The Objectivist poet W.C. Williams had as his credo "No ideas but in things." This came flooding back to me this April 1st. I've been having the compulsion lately to abandon lyric and narrative poetry and write Imagist, Objectivist, and haiku poetry. What a turnabout for a writer who has been no fiercely dedicated to telling his own story in his own words for so long. Poems without me in them? It would have seemed ridiculous to me even a few years ago. April reminded me of this poem and Jenny brought it back up today and I asked her if she had a drawing in mind for it. So she made the drawing. The font is KG You Won't Bring Me Down. It is the 11th Tiny Drawing Poem we have made together this year.
See all of Jenny's Tiny Drawings
See more of our Tiny Drawing Poems
April may have been the cruelest month for an icy-minded poet such as T.S. Eliot, but I prefer how an Objectivist poet feels about Spring...
April
If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.
William Carlos Williams
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