Skip to content

Lift your flowers
on bitter stems
chickory!
Lift them up
out of the scorched ground!
Bear no foliage
but give yourself
wholly to that!
Strain under them
you bitter stems
that no beast eats —
and scorn greyness!

— William Carlos Williams Al Que Quiere! (1917)

Another quote →

More quotes by William Carlos Williams

There’s nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.

The Wedge (1944)

Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken.

Spring and All (1923)

Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

The Wedge (1944)

It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

Al Que Quiere! (1917)

Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.

The Wedge (1944)

All William Carlos Williams quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Carlos Williams (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.