Paterson

by William Carlos Williams, Christopher MacGowan (Editor)

Overview

Long recognized as a masterpiece of modern American poetry, William Carlos Williams' Paterson is one man's testament and vision, "a humanist manifesto enacted in five books, a grammar to help us live" (Denis Donoghue).

Paterson is both a place—the New Jersey city in whom the person (the poet's own life) and the public (the history of the region) are combined. Originally four books (published individually between 1946 and 1951), the structure of Paterson (in Dr. Williams' words) "follows the course of teh Passaic River" from above the great falls to its entrance into the sea. The unexpected Book Five, published in 1958, affirms the triumphant life of the imagination, in spite of age and death. This revised edition has been meticulously re-edited by Christopher MacGowan, who has supplied a wealth of notes and explanatory material.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811212984
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/17/1995
Series:	New Directions Paperback 806 806
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	317,569
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Besides being a practicing physician, William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was a poet, short-story writer, novelist, translator, playwright, and essayist whose contribution to the development of modern American poetry grew out of his commitment to recording the "local" experience of Rutherford, New Jersey, and its environs.

What People are Saying About This

Robert Lowell

"'Paterson' is Whitman's America, grown pathetic and tragic, brutalized by inequality, disorganized by industrialized chaos, and faced with annihilation. This new poet has written a verse with such a combination of brilliance, sympathy, an experience, with such alertness and energy."

M. L. Rosenthal

"Fear is essential to this poet's achievement that only his generousity of spirit, but...a face in the meaning of experienced reality and in the power of art to reveal it."

Editorial Reviews

Despite its epic scope, Paterson is often chosen by nonspecialists, such as the social critic Robert Coles, as the way in to a discovery of Williams' exuberant and humane career as a poet. The going is made easier and the way is clarified by this invaluable new edition, for in it Williams' achievement can be seen in its proper context. His social concern, for instance, in contrast to that of other modernists, becomes more apparent. Misprints have been corrected, fugitive verses or sources have been tracked down, tab spaces have been restored and the crowded typography of recent editions has been opened up. Textual notes are thorough. We learn, for instance, that Williams changed the phrase ``seldom dig'' in a letter of Allen Ginsberg's excerpted here to ``seldom did,'' probably because the older poet did not know the Beat usage. Williams at his strongest is as good an American poet as there has been; still, it must be noted that not all of the five books of Paterson (plus fragments of a sixth) are up to that level. Yet, with this edition, the important project of re-editing Williams' poetry is skillfully completed. The work of an experimental master is laid out in a definitive edition. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With this appearance of his magnum opus, the publisher's laudable project of republishing Williams's poetic oeuvre in modern scholarly editions has been completed. The high quality of the two volumes of Collected Poems ( LJ 7/88; LJ 10/86) is replicated here. MacGowan's fine edition sorts out the poem's complicated textual history. His notes will be most useful to future readers, students, and scholars, as they elucidate difficulties and clarify the provenance of the many prose excerpts from various sources included in this unique work. A modernist classic, Paterson is a nativist's answer to the cosmopolitan Pound and Eliot, ``a reply to Greek and Latin with the bare hands.'' By exploring the local, Williams sought to descry the universal and to find in city and landscape symbolic analogues for the essential issues of human life. Highly recommended.-- Frank J. Lepkowski, Oakland Univ., Rochester, Mich.

Library Journal

Throw out your dog-eared, your pencil-scrawled, your pale, fading copies of earlier incarnations. This is the definitive edition of Williams' compassionate but clear-eyed poem about man and modernity in America, revised and annotated by Christopher MacGowan. Published by New Directions Publishing, 80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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