Sort of a Song

By William Carlos Williams

What an interested poem. On first read, the poem has a disconnected feel.  The poem seems as if there are two topics, one being the first stanza dealing with a snake and writing, and the other stanza calling the first stanza a metaphor.

¨Let the snake wait under

his weed

and the writing

be the word,¨  describes the accused metaphor  as the snake being the devil, or the evil in the world. Williams describes the snake as hiding in plain sight. Williams describes in the metaphor that the writing is ¨slow and quick, sharp

        to strike, quiet to wait

        sleepless¨, or just as a snake would be described.

The second stanza seems to be as if Williams is analyzing himself, describing the literary techniques he used in the first stanza. He writes

¨ -through metaphor to reconcile”  describing  his techniques, and how it is used in the stanza above. Williams then continues talking about some ideas he has about the poem, stating that ¨Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks”. The saxifrage is a tiny flower, seen mostly in the wildflower bunches. Williams is essentially saying that the smallest things make the biggest changes, and he relates this to his own writing.

Williams wrote a poem and in the poem he create a beautiful stanza, and then dissects it in the second one. WIlliams is proving he knows what he is doing, and in this case I must applaud him for his creativity.