[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: A RIVER OF WORDS: THE STORY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: A RIVER OF WORDS: THE STORY  OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS by 
Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, Eerdmans  Books for Young Readers, 
July 2008, 32p. ISBN:  978-0-8028-5302-8
 
Dawn
 
Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings--
beating color up into it
at a far edge,--beating, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,--
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,--
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself--is lifted--
bit by bit above the edge
of things,--runs free at last
out into the open--lumbering
glorified in full release upward--
                                          songs cease
--a William Carlos Williams poem I found online this morning  as the dawn 
broke
 
William Carlos Williams is one of those dead American poets  about whom I 
have always had vague-yet-positive sentiments.  I believe  that some short-time 
high school girlfriend admired him a lot.  I  think that I've also seen him 
listed as an influence on the back of  some musician's record sleeve, or perhaps 
he is mentioned in a young  adult novel.  And I am confident that I have 
briefly encountered  his work both in a class (undoubtedly, amidst some anthology 
of poems) and  amongst the reading comprehension questions on some  
long-forgotten standardized test.
 
And so, as the result of some influence or other stored  in the recesses of 
my brain, I react positively to the name William Carlos  Williams and was thus 
pleased to discover last night that the UPS  guy had delivered a copy of A 
RIVER OF WORDS, a picturebook  biography of the poet.
 
I was even more pleased by the true story I found within the  book.
 
"But when the other boys went inside,
Willie stayed outside..."
 
William Carlos Williams was not one to text message, play  video games, or 
hang out in the mall.  (Not that those  diversions existed during his lifetime, 
but you know what I mean.)   Instead, he was one of those kids who wandered in 
the woods, using his  senses to absorb details of the world, and then pouring 
out his  visions into poems.  
 
Of course, writing poetry is oftentimes just  slightly more lucrative than is 
writing Richie's Picks, so Williams's  mom persuaded him to become a family 
doctor.  And the wonderful thing  is that he became friends with some brilliant 
and artsy students at  the university, which helped him to not lose sight of 
his first love --  poetry -- when he grew up and subsequently went around  
doctoring:  
 
"On his prescription pads, he scribbled a few  lines 
whenever and wherever he could.
In those precious times, 
the rhythm of the river he had rested beside
as a child seemed to guide him.  Like the  water
that sometimes ran slow, smooth, and steady,
and other times came rushing in a hurried flood,
Willie's lines flowed across the page." 
 
I love how the book's illustrations are filled with words, as  if Willie 
could see lines of poetry splashing in the river or scrolling down the  side of a 
patient's house.  Written in verse, the text throughout is brief  in word 
count yet full of the essence of the poet's life.  A two-page  timeline follows 
the story, while bits and pieces of his poems decorate the  endpages
 
In the same way that I was influenced as a child by THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
THOMAS JEFFERSON -- the book that taught me how one can seem to  always be doing 
ten different things at the same time -- A RIVER  OF WORDS will be an 
empowering revelation to creative young adolescents who  are beginning to toy with 
ideas of what they might do in their  lives when they grow up.  
 
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 





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