Starting to Read Poetry
"This Is Just to Say", by William Carlos Williams
How does poetry work, and what allows us to distinguish a poem from a piece we would classify as prose?
In this article, we'll explore two basic elements of poetry by analyzing a deceptively simple poem: "This Is Just to Say," by William Carlos Williams.
Williams' poem is brief and to the point:
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
This could be a note left on the fridge by a guilt-ridden child. So why do we call it poetry? To answer this, we can look at two basic characteristics of poetry: form and language.
Form
The first clue we have that this is a poem is its form. Instead of the prose structure of sentences within paragraphs, poems contain phrases (or sentences) within stanzas (although there are exceptions, for example prose poems).
In Williams' poem we have three stanzas. The structure in this poem actually seems fairly loose: the title flows into the first sentence, which itself takes up the first two stanzas, while the second sentence is contained within the third stanza. However, it's important to keep in mind that poetic stanzas aren't randomly constructed. A closer look at the structure of this piece reveals a clear order: the purpose of the note (the title), followed by a statement of what has happened (stanza 1), more information about the event that explains why the narrator might feel guilty enough to leave the note (stanza 2), and finally an apology and the narrator's justification for having eaten the plums (stanza 3). We can see, then, that poetry is just as carefully organized as prose (if not more), and that a focused reading will look into the reasons behind the form.
We now have an initial idea as to why this is a poem. But there must be something more to poetry, otherwise we could take any text, change its shape by putting it into stanzas, and call it a poem.
Language
Of all the forms of literary expression, poetry is probably the one most concerned with language; not only in terms of meaning, but also in how the language sounds. Poetry began (and continues to be, for some communities) as a purely oral form, and part of its appeal is reading it aloud. When we read a poem, we can be sure that the author had a specific reason for choosing one word over another: it might be a nuance in meaning, or simply the fact that it sounds and works better with the poem's rhythm. This doesn't mean that novelists and essayists don't pay attention to language; they do, of course, but normally not to the microscopic degree that poets will. In poetry, every word counts.
Williams' language, for all its simplicity (most of the words contain just one syllable, and won't have the reader running for the dictionary), creates strong images and intriguing scenarios. For example, let's look at the word "probably" in the second stanza. Why does Williams say "probably saving," instead of "possibly saving," or just "saving"? "Probably" indicates that the speaker knows that the plums were already spoken for, but went ahead and ate them anyway. However, it softens the action; if Williams had not used it, and simply said "which you were saving," the phrase would have taken on a colder tone, and the poem would seem more like a taunt then an admission of guilt. However, using "possibly" or "maybe" would have made it too soft, and the speaker would have sounded merely ignorant.
Another question related to language: If the third stanza is meant to convey the actual apology, why does the narrator describe the plums in such a mouth-watering fashion? Once again, thanks to the use of "probably" that we examined earlier, we can read this as a malice-free poem: the speaker is truly sorry, even though the action's consequence (leaving the note's recipient without breakfast) was not unknown. So why describe the "cold" and "sweet" taste of the plums? Well, it could be the speaker's way of justifying the theft: who could resist such tempting fruit? Of course, we know that the plums are described after having been eaten ("were," "delicious," and "sweet" are the clues here). Had the narrator taken one small bite, intending to leave the rest alone, and then found it impossible to stop? As we can see, Williams' careful use of language leaves many options open.
And that's an important thing to remember about poetry: in the end, the interpretation belongs to the reader. We approach a poem with the knowledge that we'll have to focus on some basic characteristics (form and language, for a start), and while these seem constraining at first, a careful search for the poem's keys allows us to open a few intriguing doors.
