William Carlos Williams

“The Great Figure”

William’s apparent experience with the Imagists becomes quite apparent in his poetry from the early 1900’s following his partnership with Ezra pound. Imagistic poetry can sound overly simplistic, and lacking of depth, but I suppose that is what is attempted to be portrayed. It is a sort of visual snapshot through words. This poem captures the entire essence of a fire truck rushing in the rain (ironically) to some destination at night while its siren goes. In 33 words (later 29 after line 7 was omitted) Williams paints a movie clip in the minds of readers. In reality this scene would have lasted about 15 seconds, but that is all that he wished to portray evidently. What other meanings this poem could mean, and why he wrote it is beyond me. I may as well just write a poem about this cup of water sitting on my desk and call it an imagist poem, just as well as a painter might paint a still life. It is poetry, and it is art.