Approach of Winter

“Willow Poem” by William Carlos Williams (1921)

Included in Sour Grapes, “Willow Poem,” which comes immediately before “Approach of Winter” in the collection, is a kind of prelude to it. It captures the animation of the willow tree still in the throes of late summer. The willow still maintains its summer colors, “oblivious to winter” (Line 12), still enjoys the summer winds that herald the slow change of season. Williams here delights in immersing the poem in exact detailing, forsaking emotional indulgences and lyrical ornamentation of traditional nature poetry to present a picture of a willow tree on a late summer day.

“Tall Nettles” by Edward Thomas (1916)

An expression of the lean and stripped visual argument of Imagism, this brief lyric captures in clear and undecorated language the landscape of a rural farm, specifically the delight the poet feels when he sees nettles, resilient flowers, pushing through rusting farm implements. As with Williams’s poem, the poet slyly resists converting the image into some tidy lesson about, say, nature and time and mortality. Rather, the poem delights in the colors, lines, and unexpected collision of shapes and textures.

“In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound (1913)