Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern. Today is

February 19th, 2020. And before I get into today's poem, which is by William Carlos Williams,

I wanted to let you know that we have chosen winners for the most recent competition, the

illustration competition that we did. I wanted to apologize that has been a little bit

later than usual. But those winners have been announced. You can go to close reads.substack.com

to see the announcement or head over to at close reads pods on Instagram to see the announcement

there as well. So we'll post some of those winning illustrations on the page with a note to the young winners.

We chose four winners from the different age groups, and we were really impressed with everything

that got sent in.

So we'll have a new competition coming soon.

But congratulations to those winners, and thanks so much to everyone who participated.

Again, it's closereads.substack.com to see you the posting or at close reads pods on Instagram.

Well, today's poem is by William Carlis Williams, as I said. He was an American poet and a doctor,

actually, who lived from 1883 to 1963. And the poem that I'm going to read today is called

The Term. It goes like this. A rumpled sheet

of brown paper about the length and apparent bulk of a man was rolling with the wind,

slowly over and over in the street, as a car drove down upon it and crushed it to the ground.

Unlike a man, it rose again, rolling with the wind over and over to be as it was before.

I first discovered, I ran across this poem, in a book called The Poetry of William Carlos

Williams of Brotherford. It's by Wendell Berry. Many of you who are listening know of my appreciation,

my affection for Wendell Berry and his work and, you know, his poetry, his essays, and his fiction.

And I wanted to actually share with you some of his comments on this poem because I, first of all, they would do a better job than what I could do.

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