3 - Social Diffraction

Summary

In many of his early poems, Williams takes up the theme of his relation to individuals and groups. These others may also live in Rutherford and he may see them daily, yet the poems express Williams's awareness of profound differences between himself and them. Nevertheless, we should not be quick to peg Williams as the typically alienated poet. Just as in his relations with parents and family, his outlook cannot be so easily classified. His awareness of the ways in which he differs from others – often the immediate impression given by the poems – is tempered by recognition of his links with them.

And vice versa. Even when we consider the category of people with whom Williams feels a comradeship, namely poets, it is clear that, for Williams, comradeship falls far short of total identification. There are three poems in which he considers his colleagues in the arts: “Aux Imagistes” (CP1, 40), “Sub Terra” (CP1, 63) and “M.B.” (CP1, 72). “Aux Imagistes” appeared in the Egoist for December 1914. Imagism had first come to public notice through the propagandizing of Ezra Pound in late 1912 and early 1913. Williams himself had been represented in the volume Des Imagistes earlier in 1914. Curiously, however, his title and the poem itself, while celebrating the Imagists, draws a distinction between Williams and them.