William Williams’s poem “Spring and All” entails his own image of what Spring really is. For most people, Spring time is a time that new life is born and the weather is warmer. To Williams, Spring is not an instant reveal of these changes to it’s beautiful state, but a slow and gradual one.
In the first stanza, Williams describes his life as it normally is as a doctor who writes at the place of his occupation, the hospital. In the words of Williams, “By the road to the contagious hospital/ under the surge of the blue/ mottled clouds driven from the/ northeast…” (1-4). Here, Williams is illustrating the surroundings of his job and how the environment looks. In this case, it is cold and the fields are muddy with brown, dried leaves. He continues the poem by observing the occurrence of Spring as something that replaces the dead leaves and grass as a “newborn” that’s fragile into this cold environment mentioned earlier. Williams writes, “…twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees/ with dead, brown leaves…/ sluggish/ dazed spring approaches–/ They enter the new world naked,/ cold, uncertain of all/ save that they enter” (10-18). His diction embodies the idea of Spring actually being a gradual change and nature being born again under a cold and grim circumstance of the Winter season. When he mentions nature as “enter[ing] the new world naked/cold, uncertain…” (16), this means that newborn life is frail and takes time to adapt to the environment.
The ending of “Spring and All” reveals that the newborn life of Spring will grow one by one at its own pace. Williams describes how this process occurs: “One by one objects are defined–/ It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf/…rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken” (22-27). Williams’s point is the new life occurring in Spring will take on the shapes of plants that are widely known. An example is a bud of a flower eventually blooming with many petals. Furthermore, that will be the time nature fully awakens which would officially begin the beauty aspect of Spring.
William Williams takes Spring and correlates it to how it really develops at a slow rate. His connection to nature is deep since he gives a thorough and beautiful explanation of this event. Overall, he takes this season and allows readers to think of it in a new light and to appreciate what nature goes through to achieve the beauty that we admire.
Williams, William. “Spring and All.” The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. By Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. 291-292. Print.
I agree with your reading of the poem, Spring and All, as a reflection of birth and the beginning of spring. The poem reads as if spring is happening in the present instead of occurring in a past instance. I also find it interesting to look at this poem in context with the book, “Spring and All”. Williams gives the poem and the book the same name, so there has to be some relation. I see the book as a larger version of the poem. The poem illustrates spring as the birth of a newborn and his adjusting to the world. The book, however, illustrates spring as the death of traditional writing and birth of the new style writing that he implements in the text. This writing favors the present and the imagination in which thoughts are introduces in an unorganized manner. The writing style reminds me of the stream of consciousness except there is no clear connection between them thoughts. At the same time the thoughts are all related on the topic of destroying the traditional and welcoming the new. The poem and the book represent these two different styles of writing, where the poem, Spring and All, is a traditional poem that presents images, while the book illustrates Williams’ imagination in the moment. The first part of the poem is the preparation of spring or the new beginning, and then slowly unfolds to the arrival of spring. In comparison, the book begins with annihilating the traditional form of writing—referred to as civilization—then, suddenly everything is new, the imaginative writing. Williams repeats this destruction and new beginning constantly between his poems and prose which each represent the traditional and the new, while his switch between them represents destruction and beginning of each writing style. It is interesting to look at the different angles of Williams’ writing in comparing them to one another, he leaves lots of room for interpretation.
I like your emphasis on the essential slowness of Williams’s spring vision, T’Rese, and how the poem feels rooted in a particular, rooted vision. L’Kai notes how this sense of gradual unfolding makes the poem feel as though it’s happening in the moment rather than being reflective / retrospective.
L’Kai, I like how you view SAL as a book through the lens of SAL the poem–how they both clear up a space to make room for spring, how they are both about renewal on smaller and larger scales.
Great conversation here!