Modern American Poetry

89

Moral

the tree moving diversely

in all parts—

During the decade and a half that followed Kora in Hell,Williams engaged in
a variety of poetic descents, explorations, and refinements. Their rather
confusing history of publication—especially the long delay before some
poems appeared in collected volumes—has laid some traps for critics and has
thus indirectly given rise to a number of misunderstandings concerning
Williams’ chronological development.^1 However, the combination of
expediency and design that produced this history also laid bare (as Williams
knew) the heart of the matter: the unity-in-diversity of his field of attention.
For that reason, any gain in biographical understanding that might result
here from a strictly chronological account, poem by poem, would be more
than offset by the distortions that a single linear pattern would impose.
Considering the poems published between 1918 and 1934, I shall
therefore focus primarily upon the new developments in Williams’ art.
There are first-person utterances of tougher and more delicate fiber; flower-
poems, weather-poems, and portraits of yet subtler emergent symbolism;
musical pieces that further explore quantity and temporal measure; and
studies of local culture that are more probing and inclusive. There are also

THOMAS R. WHITAKER

Open to the Weather

From William Carlos Williams. © 1968 by Twayne Publishers.