The Spoken Word

This poem, "To Elsie," by William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was the last e-mail I received from Okwui in early 2019. At that point, he was reading a lot of poetry out loud. I imagine that he needed to conjure up the idea that one could create art, and sustain life, from the spoken word. Okwui had one of the most beautiful voices, and he put his passion into every single word, as if it would be his last.

To Elsie

William Carlos Williams

The pure products of Americago crazy—mountain folk from Kentucky

or the ribbed north end ofJerseywith its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thievesold namesand promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have takento railroadingout of sheer lust of adventure—

and young slatterns, bathedin filthfrom Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that nightwith gaudsfrom imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give themcharacterbut flutter and flaunt

sheer rags—succumbing withoutemotionsave numbed terror

under some hedge of choke-cherryor viburnum—which they cannot express—

Unless it be that marriageperhapswith a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolateso hemmed roundwith disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by anagent—reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work insome hard-pressedhouse in the suburbs—

some doctor's family, some Elsie—voluptuous waterexpressing with broken

brain the truth about us—her greatungainly hips and flopping breasts

addressed to cheapjewelryand rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feetwerean excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisonersdestinedto hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strainsafter deergoing by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of SeptemberSomehowit seems to destroy us

It is only in isolate flecks thatsomethingis given off

No oneto witnessand adjust, no one to drive the car

William Carlos Williams, "To Elsie," from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909–1939. © 1938, New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.