Instructor Leslie

English 242

23 April 2003

For Love of Poetry and Need of Money

William Carlos Williams, a great poet of the twentieth century, didn’t make his living from his art. He probably lost more money to publishing his works than he ever got back in sales (at least in his earlier days as a poet). Since he couldn’t make money through writing, he decided to fund his passion for words and life with the medical profession. His time was consumed primarily by his job and his art. Two of his poems address his feelings toward being a physician and poet respectively. Although he was a decent doctor, his heart was never much into his job. Practicing medicine wasn’t much more to him than a way to make money. Poetry, on the other hand, was the joy of his heart. He thought that poetry was as enticing and mysterious as love itself. The poem “Le Medecin Malgre Lui” gives a good glimpse of how his job may have suffered a little due to his energies dedicated to poetry and words. That poem also seems to have a hidden meaning that he would have been happier with a profession that was closer to his heart (poetry). A second poem, “The Poet and His Poems,” describes his passion to put the music in his heart onto paper even though it was everything but profitable in a monetary sense. The hidden meaning in that poem seems to be his disappointment in not being able to make a living through his art.

Poem 1: “Le Medecin Malgre Lui”

The poem “Le Medecin Malgre Lui” gives a good picture of Williams as a physician that would probably prefer to have a job he was more passionate about. His lack of satisfaction with his current occupation isn’t stated directly, but the attitude of the words and his life itself imply that he wasn’t completely happy with his work. The words give a glimpse into his thoughts on the mundane daily tasks of a physician’s office. In the second half, he wonders if he could be happier in his job if he only put more (or all) of his efforts into it. Underneath it all, his passion for writing seems to be an invisible source for his lack of motivation to put more efforts into his medical practice. The last few lines give the reader a clue that he may not be very happy with his current job through the image of “my Lady Happiness” (129).

This poem begins with a list of to-do’s that would make Williams a better doctor. The attitude of these words can be gleaned from the first line: “Oh I suppose I should” (“Le Medecin” 129). The word suppose suggests that he’s not really sure if he should do his list or not. It acknowledges that the to-do list would probably make him a better doctor, but maybe he didn’t want to be a better doctor. Many of the tasks on the list suggest that he may have been a little negligent in his business: dirty walls, rusty instruments out of order, used empty bottles, etc. If Williams’ medical office had been neglected in some small ways, the cause was probably his writing that he loved. Another unmentioned fact in the poem is that during his forty years being a physician, he never once hired a nurse or secretary to help with the duties of his office (W. E. Williams 134). This probably contributed to his frustration with all the mundane tasks of keeping his office in order. Being a doctor took a lot of his time, but he always found more time for his beloved words.

His son, William Eric Williams, said that his father would often be typing when he went to bed at night and he would often wake up to the sounds of his father’s typewriter in the morning. Eric was amazed at the amount of energy that his father had for writing after long days practicing medicine (137). In a letter W. C. Williams wrote to his mother in 1916, he said, “I really gave up medicine for poetry” (qtd. in W. E. W. 137-8). At the time he wrote this letter, he was about 33 years old, and definitely had not stopped writing poetry. By saying he ‘gave up medicine,’ Williams was describing his heart attitude towards his job and his huge dedication to his passion for words.

The energy Williams had for his writing seemed to be endless. Where did it all come from? With a full time job during the day, most doctors are likely to go kick back and relax after the day’s work is over. As a successful writer and physician, Williams’ friends and admirers probably scratched their heads in wonder at how he did it all. The answer to his amazing drive and source of energy was probably not even fully understood by him, but a statement he made in his autobiography may help to unravel the mystery a little further. “Men have given the direction to my life and women have always supplied the energy” (55). His wife Flossie was a good friend and companion to him after he met her. Her companionship was probably a large source of inspiration in his writing and she definitely appears as a subject in a good number of his poems. Williams didn’t draw energy from one woman only though. He thrived on the collective beauty and inspiration of almost every woman he ever saw. He wrote that “as far as my wish is concerned, I could not be satisfied by five hundred women” (“Autobiography” 55). Women were a huge source of energy for Williams and one of his favorite topics in writing. In addition to women, Williams was intensely inspired by nature. Describing his boyhood enthrallment with the flora and fauna, he wrote in his journal, “My curiosity in these things was unbounded—secret, certainly” (19). The full source of his endless energy will never be known, but nature and women are definitely high on the list.

