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

 

1.              What has the speaker eaten?

 

2.              How does the speaker say that the plums tasted?

 

3.              Whom is the speaker addressing in the poem?

 

 

4.              What connotation does the title, ÒThis Is Just to Say,Ó lend to the poem?

 

 

5.              Imagine that you are the recipient of the poem, which you have found on the kitchen table, explaining why your plums are missing from the icebox.  Would you forgive the speaker of the poem, as he asks?  Why or why not? 

 

 

The Red Wheelbarrow

 

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

 

 

6.              With what is the red wheelbarrow glazed?

 

7.              beside what do the white chickens stand?

 

8.              What colors are part of the image?  What happens to your perception when those colors are placed beside each other?

 

9.              How does the presence of the rainwater emphasize the momentariness of the image?

 

10.           How does the phrase Òso much depends/uponÓ intensify the image of the red wheelbarrow?

 

The Dance

 

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess

 

11.           What do the dancers do ÒIn BrueghelÕs great pictureÓ?

 

12.           What instruments are making the music?

13.           What actions on the part of the dancers suggest celebration and enjoyment?

 

 

14.           What sounds of the instruments support Òthe rollicking measuresÓ they create?

 

 

15.           As the dancers Ògo roundÓ in the great picture, how does the poem Ògo roundÓ on the page?  

 

 

                                               

Choose the poem you liked the best.  What struck you about this poem?

 

 

 

 

 

Cite two passages that you find appealing.  What is your gut reaction to these passages?