Lessons From William Carlos Williams Spring and All

Posted on June 2, 2020June 2, 2020 by Ross Belot

I was aware of “The Red Wheelbarrow” of course, one of the most famous poems of the twentieth century, but I had not read any more of Williams. As part of a reading for Brenda Hillman’s prosody and forms class in a Robert Hass section “Modernism and the Two Line Stanza” there was a suggested reading from the Spring and All of several poems. I found the Collected Poems in the library, went to the section with Spring and All and was pleasantly surprised by what I found there. I had been thinking about writing a hybrid work of prose and poetry for some time and here was a great example from 1923. In addition, the work Williams was doing beyond just “The Red Wheelbarrow” was of interest in terms of structure and diction as well as other poetics. And then the prose itself was rich and full of ideas around Williams’ theories on poetics.

When I researched a bit I found out that the original book had not sold many copies, that the full prose had disappeared from any collection of Williams’ work until 1970. I decided I had to know more about this work, its impact on contemporary poetry and how it could influence my own work.

The prose in Spring And All is a manifesto, an idiosyncratic explanation of Williams’ poetic theories and practice, interrupted by outbursts of poetry. The poetry sometimes is a response to what has just been said in the prose or the prose responds sometimes to the poetry. In order to understand what is going on I propose walking through what I see as a few of the key texts of Spring and All.
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Serialized CBC Interviews

Posted on May 8, 2020May 14, 2020 by Ross Belot

Update: May 14, 2020 CBC Book put out a blog post on the interviews including links to a couple of the radio interviews. link to CBC

So, I was given the opportunity for CBC Radio interviews across the country to be aired this weekend. Seemed to be a followup to my NAC reading somehow. They recorded eight interviews in 15 minute blocks: St. John’s, Montreal, Ottawa, Fresh Air, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC. All for weekend morning shows. And a mix of technologies ranging from phone calls to Skype to Google meeting. Mostly worked without real problems except for an attempt at FaceTime which became a regular phone call instead. Asked to read a poem from Moving to Climate Change Hours for Fresh Air and Ottawa. Read “First Day” which might not be your typical morning material in retrospect, dealing with a nasty industrial accident. The Ottawa host said “I was not expecting that”. The host of Fresh Air kind of similar bit of reaction. Memorable and impactful, I guess.

List of Radio Shows With Links To Their Sites

Everybody was incredibly nice. Some going with the standard set of questions structured around promoting the CBC Poetry Prize as well as promoting my book. Others had read my poetry it sounded like and the interviews travelled further afield. In either case grateful for the opportunity.

Great experience. Very tiring. Thanks CBC. I’ll post links to the interviews if they come available.

A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent

Posted on May 4, 2020May 6, 2020 by Ross Belot

Stuart Ross has been writing poetry for a long time. According to his bio, he “published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street wearing signs like ‘Writer Going To Hell,’ selling over 7,000 chapbooks.” He is now the author of 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays. In preparation for writing this review I wrote him and asked if he had anything he wanted to say about his latest book, A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent. The only point he might make, he said, would be that he tried to write a book that is more accessible and personal than much of his previous work.

I’ve been thinking about that. The work is definitely personal, and we’ll talk about that a bit later. But “accessible” is highly subjective. I really love this work, soaked in quirkiness as it is. Does its quirkiness make it accessible or not? For some readers the idea of “accessible” means the work has less value, while for others “accessible” means the work has more interest. I’ve had this discussion with people about Emily Dickinson’s work, how her imaginative take on the world is difficult for some to enter, while for many others it is energizing. In these poems Stuart Ross engages a Dickinsonian idiosyncrasy, projecting the real world through the lens of his imagination. Like Dickinson, Ross trains this lens on the big questions of death and immortality. So, accessible perhaps, original and strange definitely. I went back to Stuart on this and he agrees that while probably his most cohesive work, A Sparrow Cam Down Resplendent is “still pretty wonky”.

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