What was it about Williams’ personality that made him so dedicated to poetry? He had an eye for beauty, and a keen appreciation for everyday life in America that brought it to life on paper. Growing up in a multilingual and multinational home helped Williams to better appreciate all the diverse people living in the US. His father was a British citizen who grew up in the Caribbean and spoke fluent Spanish. His mother grew up in the Dominican Republic and studied art in France. Three languages were present in their household: English, Spanish, and French. Living and learning overseas during his high school years gave him the ability to look at America as seen through the eyes of a foreigner unfamiliar with its beauty and customs. Going to school in New York City gave him a good taste of life in the big city. Overall, Williams had an extremely well rounded balance of education and life experience growing up. His mother was a painter, and her work probably inspired his strong interest in art and beauty. Wallace Stephens wrote that an important part of Williams’ style and affinity for poetry was his “sentimental side” (62). That is a good way of describing his powerful feelings about beauty and the joys of humanity that streamed from his heart to the paper. Ezra Pound described Williams as “the observant foreigner, perceiving American vegetation and landscape […] as something put there for him to look at” (29). It is almost as if the whole of America, the people, the nature, everything was a still life that he observed in concise and picturesque words. Williams was so full of poems waiting to be written that it wouldn’t be strange to wonder if he was born to be a writer!

The second half of this poem seems to be a ‘what if.’ Williams seems to be wondering if he would be happy and satisfied with his medical career if he put more of his energy and personal time into it. The title gives a hint that he was a physician who wished he could be a full time poet. A literal translation of the title from French is ‘The Physician in Spite of Himself.’ He obviously was a physician in profession, but at heart he was really a poet. If he could make decent money on his poetry, Williams would probably drop his half-hearted medical profession in an instant. It is unfortunate that need for money lead him to entertain the thought of the opposite. ‘What if’ he could become happy being a doctor and “never think anything but a white thought” (“Le Medecin” 129)? The white thoughts he mentioned in the poem seem to be alluding to the white garments that medical workers wear. The sad picture this creates is one of the great poet Williams abandoning his passion for poetry and never again thinking of anything but medicine. Obviously words were too much a part of him, and it would’ve been nearly impossible for him to abandon his beloved art as we will learn from the second poem.

A couple lines from the end, Williams paints an interesting image about personal happiness that is worth looking into. The lines read, “Who can tell? I might be / a credit to my Lady Happiness” (129). If he was a better doctor and put more of his energies into that career his ‘Lady Happiness’ might be pleased. The picture this brings to mind is the Statue of Liberty which is a symbol of the freedoms that Americans hopefully enjoy. If ‘Lady Happiness’ was not pleased, Williams may have been unhappy with his current work situation. She seems like a symbol reflecting his personal happiness to the world through this poem. His heart was torn between his work and passion which both demanded his precious time and energy. Wouldn’t it bring happiness if he could unify them into one?

Poem 2: “The Poet and His Poems”

Williams wasn’t perfectly happy being a doctor according to the poem mentioned above, but what did he have to say about being a poet? A second poem of his, “The Poet and His Poems,” takes a look at his thoughts on this subject. It was published in 1939 when he was about 56 years old. The first half of the poem gives a glimpse into the way he viewed poetry as a type of medicine for people with partially blind senses. It shows how highly he esteemed the power of a poem. The second half of the poem seems to describe his disappointing experiences as an older poet wishing that he could make money on his writing but accepting that fact that he can’t. The last lines of this poem show the depth of his passion for writing by comparing it with the ‘mystery’ of love itself (6).

Williams seemed to believe that poetry was a much more important medicine than the physical medicine he practiced on his patients. He said in his autobiography that “the cured man […] is no different from any other” (287). He says this because, according to him, “no one is ‘cured’” (286). He seems to be talking on a more spiritual level than ordinary physical diseases and medicine. Even though people may be cured of an infection or some other medical trouble … they may have a greater need for a spiritual kind of cure in their everyday life troubles and struggles. He said that poetry made people “come alive” to him (“Autobiography” 287). It seems that his poetry had the greatest effect as a spiritual medicine on him as the author. It somehow brought things to life that otherwise seemed dull. This same spiritual medicine may be what draws many readers to his writing. That spiritual effect seems to be what he desired to achieve.

