Paterson by William Carlos Williams
"Paterson" by William Carlos Williams is a complex, multi-layered poem that intricately weaves the narrative of both the city of Paterson, New Jersey, and the life of a man named Paterson. The poem is structured into four books, reflecting different sections of the Passaic River, which serves as a central symbol of life and continuity. Williams blends abstract themes, such as the search for a redemptive language amidst life's tragedies, with concrete historical anecdotes, vivid imagery, and personal correspondence. The work touches on diverse aspects of urban life, love, and the nature of poetry itself, often likening the act of writing to the experience of navigating a bustling city. Known for its variety and occasional disorientation, "Paterson" invites readers to engage with its layers, ultimately presenting a portrait of a deeply empathetic man who reflects the joys and struggles of those around him. The poem has been compared to other significant American literary works, yet it maintains a unique voice characterized by its gentle yet profound exploration of human experience. Williams’s innovative style and use of everyday language make "Paterson" a notable contribution to American poetry.
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Paterson by William Carlos Williams
First published: 1946-1958; includes book 1, 1946; book 2, 1948; book 3, 1949; book 4, 1951; book 5, 1958
Type of work: Poetry
The Work
A hasty reading of William Carlos Williams’s Paterson may leave the reader at the end of the poem with a feeling not unlike that of a rural person on his or her first trip to a big city: There are so many different things to look at, in so many different shapes and sizes, and all the people seem to be rushing about so haphazardly that the uninitiated wind up their days bemused but happy. Such a reaction to Paterson is part of Williams’s purpose. The poem interweaves the story of a city with the story of a man so that the two become interchangeable, and the jumbled kaleidoscope of city life turns and glitters like the conflicting ideas, dreams, loves, and hates that assail the minds of twentieth century human beings.
Looked at more closely, the poem can be seen to take on shape, like a city coming out from under a rolling fog or a person walking out of the shadows of trees in a park. Williams unifies his poem by letting the river that flows through the city serve as a symbol of life, both that of the city and that of the man. Life equated to a river flowing somewhere safe to sea is an image as old as poetry itself, but the ways in which Williams uses this image are so fresh and individual in style and presentation that it seems as if he had discovered the idea.
The poem is divided into four books, which correspond to the four parts of the river: the portion above the falls; the falls themselves; the river below the falls; and the river’s exit into the sea. Williams opens the first book, “The Delineaments of the Giants,” with these lines:
Paterson lies in the valley under the Passaic Falls
Having presented the blended image of city and man, the poet goes on to present symbols for women—a flower, a cliff, the falls—and to introduce one of the main concerns of Paterson: the search for a language by which human beings may “redeem” the tragedies of life. To counterbalance this somewhat abstract and nebulous idea, Williams intersperses his poem with many concrete passages, some in prose, which serve as an entrancing documentation of the backgrounds of the city and the man. In book 1, for instance, historical notes and newspaper clippings tell us of the finding of pearls in mussels taken from Notch Brook, near the city; of General Washington’s encounter with “a monster in human form”; of the accidental drowning of a Mrs. Cumming at the falls; of the death there of a stuntman named Sam Patch; and of a great catch of eels made by the local people when a lake was drained. Paterson the man is represented by letters written to him, one from a misunderstood poet.
Williams rounds off book 1 with a quotation from John Addington Symonds’s Studies of the Greek Poets (1873, 1876). Such diversity of material seems to call for a prestidigitator to make it all seem a part of the whole. Williams does this easily, for he is a master juggler who never quite lets his readers see all of the act; therefore, they fill in some of the parts from their own imagination.
Book 2, “Sunday in the Park,” concerns itself chiefly with love, including the many kinds of lovemaking found in a city park, and with poetry, for Paterson is as much a tribute to language as it is to a city or a man. Fittingly, this section ends with another long passage from a letter written by the poet who is struggling to fit together her work, her life, and her friendship with the “dear doctor” to whom she writes.
