TS: William Carlos Williams vs. Wallace Stevens

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

(Considered as poets.)

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 16 March 2003 00:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I pick Stevens, who I find VERY difficult to read, but he's a lot more intriguing than WCW.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 16 March 2003 00:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry, very nearly thought this was about me...

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Sunday, 16 March 2003 00:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah, it's a close one, but I go with the insurance man from Hartford--a great poet.

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Sunday, 16 March 2003 01:13 (twenty-three years ago)

dead tie, each one exploring a very different poetic world.

a better taking sides: e. e. cummings vs. wallace stevens.

― jack cole (jackcole), Sunday, 16 March 2003 01:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Williams. Stevens, I dunno, I never got much out of him beyond a love of SAT words. Stevens never said anything in 10 words that he could say in 50. But "Spring and all" alone gives WCW a clear advantage.

― Chris P (Chris P), Sunday, 16 March 2003 02:36 (twenty-three years ago)

wwilliams could work by implication, stevens got a little clumsy sometimes, cf 'man with the blue guitar' which is sublime at times...
That generations dream, aviled
In the mud, in Monday’s dirty light,

That’s it, the only dream they knew,
Time in its final block, not time

To come, a wrangling of two dreams.
Here is the bread of time to come,

Here is its actual stone. The bread
Will be our bread, the stone will be

Our bed and we shall sleep by night,
We shall forget by day, except

The moments when we choose to play
The imagined pine, the imagined jay.

but too often treads the same path in failing to make the case for differences. but, still, things as they are are changed upon a blue guitar.

― matthew james (matthew james), Sunday, 16 March 2003 03:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm agonna wuss out & proclaim my enjoyment of both. Right now, my enjoyment of WCW is waning a bit since I'm strugglin' w/ writing a mid-term paper on "Spring and All", but I enjoy William's abstract / non-abstract concision & Stevens' leisurely ruminations equally.

― David R. (popshots75`), Sunday, 16 March 2003 05:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Stevens - one of the few poets who, after a certain age, everything he wrote was k-grebt (though some earlier stuff is v,patchy), & like Curnow he lived to a fairly venerable age while relentlessly pursued the fact of his own death . . . his last handful of poems ("First Warmth" & the rewrite, etc) are devastating.

WCW can just . . . eat a dick. (haha tho I am moving from being filled w/bile towards him & my curiosity being stoked, though I still think he has had one of the most deleterious effects on poetry evah).

― EssKay (Elisabeth), Sunday, 16 March 2003 05:38 (twenty-three years ago)

W.C.W.

― isadora (isadora), Sunday, 16 March 2003 07:31 (twenty-three years ago)

wcw is father to me, but its cold here and the sound of key west is favourable.

stevens.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 16 March 2003 07:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I have to say Stevens. His high-falutin' vocabulary is used with a sense of humor, often enough. Actually I almost never enjoy Williams anymore, but Stevens is one of the few modern poets I still can imagine myself wanting to read. I recognize the musicality in much of his poetry; but with Williams, I don't hear whatever it was that he was doing, or thought he was doing, with all his talk of measure.

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 16 March 2003 09:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Having read this thread with my usual care and attention, I have to go with WCW for its cage matches.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 16 March 2003 11:11 (twenty-three years ago)

i can't believe i said "sublime."

― matthew james (matthew james), Sunday, 16 March 2003 18:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I have to go with Wallace all the way. I won't try to justify this choice, other than to say his poetry 'works' better for me, because Stevens's idea of a poem is closer to my own.

― Aimless, Sunday, 16 March 2003 18:27 (twenty-three years ago)

WCW has the better name but as far as poetry goes Stevens wins - plums down.

― Ll, Sunday, 16 March 2003 21:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Stevens wins by virtue of not having been responsible for "Paterson", a serious candidate for the most tedious work by a major poet.

― ArfArf, Sunday, 16 March 2003 22:10 (twenty-three years ago)

seven years pass...

a little obv but I lol'd

http://venomousporridge.com/post/107923683/this-is-just-to-say-yo

I have put
some plums
in your
icebox
so you can
have plums
while you eat plums
for breakfast
Forgive me
but I heard
you like plums
dawg

― Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile (dayo), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 02:29 (fifteen years ago)

lol

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 02:33 (fifteen years ago)

i side with Stevens

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 02:34 (fifteen years ago)

Same here. To be fair though I've tried and failed to finish Paterson as often as I've fallen asleep through "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven."

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 02:39 (fifteen years ago)

I don't side with Stevens as he is not my homeboy but I'd be down for reading more of his stuff

― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 5 October 2010 02:40 (fifteen years ago)

i don't think stevens had homeboys; don't take it personally

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 03:29 (fifteen years ago)

nine months pass...

woke up this morning and was looking out the window thinking of 'summer song'

williams wouldve been a really good msg board poster idk what that says about the quality of his poetry tho

― I AM JOHN MAUS (Lamp), Thursday, 4 August 2011 14:06 (fourteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.