In the first half of this piece he gave a definition of a poem. Here are those lines of definition:

The poem is this:
a nuance of sound
delicately operating upon a cataract of sense (4).

Notice that he is comparing the effects of poetry to those of surgery. A cataract causes cloudy vision or blindness. According to what he is saying here, people need poetry when their senses are dull or ‘blind’ like a cataract. He hopes that his writing can be that healing new kind of sound that opens up people’s senses to experience life in a fresh new way. In this poem he gives some examples of good new sounds (medicine) to write about. These show a lot about his personal interests and tastes. He mentions “a gentian” which is a flower, and “a lady’s eyes” (5). Williams had an extreme appreciation for beauty in nature. He was especially impressed by the beauty of flowers and women which are often recurring topics in his poems. By skillfully writing observations of American beauty, it seems that Williams hoped for his words to be a sweet and valuable treatment for the average person with dull senses that need curing. Robert Lowell once explained William’s devotion to writing about American beauty in the following way: “he loves America excessively as if it were the truth and the subject” (157). Williams did love his country for what it was, and his writing leaves a beautiful picture for readers to gaze on the beauty that he observed on paper.

The last half of “The Poet and His Poems” seems to be autobiographical in the way that it describes an old poet like Williams. It speaks of old poets who are excited about their poetry and think they are gifted. He obviously was excited about his writing, and hoped his poetry had something special to bring to the world (like a cure to dull life). He used the word “exchange” to describe the difference in the amount of money the poet spends to have his work published, and the amount he gets back from the sales of his art (5). Williams discussed this disappointing exchange in his autobiography. He published his first three books at a personal cost of two hundred fifty dollars each and “never received a penny, so far as I remember, on sales” (159). In essence it seems that Williams is making a statement about the popularity of his poetry not reflecting the high spiritual quality he thinks it has for the average American person. He was probably hoping to be more widely recognized by this age in his life and may have even hoped to get enough money from his art to abandon his medical career altogether. It is understandable that this realization of a lack of public appreciation would be disappointing to a poet who is so deeply attached and dedicated to his own work. On the other hand, he continued to write for the love of it and was willing to forget the ‘exchange’ of money because it didn’t have anything to do with his passion for poetry.

His writing was a natural and needed outflow of a fire from within. He once described it as the “dragon within” in his essay “Advice to the Young Poet” (39). His goal as a writer was to let the dragon out by using the right words to put his passions, observations, and feelings onto paper. It takes this kind of motivation for a writer to continue in his craft no matter how unrewarded or unpopular his work is. It was Williams’ ability to not care what others thought that allowed him to write in new and then unfamiliar ways. Much of his pioneering with spaces and familiar ordinary subjects has helped open up the infinite poetry styles that the readers and writers of today now take for granted.

Out of necessity, Williams was a physician. Out of love for words he was a poet. His life balancing work with art and passion was a good example for other young artists whose passions may not return much of a profit. He never did give up one or the other, but the balance he maintained between his work and art made them almost unified. Williams’ healing of people’s physical troubles made him better able to reach out with words that heal the mind and heart. Another benefit of a career other than art was that it allowed him to write whatever he wanted regardless of whether anyone wanted to hear it or pay for it. He described this benefit in the following way, “No one, and I meant no one (for money) was ever (never) going to tell me how or what I was going to write. That was number one” (“Autobiography” 49). Poetry to him seemed to be an expression of something boiling inside that needed to be written down. His art was his personal expression and gift to the world, even if the world wasn’t very appreciative at the time. Williams did his art for the love of it, not letting anything stop him from the constant flow from his heart to the paper.

