William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just to Say"

Personally, I am a big fan of William Carlos Williams' poetry. I've always preferred shorter poems that can portray their message in a more concise form. While my favorite poem by him is "The Red Wheelbarrow" I also really love his poem "This Is Just to Say".

When first reading "This Is Just to Say", it may not look like much and may not have a clear message. The poem is very short, a mere 12 lines. There isn't any clear meter in it, and it doesn't rhyme at all. In fact, it looks like it is nothing more than a note to someone that was then formatted to look like a poem. There is no complex theme of life or relationships or anything; it is merely a poem about eating plums that someone had in the fridge.

The simplicity of this poem is exactly why I love it and laugh every time I read it. While some poets went to great lengths to include flowery words and vague references to dead people and sophisticated philosophical ideas, William Carlos Williams wrote a note about plums. I always laugh because it's what I call an "apology that isn't really an apology". After explaining that he ate the plums with the knowledge that someone else wanted to eat them, he asks for forgiveness but says that they were "delicious so sweet and so cold". In other words, he doesn't want the owner of the plums to be mad at him, but he also doesn't regret eating them because they were really good.

The blatant succinctness and uncommon theme of the poem makes me wonder if William Carlos Williams wrote this poem with the purpose of pointing out how few poems are like it. I have never heard of any other poem that talks about eating plums that someone left in the fridge, and I think that Williams probably noticed this as well. Since poems are meant to express emotions and feelings that readers can relate to, why would there be no poems about such a human topic? It's not like no one has ever had the experience of taking something that wasn't theirs and then apologizing half-heartedly; it's just that most wouldn't regard it as incredibly intellectual.

I hope I haven't completely misinterpreted the poem in such a way that Williams turns in his grave. Whether or not he intended a deeper meaning that I simply missed, I will always love this poem and laugh when I read it or recite it in my head.