Poet William Carlos Williams

This week I've been reading Stephen King's book On Writing.  In the book he talks about writing simply and not using basically big fancy words and description to describe something when simple words will do.  For the first time, I learned about a poet named William Carlos Williams.  I didn't realize it, but when I was taking my poetry writing class, my instructor had read to us his poem titled This is Just to Say.  I don't think I'm violating any copyright laws here since this poem is readily available for reading on the Internet, so here it is in its entirety.

This is Just to Say

by 

William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which 

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

I love this poem because it is so simple, yet so descriptive.  So much is said in just a few words.  I aspire to be able to write poetry like this.  Just short and simple.

I did some research on Amazon and found a free book for Kindle titled Sour Grapes.  There are also several other collections of his poetry for Kindle for about .99 cents.  It is a very reasonable price for me to be introduced to more of his poetry.  I also found a children's book in my local public library titled A River of Words: the Story of William Carlos Williams.  It's illustrated and it's just wonderful.  I have some pictures of it here:

You can see my cat's paw in the photo in the middle.  He was lying in my lap and just placed his paw on the book when I took the picture.  He is such a rascal and always has to have his hand ... oops ... paw in everything!