So now we're looking at This is Just to Say, which is the title and also really the beginning of the poem, first line, by William Carlos Williams. And what, what, what's, what's the story here? Amaris, what's going on? What happened? >> Well, Williams is a very inconsiderate husband and decided to selfishly. >> How do we know it was a husband? >> Well. >> Pretty easy assumption based on. >> Because we know that he's living with someone whose intentions he was aware of, that she was going to eat the plums probably that were in the ice box. >> So, at the time this is a, a, a this is a marriage. Is it a new marriage in the, in the honeymoon glow? >> No. They clearly have a routine going, since he knows what she eats for breakfast, he knows her habits and preferences. >> Why would he think? >> And knows that she will forgive him. >> He know's that's why. >> Xo. >> He's, he's appeticious. >> William Carlos Williams is this is. He's appeticious. This is a word that Bob Furhlman likes to use and I think it's completely right here. He's hungry but I think it's better to say he's appeticious. He has desire. So he just, he's the kind of guy and the kind of poet who just takes what he wants. Yeah? >> Mm-hm. Okay. Is, alright, here we go now, Max, is there a sexual politics? When, when, when there's this, boy did I go all the way to the [crosstalk]. [laugh] Is there a sexual politics? I mean this is a marriage, is Amaris I think rightly deduces. It's comfortable. Each knows the other and he does what he, takes what he wants. >> Sure he has a certain sense of, of privilege and entitlement that we see here in the poem. Even though it is, it's playful, he still knows that she was saving these. And she was planning to eat these. And he, he went in. There was a sort of, a violation of, of well of her property and also above her space and, and. >> And when he. >> Instead of going in and taking what he wants. >> When Williams commented on this he said, well it's almost a rape of the icebox. Rape of the icebox, so. >> True. That's. >> He clearly. >> Loaded word. Yeah. >> It's a loaded word. >> Men, also if we think Flossie's response, she's, it's also playful but it's very, it's generous, it's giving, it's, it's forgiving too and in, in fact instead of making mention about the poems that he ate out of the icebox she just replenished the ice box. She's, it's sort of her role to make sure he is well feed. That he has his, his lunch waiting for. >> I think it's generous but it's also a touch condescending too which talks about the tea and just turn on the gas like that's all you have to do. [laugh]. >> [crosstalk] like some who doesn't understand the kitchen. >> Which I don't think he does. >> Which he, which he does. >> All he understands is what he wants, and so he takes. >> Yeah. >> She's the happy genius of that asshole. >> If, if her poem, is successful as a poem, then she is the happy genius, or the, the somewhat unhappy genius. But the question is whether what he gets out of this situation? What does Bill Williams get out of this situation? Emily, what would you say he gets from it? >> A sensory experience. >> He gets to eat a plum, which is just about as juicy a thing. >> And restore them in the poem. >> What's that? >> And restore them in the poem, in a sense. >> He gets the poem. >> Yeah. This is, this, this is not just a refrigerator note, an exchange of refrigerator notes. This is a family where the husband and wife aren't seeing each other in the course of the day because he's a doctor and he has his practice. That's referred to in her note, please switch off the telephone. Several people called up about office hours. I'm kind of tired of taking all the calls for your, from your patients. You know, it's, this is difficult, this life, this arrangement we have. And they don't see each other so they exchange refrigerator notes, as we call them. It's a genre. Anybody ever left a refrigerator note or a kitchen note? What's the context socially? What are you, what, what's the purpose of their genre? >> Well it's informational. But it's also very tonal all of the time. And I definitely think that there's something maybe aggressive and this is just to say, and definitely passive-aggressive in reply. >> Passive-aggressive in reply and just plain old aggressive in his. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, in a way, this is also part of the breakthrough of modernism. Williams writes a poem, makes a poem out of a note, a domestic note. Are we to celebrate that? I like to celebrate it to the extent that we do celebrate it. Why, Anna? >> Well, I think, the kind of incidental nature of it is what makes it so sweet. >> Sweet. Keep going. So, sweet. >> So sweet, so compact, so. >> Everybody else? >> So cold. >> [laugh] >> [laugh] >> Cold, in one way, yes. Sweet, domestic, keep going. >> [crosstalk] been very ordinary. >> I mean this is, this is the great about Williamson's colleagues at this point. They're taking, this never would have been a poem in the high Victorian period. We needed grand, subjects. And certainly dipped domesticity down to this level. And intimacy, the sexual politics of a marriage well on. That kind of comfort level that creates this kind of tension that doesn't get confronted. >> You can think about this refrigerator note as kind of a ready made, if you think about it, like, in the [unknown] sense. >> Take, take the, take the refrigerator note and put it in the museum