Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Monday, April 26th.

And today I'm going to read for you a poem by American poet William Carlos Williams.

William Carlos Williams lived from 1883 to 1963. He's well known for being part of the modernist and imagist schools, meaning his poetry is very accessible.

And also, as an imagist, it has usually a central image taken from nature that's explored in different ways.

William Carlos Williams was also a doctor.

So in addition to his work as a poet, he also had a long and illustrious career as a physician. He practiced both pediatrics and general medicine, and he takes the precision and detail and the, how do I put it, the art of paying attention. He takes that from his work as a doctor and incorporates that into his poetry. And today's poem is actually untitled in its collection. It comes from Spring and All, a collection from 1923. This poem is often called The Farmer or The Farmer in Deep Thought, which is its first line. This is how it goes.

The farmer in deep thought is pacing through the rain among his blank fields with hands and pockets.

In his head, the harvest already planted. A cold wind ruffles the water among the browned weeds.

On all sides, the world rolls coldly away. A cold wind ruffles the water among the browned weeds.

On all sides, the world rolls coldly away.

Black orchards darkened by the march clouds, leaving room for thought.

Down past the brushwood bristling by the rain-sloosed wagon road looms the artist figure of the farmer,

composing antagonistic.

It's a very short poem, but dense and very, very rich.

A lot of poetry about spring is very optimistic.

It focuses on the world coming back to life, you

know, the blooms on the leaves and stems unfolding from the dark earth and replacing the

darkness and the deadness of winter. But this poem takes a different tack. It has a different

kind of contemplation on spring. The central figure of this poem is The Farmer. And in the poem, the Farmer is compared to an artist. And this is quite an interesting comparison, isn't it? For those of you who are familiar with the Bible, you'll recognize from this poem allusions to the book of Genesis.

It's not necessarily a religious poem, but it does have this allusion to the Genesis

record of creation in which God is seen essentially as an artist, creating the world out of nothing.

Genesis 1 says that God was brooding over creation, hovering over the surface of the

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