WILLIAM
CARLOS WILLIAMS: PHYSICIAN AND AUTHOR 1883-1963
by Patrick Murfin
President of the Congregational Unitarian Church, Woodstock,
Illinois
William Carlos Williams was born in a comfortably middle
class home in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1883. He would
spend virtually his whole life in and around the environs
of his hometown. His father was American, but his mother
was born of a "respectable" Puerto Rican family,
meaning they had almost pure Spanish bloodlines. An outstanding
pupil at New York's Horace Mann High School, he excelled
at writing poetry and in biology. He determined to pursue
a dual career in medicine and literature. After graduating
with a degree in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania
and an internship in obstetrics and gynecology, Williams
hung up his shingle and practiced medicine in his hometown
and in the nearby industrial town of Paterson.
Many of his patients were Paterson mill girls, others
were local prostitutes and desperate young mothers with
too many babies. Yet he also saw the proper middle-class
ladies of his hometown. The experience of his practice
influenced his poetry and other literary endeavors.
While at the University of Pennsylvania, he fell in with
the brilliant Ezra Pound. Pound profoundly influenced
the poetry Williams continued to write. He joined the
Imagist movement, writing unsentimental poetry in evocative
language and experimental forms. Pound arranged for the
publication of Williams's second volume of poetry, The
Tempers in London in 1913. Back in Rutherford, Williams
continued to produce poetry, essays, plays, and fiction.
He slowly built a reputation second only to Pound as an
Imagist. This position would be challenged by the emergence
of T. S. Eliot in the 1920s. By that time Williams was
drifting away from the Imagists, considering them, especially
Eliot, too bound to European culture, too elitist, and
too obscure. He continued to experiment adventurously
with poetic form and typography. This experimentation
was evident in his Complete Poems, published in
1938 and his Collected Poems published in 1950.
He began work on Paterson, his great extended poem
of America in the Depression in the late 1930s. It was
published over a period of years from 1946 to 1958. He
also produced three novels during this period.
Williams's health began to fail after a heart attack in
1949 and a series of small strokes. He had to retire from
the practice of medicine but continued to write. He received
the National Book Award for Poetry in 1950. He published
his memoirs the following year and continued to write
bold, experimental poetry in addition to his Paterson
books. His latter notable collections include Pictures
from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the posthumous
Imaginations (1970).
He lived to see his reputation as a poet soar with the
open admiration of a new generation of writers, notably
Allen Ginsberg and the other Beats. Williams died in Rutherford
in 1963.
From a worship service celebrating “Three
Hundred Years of Unitarian Universalist Poets from John
Milton to Sylvia Plath,” 2002.
The
Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (New
York: Random House, 1948).
“William Carlos Williams” by Linda Wagner-Martin.
American National Biography. Volume 23.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Linda
Wagner-Martin concludes: “The writings of William
Carlos Williams are a nearly inexhaustible reservoir
of twentieth century American themes and images, given
expression through a voice unique in the history of
literature.”