and say that's art. It's just as audacious, almost. >> Yeah. >> There's also something, about. >> This is playing off a film that's a epistolary tradition, especially of we think of, of the response, and we think of epistolary mode as letters between lovers, and this is sort of, a reduction, almost somebody said earlier, a quotidian domestic version of that, to go to what you were saying about sexual politics [crosstalk]. >> But If it were really a ready made. Then the note would be in prose and it would be presented as hand written. What does Williams do to the thing he could have found is on note, what does he do to aestheticise it? What are some of the things that he does? I mean obviously he lineates it. Can you say a little more about that, what does he do? Dave? What did you do? This isn't a refrigerator note, it's a poem. >> Well, just on the surface level, he breaks it up into stanzas. >> Okay, we haven't seen too many refrigerator notes that are in stanzas. >> [laugh]. >> Well, it's the same thing that [unknown] does arguably, by taking the yarn on and turning it on it's head. He's, it's a ready-made, but he's also manipulating it in someway. >> Slightly. >> Yeah. >> This is more than slight. >> Yeah, I would agree. >> I don't think it's ready-made. I think. I think that in crafting the poem, he kind of endows the situation that he's writing about with a poetic quality, which isn't ready-made in the poem and I think that's kind of the point. >> That's what ready-made does it takes a normal object, and turns it into an artistic object. I think, I think that's what [unknown]. >> But with surprisingly little effort. >> Right, right. >> That turns out to be significant. This looks like. >> But there's definitely craft here in. >> A lot of effort this is, this is, this is an ingenious poem taken to a domestic situation you know, again, like the Poundean situation. I've got plumbs. I've got you. And what do I do? I don't describe what I've done to you. The violation I describe. How sweet And how cold and how wonderful the experience was, and that's what I want. And what I really want is a poem. So I've taken this domestic situation and turned it into a poem. It's my benefit, it's a little likely encounter. What's left from that encounter, is an image of a person who eyed Pound and turned into a Japanese paper napkin, and is now in the last line of a poem that Pound wrote. Very Poundean. Can we go back finally to the rape of the icebox? Any, any other thing that has to be said about that? We are not jumping up and down with anger at Williams. Amaris, Williams fan? >> Yeah, I mean well we're taking part in his appreciation and then the experience of the plum, so that's the word for [crosstalk]. >> Lost is gone, the plum is long, long gone. >> Yeah, his description remains however. >> The poem, the poem remains and it's the thing we celebrate. How wonderful that Williams could make a domestic situation into a poem. He gets all the credit for it. No problem with that because we do believe in arts. Quasi eternal offering to us, Emily? >> I don't know, but he still steal the plums, didn't he? I, I'm just a little bit hung up on this. There, there just seems to sort of, dare I say a kind, a kind of narcissism and taking his own sort of unfiltered and maybe very minimally treated experience in saying this is art and appreciative as such. And it gives me a type of ability to transgress so he might not otherwise have. >> So in a domestic situation. One, the husband can take the wife's plum. Wife can take the, husband's plum. But when you render it into a poem the husband who's a poet can make it a poem that is anthologized forever. The wife can write a note somewhat prosaic that gets crumpled up on her desk and apparently retyped by Williams and put into his archive where we have to fetch it out of the garbage as it were and create her alternate subjectivity as a kind of restorative. So finally the domestic situation is potentially equal. But the poetic situation is unequal. Let's close by saying something about the title. This is just to say so many people have used that. I use that all the time if I want to do what? This is just, so it's just a great little preface. Max, rhetorically what's it doing? This is just to say. >> It's, it's establishing the occasion for his, his speech, for his utterance. It's. >> And what kind of occasion? A grand occasion, for heroism? >> No, not at all. It's, it's, it's just opening that little space where he can, he can just say. >> And not make a big deal of it. >> And not making a big stink. >> Even though he's done something, terrible. >> [laugh] >> And I think it keeps it about him, instead of being instead of saying Dear Flossie as the title or To my Wife. >> Yeah. >> It's. >> You have this, meaning this poem. And then you have say. Justice, the word just seems to be fake modesty. I've just, I've written. >> I think it's all fake modesty. >> A fantastic thing. It's all fake modesty. Dave, final word. >> Believing the apology is funny because he does say, forgive me, but then he can't help himself and he goes to rubs it in some more. >> Forgive me I couldn't help myself I'm, I'm appeticious, I'll take advantage of you and I make an art out of it. I win. It's a win-win situation for him. And I think it's a lose-lose for her. But I'm not sure, could be a lose win, but probably a lose-lose. Oh well, I suppose the messages don't marry a poet ... >> [laugh].
