#cretic dimeter

[wordmakingpoets]

Poetry Analysis: “This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams

I told myself I’d avoid poems I looked at in school with professors, but here I am anyway. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out to be a complete copy of a lecture I attended two years ago.

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

Here’s the gist of the poem: the speaker ate plums that the addressee was saving. Some think this was an actual note Williams wrote for his wife as an apology that he later turned into a found poem. The shape resembles a receipt or grocery list or maybe a napkin, a simple note a spouse might scratch out before leaving the house for work in the morning. If it is just a scrap of paper, why call it poetry? Why is it worth reading? Personally, as a married woman who often lives a very domestic life, I like the idea that there is beauty in our everyday language. I like all of the things we can communicate without realizing.The text says what the text says.

I’d like to start with some observations that are not mine but are necessary for further discussion: what does the text reveal about the speaker and the addressee? Who are the I and the you? The first word is “I,” a bit of an aggressive start. The speaker is openly selfish and in a comfortable enough relationship with the addressee that the speaker does not even say, “I’m sorry.” Even without the knowledge that this poem is a note from William Carlos Williams to his wife, we can see their relationship on the page. The plums were in the icebox for the addressee’s breakfast, but she didn’t get to eat them yet. The speaker either left early in the morning before the addressee woke up for breakfast, or he arrive home late at night and saw tasty plums for the taking while the addressee is likely sleeping. The speaker knows he will be forgiven. To me, the last two lines aren’t so much gloating as, “btw babe, they were good. you can be happy that I enjoyed them.” It’s this kind of assertiveness and trust that leads me (and a bunch of other readers) to refer to the speaker as “he” and the addressee as “she.” As a married woman, I can vouch that this little note is an accurate glimpse of domestic life.

And now, the formal analysis:

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

Line 1 is trochaic dimeter followed by the iambic line 2. “the plums” is a metrical surprise, that little drop in your stomach when you peek into the fridge and see your leftovers are eaten. Line 3 is maybe an anapest, maybe cretic. Cretic would make the entire poem so far more or less trochaic: – u – u / u – / – u – / u – – this reading makes “the plums” and “box” the only irregularities. The trochees may be broken up but the pulse is still there. Line 4 is the rarely-seen bacchius, u – – , extra stress on “icebox” that already demands a slow-down to account for the c and x with the labial b in between. Line 5 is maybe pyrrhic? Iambic? Line 6 is trochee + dactyl IMO it’s basically two trochees, just with that little “bub” thrown in. We say “probly” most of the time anyway. Line 7, another trochee, supports my trochaic pulse theory. Line 8 and 9 are mirrors, amphibrachs that look similar, too. Line 10 is trochee + amphibrach OR dactyl + trochee. Line 11 is a spondee. Line 12 is another bacchius, cute symmetry with the coldness of “the icebox.”  

Stanza 1 has a triple “th” in the first words of lines 2-4. The “I” becomes that much more apparent. Stanza 2 has “which” and “were,” “probably” and “breakfast,” “for” and “breakfast.” Stanza 3 has “s” consonance going on, “delicious,” “so sweet,” “so.” Is it hissing? It ties back to “plums,” “icebox,” and “saving.” The title, too, is full of s’s. For assonance, there’s “eaten,” “sweet,” and “me,” three very key words to the poem. Of these elements, I think the “s” consonance will prove to be the most meaningful as it continues through the whole poem.

The word “were” shows up three times, the only word to do so. The repetition fills me with a sense of past-ness, of haunting, of something lost than cannot be regained.

The first line uses the perfect tense, as in “I have eaten.” Perfect tense describes an action that happened in the past but has continuing effects up to the relative present. For more information on perfect tense, click HERE. The speaker acknowledges the effects of his actions, that because he ate the plums, he gets to reap the benefits of tastiness, and his wife is left in plumlessness.

What is there to say about this poem that has not been said?

Plums are fruit. Fruit carries a lot of connotations in literature--life, youth, Eden, sexual organs. They look a bit like apples, only smaller and much deeper in color. I won’t pretend I’m being original in bringing up Eden alongside this poem--in fact, it was not among my first instincts at all--but it probably needs to be said. These are fruits that are forbidden to the speaker, yet he eats them anyway. Rather than blame anyone for his actions or hide behind fig leaves, he owns up to his actions and admits the fruit was too tempting. Or maybe this note functions as a kind of fig leaf, avoiding having to make that face-to-face confrontation. The speaker can hide behind the note and put off facing the consequences of his actions. (If we imagine this poem as a physical note, it might even be called a “leaf” of paper.) The “s” consonance from earlier comes to mind with the Eden motif, perhaps the hissing of a serpent teasing the temptation of delicious fruit, “so sweet, so cold.”

I think I’ve said about as much as I can about this poem for the time being. The next time you write a note to your roommate about eating the leftovers or not cleaning the kitchen, just think--it could get published and analyzed by nerds like me.

[i-scan-your-poems]

full scansion:

– ◡ – / – ◡ – do it drunk. / do it high – ◡ /– ◡ /– ◡ /– do it / with a/nother /guy

metrical form: Cretic dimeter in line 1; in line 2 the cretics are joined by an unstressed syllable to create a trochaic tetrameter catalectic line. rhyme scheme: rhyming couplet other notes: This is the same form as leg so hot / hot hot leg / leg so hot u fry an eg.

do it drunk. do it high

[i-scan-your-poems]

full scansion:

– ◡ / – ◡ / – ◡ / – bitter / person / bitter / face – ◡ – / – ◡ – bitter foods / bitter taste

metrical form: Cretic dimeter in line 2; in line 1 the cretics are joined by an unstressed syllable to create a trochaic tetrameter catalectic line. rhyme scheme: rhyming couplet

An accidental poem, by Google