Poetry Month, Day 5 - William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say," and Kenneth Koch, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams".

Teacher re-titles poems as click-bait to get students to read them.

This is a fun project. Her re-titling of William Carlos Williams' "This is Just to Say" is "Dis Fruit Ain't Loyal."

This Is Just To Say

William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

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This is one of my favorite W.C.W. poems. Williams has such fine use of structure which is amazing. I have been known to quote this at appropriate (or less than appropriate) moments. I also like Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow," but this one is my favorite. Largely because of Kenneth Koch's pastiche:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

Related Poem Content Details


BY KENNETH KOCH





                                                                  1



I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next

     summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do

and its wooden beams were so inviting.





                                                                  2



We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then I sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.





                                                                  3



I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten

     years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.



                                                                  4



Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!



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Koch has such a mordant humor, I find I can't dis-like it. This is not my favorite Koch poem - I'll look at that one later .