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I'd like to say I don't usually agonize this much about a short, simple school assignment, but that would be incorrect-- I agonize just this much for every single paper, no matter how short or simple.

So please forgive the following.

I've been reading William Carlos Williams all weekend. He is, at times, utterly incomprehensible, and at other times really beautiful. I was really shaken (in a good way) by a poem in "Spring and All" that I have learned is called "To Elsie" (in my edition of Imaginations it isn't titled, but numbered... I read somewhere the titles were added later.) The poem, I have read, was written for a mentally ill woman that was working as a housemaid for Williams' family, and it is stark and haunting. I like it. (Not to mention the fact that my guru himself mentioned it as a favourite.)

But Toronto Steph pointed something out to me. Why, she asked me, are you agonizing over trying to make sense of new poets that you haven't even learned anything about yet, when you already know of a poem that you like (specifically, Yeats' "Second Coming"?) Not only do you know you like it, but you have more background information on the poet since you already covered him in class. It is often easier, she pointed out, to write about something that you already know you like.

Unbelievably, this knocked me for a loop. Why didn't it occur to me to choose "Second Coming"? Because it's too obvious? Too "easy"? Too famous? Too understandable? May be seen as a cop-out? Why? Why didn't it occur to me?

Well, and the problem is, could I find eough to say about "Second Coming"? Could I write a whole paper about it?

But, then, could I write a whole paper about "To Elsie"?

Tomorrow I know I have to go to the library and find some major study--biography, literary criticism, whatever-- to read about whatever poet I've chosen for my paper. I have absolutely no idea whether I'll be looking for a book about William Carlos Williams or about William Butler Yeats.

It's such a simple fucking assignment. Why is it torturing me so much?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 7:30 PM | shower me with attention