Why I'm Keeping the Day Job(s).

Remembering William Carlos Williams,  
 America’s Preeminent Physician-Poet

William Carlos Williams (1883 -1963)
master poet and model physician.

Posted by Stony Brook Surgery on March 4, 2013

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of physician-poet William Carlos Williams, famous for such poems as "The Red Wheelbarrow" and Paterson, his epic masterpiece.

He was 79 when he died.

Williams ("Doc" to his patients) produced a remarkable body of work, having started to publish his many books around the First World War.

Posthumously, in May of 1963, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, published the previous year.

During his lifetime, Williams published some 20 books of poetry as well as 17 books of prose, including novels, and he delivered more than 2,000 babies.

Williams has been called the single most important American poet of the 20th century. Why? Critic Adam Kirsch, in a recent review of three new Williams books, offers a good answer:

"Williams is the 20th-century poet who has done most to influence our very conception of what poetry should do, and how much it does not need to do."

Also a short-story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator  -- while practicing as a physician (he became chief of pediatrics at Passaic General Hospital) -- Williams played a leading role in establishing modernism in the United States, and our breaking away from the literary dictates of England. In the tradition of Walt Whitman, he championed and advanced American poetry.

Williams dedicated himself to writing poetry of finely crafted images of the world around him, in particular of New Jersey where he lived and New York City which he loved

"The poem springs from the half spoken words of the patient.... When asked, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing." — WCW

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I think of all American artists, WCW was one who understood best the need to fuel the artistry through the practical daily work:  His poetry kep his artistic life alive; his job helped the artist inside survive.

While I'm no William Carlos Williams, I am a practicing attorney and a pretty good writer. 

The document review work is not like pulling babies from the womb, but allows me access to many (many!) of the documents behind the stories of our times (ie/ the headlining fall/bailed out rise, and subsequent lawsuits against, a major GoldStar financial firm -- confidential documents that even decent investigative journalists would not be privvy too, while I have confidential access and sometimes even work on the legal teams creating the privilege logs.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for fodder for my writing, and I respect the legal ethics of my work, which include confidentiality pledges, but I think I understand what WCW loved or needed about the balance.

His wasn't an esoteric life, like perhaps lived by those who solely write, or teach, or engage in artistic or academic pursuits.  Nor was I ever able to get by with just a good-paying job with good benefits -- after time, usually only a few years, something chafed and I was back chasing the meaningful outlets that meant more than just a steady paycheck.

By writing and working, making money and making something here for myself, I find that balance.

He won his Pulitzer posthumously and his practice never overcame but enhanced his written work.  He valued the art, but understood the primary importance of life too, delivering babies and practicing medicine.  He find time for both, and by all accounts, peformed beautifully.

Something to aspire too...

"A Sort of a Song"

 Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.

through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.