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From The Vault 1 Hour Version:FTV 0319 William Carlos William |
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| From The Vault 1 Hour Version |
FTV 0319 William Carlos William |
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| Mark Torres |
Pacifica Radio Archives |
For non-profit use only. |
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Featured speakers/guests: |
| Poetry Icon William Carlos Williams is featured in this week's From The Vault. Today we hear from one of the principle architects of the American Voice in poetry that would establish OUR voice as distinct from the traditional iambic pentameter of Shakespearean English. |
William Carlos Williams |
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William Carlos Williams was the subject of and guest on Pacifica Station KPFA 94.1 since they went on the air in 1949. And for a very good reason. While Pacifica was providing a radio platform for the unheard voices, William Carlos Williams was helping find the American Voice.
This program features an important reading by William Carlos Williams. Williams reflects back on his life's work this presentation given at the University of California at Berkeley in May 1955.
Of course this is a mere months before a 29 year old Allen Ginsberg would read the poem that blew the doors open and take poetry to a place it had never gone before. Michael McClure who was present for the maiden "Howl" reading in late 1955 put it. "In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before-- we had gone beyond a point of no return-- and we were ready for it, for a point of no return.
William Carlos Williams wrote the introduction to "Howl and other poems" published a year after that first reading.
Williams was chosen to write the introduction for a reason. William Carlos Williams helped transition poetry in America to reflect who WE were, and away from the poetry cemented in the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare.
In our FTV 310 we did Bukowski and Denise Levertov... Denise did a poem for H.D. who just died at that time in 1961... H. D. was one of the cofounders of the Imagist movement together with Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington... William Carlos Williams became a member in the 20's and basically it was the Imagists who were the transition between the old English verse (Shakespeare's Iambic Pentameter) and the true voice of American English The Beat Poetry.
In this talk from May of 1955, William Carlos Williams reads from his transformative body of Poetry. He further recounts the instrumental contributors of this transformation: Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle H.D. and others.
He states that Whitman made the first good effort to create a verse away from the old guard Iambic Pentameter... the Imagists explored the new voice ... which was not well received by the establishment poetry world... in fact the establishment did not even consider it poetry... it took Ginsberg, Levertov and the rest to reflect back at the importance of the Imagists...
In the remaining minutes that we have in this program we have a special feature that we were unaware of when we decided to feature William Carlos Williams. We found a talk by none other than Allen Ginsberg validating William Carlos William's memory of this discovery. Ginsberg describes the evolution of the American voice in poetry in the 20th Century begun by Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. This talk was delivered at the university of Minnesota in November 1969 and is called The American Profetic. |
Produced and Written by Mark Torres and Brian DeShazor
Executive Produced by The Pacifica Radio Archives and Brian DeShazor |
| Topics |
| Arts and Humanities | Education/Reference | Language and Linguistics | Literature/Readings | Poetry/Spoken Word | Historical |
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Version 1: From The Vault 0319 |
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Total Length (HH:MM:SS) |
Description |
00:58:42 |
William Carlos Williams |
| Transcript, Announcer
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| View Script |
Los Angeles, Pacifica Radio Archives |
2012-06-22 |
English |
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00:58:42 |
fromvaulthourversion |
128Kbps mp3 (53.74MB) Stereo | |
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