Poets Reading Poetry: William Carlos Williams

Poetry is meant to be read aloud, but rarely is. As Oscar Wilde once said, "A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

So, cutting out the middle man, here is where we'll post famous poets reading their own poetry--the words off the page and in your ears, as they intended. And hopefully nothing is lost in the process.

Published in 1934, "This Is Just To Say" is a staple poem in both high schools and colleges, great for those with short attention spans, and one of William Carlos Williams' most famous works. You can hold your breath longer than it takes to read the poem.

Twenty-one collections of Williams' poetry were released during his lifetime and shortly after his death (or twenty-five collections, depending on how you want to count the books of his most famous titled work Paterson), all of which were created while he practiced medicine full-time. Working in general medicine and pediatrics, Williams became chief of pediatrics at Passaic General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey in 1924 until his death in 1963, despite a series of heart attacks and strokes the final fifteen years of his life.

Apparently Williams was that rare individual with a brain suited both toward the sciences and the arts, as "This Is Just To Say" proves. In twenty-eight words, the poem is a classic example of modernism found poetry (poems that read like a note, just reconstructed into stanzas), and takes Williams a whopping seventeen seconds to read here.

His voice sounds nebbish and slightly nasally, reciting the stanzas seamlessly, with little pause--more like a husband annoyingly reading a note left by his wife on the kitchen table.


This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold