William Carlos Williams
Doctor by day, poet by nightBorn in Rutherford, New Jersey, William Carlos Williams is the poet of American everyday life. He is famous for focusing his imagination on ordinary people and commonplace objects such as a wheelbarrow or a broken glass bottle in a back alley. Trying to overcome the formulaic poetry of his predecessors, Williams crossed paths with many of the most notable poets and artists of his time. He challenged the view that good poetry needed to be difficult and scholarly. Instead, he dedicated himself to a poetry that continuously strives for clarity and is rooted in his immediate locality. Unlike many of his artistic peers, Williams did not leave the United States to join the European avant-garde but he chose to pursue his artistic career beside working as a physician. This makes it all the more remarkable that Williams has become one of the most influential American poets of the twentieth century. In this course, we will read and discuss some of his poems. Level C1
