"The Mind and the Poem Are All Apiece": William Carlos Williams and the Dysfluent Poetics of Aphasia.
William Carlos Williams's later poetry engages the mind via a visually striking but critically obscure formal innovation: the variable foot. From the perspective of Williams's late-in-life experiences with post-stroke aphasia and physical disability, the variable foot poems exalt the bodymind's reso...
| Published in: | Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 48; no. 2; pp. 60 - 82 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Indiana University Press
Winter2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=183810593&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 183810593 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0022281X JML jtl: Journal of Modern Literature issn: 0022281X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Winter2025 vid: 48 iid: 2 pid: 211 pub: Indiana University Press artinfo: ui: 183810593 10.2979/jml.00070 ppf: 60 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 834KB tig: atl: "The Mind and the Poem Are All Apiece": William Carlos Williams and the Dysfluent Poetics of Aphasia. aug: au: Careyva, Jeffrey affil: Harvard University su: Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963 Aphasia Disabilities Mind & body American poetry Sound recording & reproducing sug: subj: Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963 Aphasia Disabilities Mind & body American poetry Sound recording & reproducing keyword: audio recordings disability dysfluency performance William Carlos Williams ab: William Carlos Williams's later poetry engages the mind via a visually striking but critically obscure formal innovation: the variable foot. From the perspective of Williams's late-in-life experiences with post-stroke aphasia and physical disability, the variable foot poems exalt the bodymind's resources for poetic expression while acknowledging the newfound precarity of Williams's own voice, language abilities, and bodymind. In the many recordings of him reading his poetry, we can hear how Williams adjusts his audience's expectations for his dysfluent speech as he employs this signature form as a kind of accessible formatting. Williams's identification in these poems with noisy geese and headless sparrows suggests the potential for dysfluency, rather than traditional eloquence, to push American poetry toward new sonic horizons. Moreover, the composition and performance of Williams's later works highlight the formative role that dysfluency and disability have played in shaping modern American poetry. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Modern Literature is the property of Indiana University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Modern Literature holder: Indiana University Press dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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