Relieved to have moved past Eliot and Pound and on to William Carlos Williams. So I will reflect tonight between classes I'm teaching on his slogan, "no ideas but in things." I can tell he ended up feeling that Pound and Eliot were too attached to European cultures and religion. Apparently he is associated with not only Pound in friendship but with several Black Mountain poets.

I found Eliot's "The Wasteland" interesting if not weighty, but agree that all of the allusions make it mostly undecipherable to a contemporary audience [according to a friend]. It is refreshing to read Williams, and I can't help wonder if my preference for Williams is rooted in my socio-economic status. Who has time to linger with Pound or Eliot? Is this just laziness on my part? I don't think so. We choose what we do with out time carefully, since our time is so limited and fleeting we choose what brings us pleasure, and William's "The Red Wheelbarrow" has always seemed so academic and pretentious, yet today I feel differently. I love that he embraces American idiom. I like that Williams was concerned with diversity and representing the poor and lower to middle economic classes.

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