If the persona in "This Is Just to Say" was somewhat emotionally restrained, we see an effusion of desire in this next poem. 

"O Western Wind," a 16th century anonymous lyric, provides us a speaker who longs for spring and the intimate company of a beloved.

Early lyrics (derived from the Greek word for the lyre) were poems usually sung to musical accompaniment and exhibited intense emotions. Modern lyric poems are no longer sung or accompanied by music, but they still display the feelings and thoughts of poets. Lyric poems come in different forms: songs, hymns, chants, odes, elegies, sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus, rondels, and so many more. Most of the poems we come across nowadays are lyrics in the sense that they express the individual and personal emotions of the speaker or poet.

And what better example than this 16th century song. The "modern" version is closer to the original Tudor manuscript, and recreates for contemporary readers the intensity of the Renaissance speaker's ardor. But is the poem really saying what we think it says?

The quatrain (four-line stanza) mimics an individual's cry, uttered in two sentences: first, for spring to come and, second, for the company of a loved one. We got caught up in that second statement, particularly for its sensual connotations, and immediately assumed that the first statement is subordinate to the latter.

When we look closely, however, we realize that while the two sentences are structurally parallel they are not necessarily connected. The first line calls out to a natural force, "O Western wind"; and the third line implores a supernatural being, "Christ." The former wishes for rain to thaw winter's frost, and the latter for an embrace to soothe one's longing for a loved one. Read this way, the two sentences speak of a desire for different kinds of solace -- the relief from an external discomfort, and the alleviation of an internal desolation.

Which reading do you like?

Next: more lyric poems

William Carlos William's poem, "This Is Just to Say," has generated quite a lot of intertextual responses on YouTube. Check out the more professional dramatized reading by the British actor Matthew Macfadyen and the animation children's project from Uncommon Films. The latter even features a recording of Williams reading his own poem.

I chose the video made by Nicole LaJeunesse for its interpretation of the poem's form -- it may actually be a note stuck to the refrigerator door by a magnet. What if we didn't know it was a poem written by Williams? Would we even think the words written in 12 lines make a poem? Perhaps not. We imagine that the one who wrote it was in a rush and didn't particularly care for punctuation. And if the note was for us, we definitely would not think it a poem!

But here we are trying to interpret what may be just a note. We imagine somebody writing to someone. And if we go by LaJeunesse's and Macfadyen's interpretations, that somebody could be a husband writing a note to his wife. That husband is perhaps feeling guilty and tries to make it up to her by writing an apology. And because it is written down and not something we overhear, we begin to really look at the words on the page. We begin to see that it may actually be a poem, after all. We may even learn that there's a tradition of this sort dating back to Ovid's romantic epistles as well as among ancient Chinese poets (for example, Ezra Pound's translation of Li Po's "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter").

So what is the persona (the "I" speaking in the text) trying to say in this note, er, poem? Well, we assume the persona is really saying "sorry" for having eaten the plums. We also assume that the persona knew that the other person (the "you" mentioned in the second stanza) was saving the plums for breakfast, and had placed it in the fridge to keep it fresh and deliciously cold.

But how does the persona say "sorry"?

The note begins with an admission "This is just to say // I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox" (the title serves as the first line; also, that last word dates the poem). That admission is soon followed by the tone of guilt in the second stanza, especially because the persona knew the "you were probably / saving" the fruit for breakfast. The use of "probably" rather than the more direct "you were / saving" allows us to imagine the scene this way: the persona finds the plums in the icebox, is tempted, eats them, and only as an afterthought realizes the mistake. And so the third stanza (made up of four lines like the previous stanzas) begins with an entreaty for forgiveness, followed by a rationalization for the act committed.

But the last three lines of the poem don't seem much of a justification, with the persona trying to lay the blame on the plums being so tempting -- indeed, "they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold." And yet, those three lines somehow imply the persona will really be forgiven. Perhaps because the lines don't really refer just to the plums but also to the shared intimacy between the "I" and "you." I can imagine the "you" reading the note with a half-smile, vicariously enjoying the pleasure of eating the plums as described by the persona.

It's funny how we devoted several paragraphs trying to explain the 12 lines of this poem. But then, that's how poetry really is like -- it condenses into so few lines an emotion or an idea through the use of suggestion or implication. We can choose, of course, to just look at the literal situation offered us -- someone writing a note -- or we can delve into what may be hidden between or beneath the lines, or as someone puts it, "what is not said by saying."

Next installment: Lyric poetry