Sort of a Song

The initial thing I noticed about this poem was the structure and the length of the lines. The lines vary from long to short and are very end stopped so it makes the reader pause in thought. The variance in structure is what ties the title into the poem, Sort if a Song. The poem is structured like a song and flows somewhat like a song, and in historic times, poetry was used to tell stories through songs. In the second stanza, Williams uses very odd syntax. Instead of beginning the second stanza with a capital letter and a sentence, he placed a dash to create a tie between the two stanzas so the reader would understand their connection. He also has two single word sentences which provide big emphasis on those two ideas, and he put parenthesis around another idea to show a more passive emphasis that idea.

In the first stanza, Williams uses the snake as a symbol of poets. "Let the snake live under his weed and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait sleepless." In this stanza, Williams is describing poets as snakes. They wait and watch the world. Then when an idea comes to them they are "sharp to strike" their words to paper, and after they recede back to their "weed" “quiet and sleeplessly” waiting for another epiphany. The second stanza then talks about how poets connect with others and the world. "-through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits my rocks. Williams talks of how poets connect "the people" together through metaphor because "reconcile" means to bring into agreement or harmony. In that sentence, the dash shows the connection to the first stanza, and, therefore, makes the reader realize that Williams is meaning to show that poets are the ones reconciling with out having to directly say it. Then Williams makes the assertion that there are no new ideas except in tangible things and challenges people to "compose" and "invent." The last sentence was the most striking to me and ties the two stanzas together. Saxifrage is a flower that grows in between rocks and cracks them. In this sentence, Williams is saying that even the smallest ideas can change the world just like how something so fragile like a flower can split a strong, sturdy rock in half.

*Oh and I commented on Natillie's and Correy's blog.