Lindesay Irvine 

Poem of the week

A chilly poem for a hot summer's day from William Carlos Williams.
  
  


With the presumably brief reappearance of the sun, we clearly need a poem that's not going to detain us indoors for too long, and here's one that also delivers some nicely refreshing reflection.

When challenged about how this apparently "found" item amounted to a poem rather than just some old note left on a fridge, William Carlos Williams is said to have claimed that it was absolutely metrically regular. Which is odd, because it plainly isn't. And yet it burns into the memory like few others, even if the subject seems to be a chilly frost setting in on a love affair.

This is Just to Say

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

 

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