No Minute like the Last

Tonight was a night of great validation. I love when this happens; it’s my favorite part of learning:

I was sitting, reading chapter four of Marjorie Perloff’s The Dance of the Intellect: Studies in the Poetry of the Pound Tradition. Chapter four is entitled “’To give a design’: Williams and the visualization of poetry,” and this chapter confirmed a line of reasoning I had already pursued on Monday for my “Close Reading” assignment. The only thing that I’ll be damned about is that I didn’t read this assigned chapter earlier in the week, BEFORE completing my Close Reading.

Perloff’s primary argument is that Williams’ poetry, though it may appear to follow a pattern of free verse, is anything but; instead, Perloff maintains that Williams organized his poetry according to “the look, of course” (89). She goes on to explain how Williams’ poetry follows “a visual shape [that] also directs our attention to particular words and the relationships between them” (89). HEY…that’s basically what I argued in the Close Reading I wrote on Monday. I bask for a moment in my erudition…but not long enough to get conceited. Well, maybe a little.

“Damn, I’m smart. My mom is right,” I think to myself as I nod along with Perloff’s various examples of how her assertion matches with Williams’ poetry—even with Williams’ various reflections on his own methods. Though she doesn’t discuss the poem I analyzed for my Close Reading, everything she analyzes helps prove that what I noticed was not pure happenstance. I is smart. I done picked up on what Williams’ was layin’ down. But woe is me that I didn’t use a little bit ‘o Perloff’s argument to back up my assertions in the close reading. I move on from the self-praise-turned-self-bashing long enough to realize that there really is no minute like the last minute, and at least I can make a “blogging” and “work-booking” moment out of my procrastination.

I would like to begin by SHOWING the visual flow I noticed in my scribblings and notes during my reading this past weekend, since the visual appeal is at the forefront of Perfloff’s argument:

"Young Woman at a Window" - Version 1:

"Young Woman at a Window" - Version 2:

Notice how both poems basically look the same on paper, at first glance. NOW, try to find the separation. There is a definite VISUAL separation between the first three and last three stanzas of the first version of “Young Woman at a Window”. Ultimately, the visual organization helps supplement the meaning. In the second version of “Young Woman at a Window,” the poem literally moves forward on the page, as each line MUST feed into the next. This creates the little flowing arrows I drew. My thought here is that this visual makes the “young woman” appear completely different than in the first version.

If you would like to read more about the particulars of this argument, I'd be happy to send the link.

Otherwise, I will end by trying a little Williamsian (is that a word? it is now) structure:

When it comes to

Learning, there is no

Minute like the last

Minute.