Book 3, “The Library,” continues to probe the inarticulateness of tragedy and death, searching for some way that language may assuage, even prevent those things we accept as a part of existence. Williams describes poetry in these lines: “The province of the poem is the world./ When the sun rises, it rises in the poem/ and when it sets darkness comes down/ and the poem is dark.”
Book 3 also describes a great fire that sweeps the city and destroys the library. Williams continues to insert prose passages, one of which recounts the story of Merselis Van Giesen, whose wife was tormented by a witch that appeared to her nightly in the form of a black cat. In telling the story, Williams throws in several humorous comments. When the witch is revealed to be a Mrs. B., “who lived in the gorge in the hill beyond,” he comments, “Happy souls! whose devils lived so near.” Interspersing the tale with other witty remarks, the poet concludes with the husband shooting the cat with a silver bullet made from his cuff links. The shot is a difficult one because the cat is visible only to his wife, who must locate the target for him and direct his aim. He kills the cat, and, in the best tradition of witch stories, Mrs. B. suffers for some time with a sore on her leg.
The last book, “The Run to the Sea,” opens with an idyll involving Corydon, Phyllis, and Paterson. This section also introduces the image of the bomb. The poem concludes when Paterson the man reaches the sea, but he, along with a dog found swimming there, is able to escape from this symbol of death and to head inland.
Paterson, which appeared in segments between 1946 and 1958, has been compared with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855–92), Archibald MacLeish’s Conquistador (1932), and Hart Crane’s The Bridge (1930). Admittedly the work lacks the eloquent brilliance of Conquistador, and to compare Williams with Whitman is to stretch the superlatives until they become tenuous. Whitman writes like a great wind, whereas Williams wafts with far gentler breezes.
Paterson is a poem filled with variety and surprises. There are times when Williams turns his kaleidoscope so quickly that the reader becomes dizzy and would like to quote back to the poet the line “Geeze, Doc, I guess it’s all right but what the hell does it mean?” On the other hand, there are many passages of great lyrical beauty in Paterson, and a careful reading of the poem creates a feeling in the reader of having visited a typical American city and been taken on a tour of it by someone who tells its history as they walk along. More important, the reader becomes acquainted with Paterson himself, who is clever, witty, sensitive, wise, and deeply concerned with the people of his city and their problems. Thus does Paterson achieve its purpose and forge a bond between the reader of the poem and the poem’s man and city.
Bibliography
Cappucci, Paul R. William Carlos Williams’ Poetic Response to the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike. Lewiston: Mellen, 2002. Print.
Copestake, Ian, ed. The Legacy of William Carlos Williams: Points of Contact. Newcastle: Cambridge, 2007. Print.
Copestake, Ian, ed. Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams. New York: Lang, 2004. Print.
Derounian, Kathryn Zabelle, and William E. Grim. "William Carlos Williams." Critical Survey of Short Fiction: American Writers. Ed. Charles E. May. Ipswich: Salem, 2012. Print.
Duffey, Bernard. A Poetry of Presence: The Writing of William Carlos Williams. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1986. Print.
Hahn, Stephen. "'It was Civilization I was After': George Tice, William Carlos Williams, and the Archaeology of Paterson." Literary Review 50.4 (2007): 62–82. Print.
Mariani, Paul L. “Putting Paterson on the Map: 1946–1961.” William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: ALA, 1975. Print.
Markos, Donald W. Ideas in Things: The Poems of William Carlos Williams. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1994. Print.
Meyer, Kinereth. "William Carlos Williams, Paterson, and the Cultural Uses of Pastoral." William Carlos Williams Review 25.1 (2005): 63–78. Print.
O’Brien, Kevin J. Saying Yes at Lightning: Threat and the Provisional Image in Post-Romantic Poetry. New York: Lang, 2002. Print.
Sankey, Benjamin. A Companion to William Carlos Williams’s Paterson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1971. Print.
Schmidt, Peter. William Carlos Williams, the Arts, and Literary Tradition. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1988. Print.