Tag Archives: Modernism

TWENTY-FOUR: A GREAT RAILWAY JUNCTION (pages 79-82)

Posted on April 25, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

There follow two poems before Williams gets back to the theme of prose vs. poetry. Poem XXIII reads Romantic to me, a little bit like a throwback. Plus there’s a lot of personification. We know that Keats was an early … Continue reading →

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NINETEEN: TIME DOES NOT MOVE (pages 67-71)

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

The prose section that follows poem XVIII begins in mid-sentence. It does not seem to be a literal carryover from a previous section but Williams reiterates ideas covered previously. The paragraphs, if we can call them that, are short, many … Continue reading →

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FOURTEEN: IN MY LIFE THE FURNITURE EATS ME (pages 38-45)

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

We’re up to poem IX and as with VIII we’ll look at the prose section that follows and then go back and reread it. Allen Ginsberg gives a nice reading of this poem. But the poem is not as clear … Continue reading →

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THIRTEEN: OF SPANIARDS AND MORGANS (pages 32-38)

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

By now we have noticed that the prose sections reiterate a small constellation of ideas about making art, how it relates to the all-important word “imagination”, how it connects to “life”, and how this new art is different than illusionistic … Continue reading →

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TWELVE: THE ROSE IS OBSOLETE (pages 26-32)

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

We now turn from these rather uneasy pages to, in my view, some of the best prose pages and one of the best poems in the entire book. The prose that follows poem VI (page 26) elucidates the poem, marking … Continue reading →

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ONE: DEDICATION TO CHARLES DEMUTH

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

Spring and All is dedicated to Charles Demuth, American visual artist, born in 1883. He and Williams were lifelong friends. Demuth was an early modernist in the United States, as Williams was. He in painting and Williams in poetry were … Continue reading →

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A Note on Herman Melville, Gertrude Stein and John Ashbery

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Mark Kerstetter

When the substance is gone, men cling to the shadow—Melville, Pierre First all beauty…. is denied and then all beauty…. is accepted—Stein, Composition as Explanation There is nothing to do except observe the horizon,the only one, that seems to want … Continue reading →

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Rimbaud and de Kooning

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Mark Kerstetter

Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere. —Rimbaud We are modern. We are so because Rimbaud commanded us to be. —Ashbery It is one of those curious accidents (but are they really accidents?) that I have resumed my de Kooning … Continue reading →

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Conrad Aiken and the struggle of consciousness

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Mark Kerstetter

even one’s newness is old —Conrad Aiken   One of the first things that comes up in a google search of the name “Conrad Aiken” (right next to we found Conrad Aiken) is a review of his Selected Poems in … Continue reading →

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Yahia Lababidi’s Balancing Acts

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Mark Kerstetter

The poems of Yahia Lababidi recall some great names: Borges, Pessoa, and Baudelaire. The spirit of Baudelaire looms large in the poems of Balancing Acts. But I think of visual artists too. Striking, novel images are conjured, mysterious and dreamlike, … Continue reading →

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