“Instructor’s Name”
“To Waken an Old Lady”, by William Carlos Williams, is a poem which focuses on old age and its connotations. The poet makes use of different elements of poetry, such as language, style and content, to make the poem appealing and at the same time easily comprehendible. Carlos Williams always tries to express his views in an American context and the rhythm of his poems reflects the speech pattern of common American people. He was one of those few people who were able to communicate poetically with an average American. He uses scenes and incidents from everyday life in his poetry to make this connection with common people.
Here he uses the scenery of cheeping birds flocking in the wind mild and mellowed, to describe the predicament of old age people. He uses the flock of birds struggling against the wind, as a metaphor to the struggle of the elderly people to keep pace with life. They on a day to day basis battle tiredness and a deteriorating health, but they put up a determined fight to survive. He also have used imagery to give the reader a grim picture of death that is looming around somewhere near to that old lady. He talks about “bare trees above a snow glaze”, whereby he uses the image of a solitary tree standing in a mass of snow to drive home the feeling of dreariness, that the lady encounters at the end of her life.
The rhythm plays a major part in this poem in providing emphasis to the key points. The poet has used run on lines, whereby the meaning of a line carries on to the next line. The lines one to six forms a single message though they are structurally separated. Till the tenth line, the poet maintains the usage of rhythmic words like cheeping, skimming, gaining and failing. In the tenth line he gives a pause. He prods the reader by the words “But What”. This is a moment of reflection. This pause enables the transition of mood from the description of old age which was dealt by the first part of the poem, to the horror of death which is dealt by the final part of the poem. From here the rhythm of the poem does not show consistency and appears somewhat chaotic without any specific pattern. He then uses words such as harsh weedstalks and broken seed husks, which are coarse and untailored to suit the rhythm of the previous lines. But these lines are able to create a mood of anxiousness and fear which is required while talking about death. Thus, the poet has effectively used rhythm to bring in the feel of despair and gloom needed at the end of the poem.
The narrator of the poem is possibly the old lady or the poet himself, and the lyrics present a personalized version of pondering one’s imminent demise. This makes the theme even more relatable, because the perspective of a person, who is faced with the inevitability of death, renders credibility to the descriptions. Symbolism is definitely the highlight of this poem as it helps the reader to delve into the deeper meaning of the verses. For example, the line 6 talks about “The snow covered with broken seedhusks”, which can be understood to be denoting the grey hair of the old lady, gotten from all those years of hard work and wisdom. And “the flight of cheeping birds” is used to denote how fast the time flies away when you reach ripe old age.
This poem strikes me to be fluid in structure and impressed me mainly due to its usage of imagery. When you read the poem you conjure an image of a poor group of birds, who are fighting their way against a harsh wind and skimming trees, as they gradually inch closer to death.
“Old age is a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare
Trees above a snow glaze”.
The poem has an uncomplicated format with very few interruptions, which makes it easy in reading and understanding it. Though the theme of the poem is depressing, it is expressed in a refreshingly beautiful language. Particularly words like “wind tempered with a shrill piping of plenty”, though aimed at depicting a gloomy scenario, offer a calming rhythm to the poem despite the disconcerting subject.
References
- Amanda Pauss. William Carlos Williams. (ND) Retrieved from
http://www2.uic.edu/classes/engl/engl103jeb/ClassEssays/William%20Carlos%20Williams/wcw.htm
- Margit Peterfy. (2004/2005). These Things Astonish me beyond words : Wordplay in
Williams Carlos Williams’s poetry. Retrieved from http://www.connotations.de/pdf/articles/peterfy01413.pdf
- Olya Mariam.(ND). Kinetic Energy in William Carlos Williams's Poetry. Retrieved from
http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/english/current_pdf/Olya-Mariam.pdf
- R. Wayne Clugston. (2010). Journey Into Literature. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
