This is Just to Say...

What to say about this poem by William Carlos Williams?  First off, I laugh every time I read it.  It is written very simply, but is still outrageous.  What you might ask is 'outrageous' about plums in an icebox?  Below is the poem.  Read it and then we will talk!

This is Just to Say

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

Now that you have read the poem, what do you think? I think that this is one of the worst apologies I have ever read.  And that is why it makes me laugh!  It is so very honest and sincere.  This work is about plums being stored safely in an icebox so they would be crisp and cold for a breakfast snack.  But clearly the author didn't care that the plums were meant for someone else.  He ate them anyway and in my mind I visualize this lame apology held up by a magnet on the icebox door.  

Since this blog is all about future teachers takes on literature, let's do some evaluating!  Doesn't that sound fun?

Poetry.  What make up 'good' poetry?  Or even more simply, what makes writing qualify as a poem?  The writing has to contain certain elements and meet certain requirements. Let's see if the above writing has any of the common poetry elements.

To begins with I see some alliteration in the first stanza of the work.  The repetition of 'th'.  "the plums that were in the icebox."  The repetition of the 'th' sound  in the beginning of the words adds alliteration to the work.

Assonance?  Look at the words:  forgive, delicious, so, and cold in the final stanza.  The repetition of the 'o' in the words creates assonance.

Descriptive language?  When Williams describes the plums as, "so sweet and so cold," I can almost feel my teeth hurt after I bite one!

That is my take on the poem.  Let's see what my blog partner, Phillip,  has to say...(pun intended).

I allowed Glyna to pick the poem for this blog post, because poetry is not my forte. I have just never really gotten it, and when I read the poem chosen for the post I was less then excited about having to review it. My goal for the blog is to be positive, and try and think like a teacher. However the poem just was not what I like to read, and had all the attributes of poetry I did not understand. There was no rhyme scheme, and the meter was strange and I really could not find it to read the poem to myself. There is some alliteration within the poem with the "s" sound being repeated, but other then that the poem just seems to be prose written in stanzas.

Glyna wrote her post first so I was able to read her thoughts on the poem before posting my own, and after reading her post I decided to take a look at the poem from her perspective. In her post she asks an excellent question, "What is poetry?" and I wanted to look at that idea more.. Merriam-Webster defines poetry as "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm". Using this definition I tried to put "This is Just to Say" in to context. Using this definition I gained new respect for the poem considering the imagination it took to write a poem about an experience that seems so minor. Also the poems seems to entice an emotional response from everyone who isn't me, because I showed the poem to multiple people who smiled or even laughed after reading it.

The poem is a good example of many things. I shows that people have different opinions on what they like. It shows that even if you do not like something you do not have to just dismiss it as bad. It is completely possible to find respect for something even if you do not really understand it. Finally, it shows that just because something does not rhyme does not mean it's any less of a poem.