poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

it is a very simple poem. it is a story that you can write every day and do it on te ice box. it is very simple

It is a very bad poem and I don't like it all

i didn't know it was a note left to his wife on the fridge... genius.

did you know he had an affair?

the poem IS about sexuality. he's apologizing to his wife.

Williams originally wrote this as a note to his wife, left on the refrigerator after he had eaten the plums. The form of the poem was created by the size of the paper scrap he was writing, the poem was created by a happy accident.

I think it's really sad how much people read into poetry. this is a poem about plums. well written and simple, and that is why it is a wonderful poem. why can't people just accept that MAYBE there isnt a hidden secret message in every poem? just a thought.

of course the poem COULD just simply be about plums and a person says he's sorry for eating them, without really feeling any perticular regrets. In that case it more sounds like a child that has been a bit mean to a brother or sister, perhaps as a revenge for something that has happened earlier.

But the plums could also be something completely different. It could be that he got the job he and one of his aquaintances has both tried to get and he says he's sorry for the other one's sake, but he really isn't since he wanted the job as well.

But I am also thinking about sexuality, as a few other here have, but I don't think he begs his wife for forgiveness. I actually believe that in that case he tells someone that he has slept with his wife, and shows quite clearly that he doesn't regret it.

This is just the thoughts I got from reading it. Fell free to comment it if you please. The only one who knows the truth is Williams, and anyhow, can't the truth be different depending on the person who reads and interprets it, just as much as "the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder"?

I think just as disappointing as people who overanalyse poems are those who underanalyse them. Just as looking too deeply into a poem can ruin its more immediate pleasures, not looking deeply enough into it can leave out potential deeper satisfaction. All art is at once surface and symbol. Enjoy it as one or the other, or maybe both at once

A wonderful poem---an exchange of gifts---poet eats plums, in return gives beauty and deliciousness in a different form. The plum "owner" can now savor and appreciate them in a way he (she) might never have thought of, has had a new world opened.

First off, I just want to say that I love this poem. I believe it's about simplicity: a simple transgression, a simple food, a simple confession, a simple pleasure. Authors are not stupid, when they write something they know if people are going to understand it or not. Have any of you read "The Red Wheelbarrow"? I understand that one even less than this, but it's beautiful too. I just don't think Williams was hiding anything in his poems like this. When I read other poems he wrote that are more clear and more detailed, I know he doesn't just write this way all the time. It's just an artistic impression of a feeling or an event.

I don't think this poem has any sexual meanings. You can't get that out of this poem if you take every single word into account, there are conflicting words for any such subliminal interpretation you grasp for. For instance, why would a guy that took a girl's virginity refer to her virginity as "THE plums" in "THE icebox." He would say "your plums," "your icebox."

Now, I read the Bible and believe it to be God's Word. But if you want to use the Biblical interpretation of original sin as the theme of this poem, are you implying that Adam is telling God that God was saving these "plums of tempation" for His breakfast? For some, that may open a comprably facinating avenue to the sexual innuendo, but if you have any respect for God at all, it's blasphemy and stupud.

So in conclusion, it's good to be analytical when reading literature. If you're not, you're missing a lot of things; some literary works take a lot of examination to understand. But "This is Just to Say" is not one of those works. It is what it is, it says just what it says.

There are suggestions here that a message left on the fridge is a dubious source for finding poetic greatness. But had Williams merely wanted to leave a note for his wife, why didn't he begin with the more concise "I ate" instead of "I have eaten"? (Compare Genesis 3:11 - "Hast thou eaten of the tree . . .?") A close reading also reveals deliberate sound patterns running through the text, pointing to a conscious poetic form. (Note particularly the preponderance of "o" words.) Yet I find truth in many of the comments, including those on the "message" side of the message/poem dichotomy. I've concluded that perhaps the most remarkable thing about "This is just to say" is that it can be read both as a banal, if somewhat heartless love note, and at the same time as a poem with all the sorts of internal tensions and deeper meanings that make it a great poem. Both readings, it seems to me, coexist in the same text.