William Williams
William Williams
deep odor passing rank
With what deep thirstwe quicken our desiresto that rank odor of a passing springtime!
facts human intense value vision
The only human value of anything, writing included, is intense vision of the facts.
completed imagination life valuable
Life is valuable -- when completed by the imagination. And then only.
lies lies-and-lying manner matters secret
It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.
bewildered
O Marvelous! what new configuration will come next? I am bewildered with multiplicity.
lined
If they give you lined paper, write the other way.
late spring
Here it is spring againand I still a young man!I am late at my singing.
begins history
History, history! We fools, what do we know or care? History begins for us with murder and enslavement, not with discovery.
assertion broken environment failing lifting means poem social thus total toward
The poem, to me (until I go broke) is an attempt, an experiment, a failing experiment, toward assertion with broken means but an assertion, always, of a new and total culture, the lifting of an environment to expression. Thus it is social, the poem is a social instrument.
race
We are a half-mad race, and what we say is not to be trusted.