Saturday, July 9, 2011

The Dish of Fruit by William Carlos Williams

Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life with Carafe and Lemons, 1888.


The Dish of Fruit
By William Carlos Williams

The table describes
nothing: four legs, by which
it becomes a table.  Four lines
by which it becomes a quatrain,

the poem that lifts the dish
of fruit, if we say it is like
a table---how will it describe
the contents of the poem?

from:  "The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams 1939-1962, Volume II", page 143

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like the photo you chose to go with this! I like Van Gogh.

Janelle Goodwin said...

Now there's a Van Gogh I've never seen before. And I thought I saw them all:)

Marion said...

Thanks, Kelly. Love your new blog home!! xoxo

Janelle, my husband has loved Van Gogh for over 40 years and we have countless books on his art and his life. I had no idea the quantity of art he'd put out in his lifetime. I'm constantly amazed by him!! Blessings!

erin said...

sometimes i feel we live like this, only in description of, forgetting to climb inside of our words and ideas and become them. i say, oh, i love you, and i forget to lick your face, devour the image i still have of you in your thin white dress with the sun honest behind you. how you were illuminated then like a word, like a sentence, your thighs like delicate letters that would grow with significance throughout your life. your nipples were unencumbered. so too were we. we were elastic youth, nearly unmade. i say i love you now and i know it is a wall. i tell you now that i weep at that wall for i don't know how to climb it.

this is my response, marion. this is how just now i feel, as though i'm not me and not quite you, but perhaps for a moment all of us.

xo
erin

erin said...

i laugh, marion. i was going to post the poem i just wrote to you in response and then it disappeared. if and when it reappears i'll snatch it back and i can link here?

xo
erin

Marion said...

erin, you blow me away with your words. I used to have a crush on you (and your writing), but long ago it became a deep, abiding, fierce love. real love. forever love. xoxo

"Who, being loved, is poor?" ~Oscar Wilde

"Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame." ~Henry David Thoreau

erin said...

your words come at me like a tiny awl and fracture me just that bit. funny that, eh? fracture and make, fracture and make, the nature of love.

right back to you.

xo
erin

ds said...

Love Dr. Williams; the pairing with the van Gogh is brilliant.

Between WCW's question and erin's response to it (yes, we need to climb inside our words), there's much to think about here.
Thanks, Marion. Happy weekend!

Ben Ditty said...

I'm obsessed with Van Gogh too. My favorite episode of Doctor Who was when they went to meet him. Also, I had him in a play i wrote :)

* said...

I'm a huge fan of WCW, thanks for this, Marion. And may the summer sun find you fair.

Serena said...

I like that. And as always, you've illustrated it beautifully.

Katherine van Schoonhoven said...

I am here because of the strong recommendation of William Cook, who knew that my love of literature and poetry and art would make me love you and your blog and the tender way you invite images and words together as you do.

"The Dish of Fruit" makes me think so much about how we learn to identify things and give them labels. When we are children, we point and expect the obedient adults to name that object and we learn this shorthand of words.

And then, for me, later than most, opening myself to art and now I find that none of the child labels describe THIS table except if I use as many words to say this narrow plank of hickory with turned thin legs that almost all touch the floor at the same time. And now, with blue, green, and violet, yellow and red I paint THIS table and ponder how to also show this fruit and this dish and the smell of lemons and coffee that make me want to sing?

A battered poet's heart is so fragile that the gentlest words could shatter it, so I whisper my praise. And thanks.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for your beautiful message. I think this message on my art is out dated. We've got the tv and internet now and our minds are full of information and wonder. We don't need to travel anymore.
I did this art a couple of years ago through help from Suzi Blu.
She's a super teacher!
Hugs!
Julie