I listened to a programme about William Carlos Williams the poet yesterday as I worked. I’d intended to listen to it for a while now. I’m glad that I did. ‘The local is always universal’, he said, meaning that as an immigrant he paid attention, noticed the detail of his American life and valued it. A doctor and poet, both of which he considered full-time jobs, he observed things. Things struck him. Like the red wheelbarrow or the number 5 on the fire truck. It was poetry that ‘just named things’, there was no narrative, no presence. It was about ‘thingness’. I love it. Everything pared down.
I saw the Chinese girl yesterday. I was doing my yoga by the big window and saw her come out of her front door below and re-hang some clothes she’d put on an airer. It was 11.00 am and she was still in her pyjamas and dressing gown and slippers. She made me think of an animal rising from hibernation or a nocturnal one like a badger or something that lives underground like a mole. Her eyes blinked in the light. Is she lonely?
