William Carlos Williams' "The Gift"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2021

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism.

In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pediatrics and general medicine. He was affiliated with Passaic General Hospital, where he served as the hospital's chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death. The hospital, which is now known as St. Mary's General Hospital, paid tribute to Williams with a memorial plaque that states "We walk the wards that Williams walked".[1]

Bio via Wikipedia

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Monday, December 20th.
0:06.8	Today I'm going to read for you a poem by one of my very favorite poets, William Carlos Williams.
0:13.3	He was an American poet and a physician. He was born in 1883, and he died in 1963, and he's known as a modern poet. Today's poem is called the gift and this is how it goes.
0:29.9	As the wise men of old brought gifts guided by a star to the humble birthplace of the god of love,
0:37.1	the devils as an old print shows,
0:40.3	retreated in confusion. What could a baby know of gold ornaments or frankincense and myrrh,
0:47.8	of priestly robes and devout genuflections? But the imagination knows all stories before they are told and knows the truth
0:57.2	of this one past all defection. The rich gifts so unsuitable for a child, though devoutly proffered,
1:06.2	stood for all that love can bring. The men were old. How could they know of a mother's needs or a child's
1:13.3	appetite? But as they kneeled, the child was fed. They saw it and gave praise. A miracle had taken place,
1:23.3	hard gold to love a mother's milk before their wondering eyes. The ass braid, the cattle load.
1:31.8	It was their nature. All men by their nature give praise. It is all they can do. The very devils by
1:39.7	their flight give praise. What is death beside this? Nothing. The wise men came with gifts and bowed down to
1:49.6	worship this perfection. This is a straightforward religious poem. It's a poem about Christmas,
2:00.6	about the incarnation, about God made flesh and
2:04.8	dwelling among us. What's really lovely to me, whether you're a believer or not, is the power
2:12.5	that poetry has to capture an enduring fundamental and essential story.
2:21.8	And this poem does that.
2:23.2	Whether you are a Christian or not a Christian, whether you think Christ was really born in a manger,
2:28.6	God made flesh, or whether you see it as a beautiful story. There's something so powerful about the idea of
2:35.9	transcendence, something beyond the ability of this world to hold, to be made into something
2:44.1	concrete. It's that unity of the abstract and the concrete that is so enduring about this
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.