William Carlos Williams’s “The Young Housewife” was published in December 1916 in the third volume of Others magazine. “The Young Housewife,” in addition to several other of Williams’s poems including “Danse Russe,” is sandwiched between chunks of poetry by Maxwell Bodenheim and Alfred Kreymborg. Although Kreymborg’s original work is rarely studied now, he was a large contributor to the publishing aspect of the Modernist community, editing magazines such as The Glebe, Broom and this very edition of Others. The remaining poet featured in this volume of Others, Maxwell Bodenheim, is a far more obscure and interesting figure. Although initially influential to the Bohemian scene in Greenwich Village in the 20’s, by the end of his life, Bodenheim was reduced to panhandling in addition to prostituting his wife. Following several years of destitution, the two were eventually murdered in 1954.
Although Bodenheim’s life is undoubtedly intriguing, his poetry is decidedly less so. As seen in the provided poem, “Talks,” which appears in the same issue of Others as “The Young Housewife,” Bodenheim’s poetry lacks the complicated, cerebral anguish that so characterizes the work of Eliot and Pound. His work does not radically experiment with form and concepts, such as the Imagists or Symbolists, and the everyday, mundane simplicity he offers instead does not reach the calibre of meaning and elegance offered from poets such as Williams or Frost, who utilized the vernacular and the common with much greater skill. He sometimes comes close to images that are interesting and beautiful, such as characterizing buttons on a coat as “the wraiths of old, delicate loves,” but these moments are too direct in offering and meaning to be read with any extensive complexity. However, the final four lines do enough resemble something of a Prufrock-esque mourning over lost possibilities to perhaps justify its publication at the time. That being said, Bodenheim’s poems seem best suited to that time, and I would argue his absence from anthologies and common study is entirely justified.
TALKS
Like a scattering of golden mice
Came your words.
And my words were drifts of rice
Flung to them…
And the evening of whispering laughs,
The evening we made soft rose coats for each other
And put them on.
The one I gave had many buttons-
The wraiths of old, delicate loves.
And yours was threaded with little grey question-
patterns.
I cannot remember the mornings we had.
Perhaps we sat with closed eyes
And made a great beaten- silver cup
From which we never drank.
I do sense the Eliotic here–the lack of connection between men and women, the build up ideal (the silver cup) which is never fulfilled (from which we never drank). And the opening depiction of a conversation of rice and mice is certainly novel. And he borrows from the new free-verse vibe of the day. And yet, you’re right that something is missing, but whether that’s the glories cast by the canon on the better known poets or something failing in the verse itself I can’t tell. I’d love to learn more about this character though–please go back an insert links, both to Others and to a bio of Maxwell. Thanks!