Poetry Corner
2 min read
Summer Song
By William Carlos Williams
Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?
This poem is in the public domain.
About the poem: “Summer Song” was written in 1917.
About the poet: William Carlos Williams was born on September 17, 1883, in Rutherford, New Jersey. While a student at Horace Mann High School, he began writing poetry, and, at the same time, made the decision to become both a writer and a doctor. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended the poet, Ezra Pound. Williams sustained a medical practice in Rutherford thorughout his life.
Williams was one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement. He continued to experiment with new techniques of meter and lineation, seeking to invent an entirely fresh (and singularly American) poetic form, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.
His influence as a poet spread slowly during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s, he received increasing attention from younger poets, including Allen Ginsberg and the Beats. After a heart attack in 1948, and a series of strokes, his health began to decline. However, he continued writing up until his death in New Jersey on March 4, 1963.