among this people, I feel unsure what I should feel and what should I act.

Second stanza describes the picture I see after taking the test and my feeling toward it. I explain
the action of students feels happy because the test is over and start to plan for vacation. There
will be some of my friends that ask for the answer of the question in the test and check it with
me. I understand that this is for checking whether their answer is correct or not, but to me
sometimes I feel wonder. I wonder why they need to ask all of these questions. Why they just do
their best or prepare themselves before the test so they can make sure that they were right.
Sometime, I feel unhappy to answer this question. I just want the test to end in the room. No one
should bring the test out of the room. There should be only celebration after the test. This
question makes me get headache and want to be invisible.

Last stanza shows the situation when the time pass by and I accept it. On last line, I says See
You Again because in the future, I will take many exams and this cycle of feeling will just
happen again. I never show this feeling to anyone before because I think that this feeling is a bad
and I should not feel this way. I should be happy if my friends ask me about the answer and
check the answer with me. Instead of feel happy, I feel awkward and pressured. This idea
prevents me from telling my true feeling to my friends or my family. Now, in this project, I think
it is the time to express myself and my true feeling so I wrote the poem about exam day. This
poem really helps me to learn and understand how to use literature especially poem to
communicate with people and to truly express my feeling.

In the poem That Day, I use a line break to emphasize the action of student. I use enjambment
between line 2-3 to emphasize the talking action of students and in line 12-13 to emphasize the
action of arguing and answering question. This technique is similar to what Williams use in To
a Poor Old Women, when he repeats the phrase They taste good to her. He use this technique
to stress different word from the phrase same as what I did in this poem. I want to stress the word
talking and asking so I break the line and make these words be the first word of the line.

I also use repetition of the question What should I do? to stress my confusion that happened at
that time. This technique is also use in Spring Storm. The word fall is repeated many times
in spring storm to mimic the sound of rain and to emphasize the word.

One technique that is notable in Williamss poem is use of simple words. Williams use of simple
words make his poem easy to understand and can communicate his feeling truly. Therefore, I
should this technique because I want every people to understand my feeling that I expresses in
this poem easily.

First few line of this poem talking about the setting which is similar to what Williams did in his
poem. Then the poem mentions about action of object which lead to the bigger picture of the
poem. The sequence of the content in the poem start with setting and then the action of the object
will make the reader create precise image inside their heads and understand the poem more. This
technique is use in many Williams poem such as Complaint, The Desolate Field, Willow
Poem and Nantucket. First few lines of these poems explain the setting such as weather and
surrounding building. Then the poem will explain the actions that happen in the poem. I thinks
that this technique make me understand more about Williams poem.