As a doctor, Williams accepted the fact that he needed a good job for a steady income. Medicine did take up a lot of his time, and thus made its way logically into his mind and poetry. His desire to have his poetry ‘operate’ gently on the dulled senses of his readers was obviously a direct analogy to his medical work. His interest in people and life in general made medicine a good choice for a profession although he would have probably preferred to stick to just one thing, writing! As a poet, Williams was in his true element. Everything that he was and desired to be was an artist of beautifully crafted words that are the ultimate cure in his mind for a dull humanity. Whether his job as a doctor contributed or distracted from his poetry is beyond the scope of the poems discussed here. His profession definitely added an element of the ordinary hard-working suburban American that is not very common in the arts. It is amazing that he had such a huge passion for his writing to keep molding words during his whole healthy life. The average working man would probably not be able to keep that kind of motivation for that long. That kind of firm commitment is a credit to his inner fire or ‘dragon’ that needed words to be let out onto paper. He was born to be a writer.

Works Cited

Coles, Robert, ed. William Carlos Williams; The Doctor Stories. New York: New Directions, 1984.

Lowell, Robert. “William Carlos Williams.” Miller 153-159.

Miller, J. Hillis, ed. William Carlos Williams; A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966.

Pound, Ezra. “Dr Williams’ Position.” Miller 27-36.

Stevens, Wallace. “Preface to Collected Poems, 1921-1931.” Miller 62-64.

Williams, William Carlos. “Advice to the Young Poet.” Something to Say; William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets. Ed. James E. B. Breslin. New York: New Directions, 1985. 39-41.

- - - . The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions, 1967.

- - - . “Le Medecin Malgre Lui.” Coles 129.

- - - . “The Poet and His Poems.” The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Vol. 2. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions, 1991. 4-6.

Williams, William Eric. “My Father the Doctor.” Afterword. Coles 133-142.

Annotated Bibliography

Brinnin, John Malcolm. William Carlos Williams. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.

This is a pamphlet from the University of Minnesota that provides some insight into Williams’ life and poems including “Le Medecin Malgre Lui.”

Coles, Robert, ed. William Carlos Williams; The Doctor Stories. New York: New Directions, 1984.
A collection of short stories and poems written by Williams that relate to his medical profession. His son W. Eric wrote an insightful afterword for this book.

Lowell, Robert. “William Carlos Williams.” Miller 153-159.
Lowell describes what he likes and dislikes about Williams. He respects the way that Williams captured ordinary America in a way that other writers wouldn’t bother with.

McMichael, George, et al. “William Carlos Williams.” Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 2. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PH, 2000. 1257-1271

This section of the anthology includes a brief bio of Williams and a short collection of his poetry.

Miller, J. Hillis, ed. William Carlos Williams; A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966.
This book contains many essays on Williams from various influential American authors of his time. Essays from Stevens, Pound, and Lowell were cited in this paper.

Pound, Ezra. “Dr Williams’ Position.” Miller 27-36.
As a good friend of Williams, Pound has a lot to say about him. The first chapter of this essay describes Williams as a foreign observer of America.

Stevens, Wallace. “Preface to Collected Poems, 1921-1931.” Miller 62-64.
In this piece Stevens explores whether Williams’ writing is a little romantic and sentimental. Stevens makes a good point about Williams’ sentimental side.

Whitaker, Thomas R. William Carlos Williams. New York: Twayne, 1968.

This book has a good chronology of important events in Williams’ life. It also gives close readings for a number of Williams’ poems.

Williams, William Carlos. “Advice to the Young Poet.” Something to Say; William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets. Ed. James E. B. Breslin. New York: New Directions, 1985. 39-41.
An essay from Williams to young writers encouraging them to let their inner ‘dragon’ out by using the right words in the right way.

- - - . The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions, 1967.
This is Williams’ own story about his life from childhood until through old age.

- - - . “Le Medecin Malgre Lui.” Coles 129.
This is poem about Williams as a doctor wondering if he should put more effort into his career.

- - - . “The Poet and His Poems.” The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Vol. 2. Ed. Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions, 1991. 4-6.
A poem about Williams as a poet and the way he thinks a poem should be.

William Carlos Williams. 21 Jun. 2001. The Academy of American Poets. 24 Apr. 2003. < http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C070709 >

This web page gives short biography of Williams and includes a biography of his well-known works.

Williams, William Eric. “My Father the Doctor.” Afterword. Coles 133-142.
W. C. Williams’ son describes what it was like growing up under the roof of the great American poet-physician.