Al Que Quiere! (and 18 more poems)

These are the poems that announced a revolution. Written by a doctor who worked in the streets of Rutherford, New Jersey, these eighteen pieces strip poetry down to its bones: the pulse of a woman's wrist, the plums in an icebox, the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain. Published in 1919, they arrive with the fierce conviction that American poetry need not bow to European tradition. Williams writes in short, sharp lines that hit like urban jazz, finding the extraordinary buried in the ordinary. This is Imagism made flesh, Objectivism with a stethoscope pressed to the chest of everyday life. For readers who believe poetry should feel like being hit with a fist wrapped in velvet, these early works are the proof.