Abstract

Notes by the Way

William Carlos Williams's book "In the American Grain," for some years out of print, has just been reissued. The essays which make up the book do not fit into any conventional category. Even the term essay does not describe them unless we think of essay in its primary meaning as a word rather than as a formalized literary form. Using extensively the source materials of history, Williams is concerned with extracting from incidents and personalities in the American past their essential quality and meaning. His tools are the creative imagination, which is often more accurate than a slide rule, a capacity for direct perception, and a disciplined skill in expression which have made him one of the most original and accomplishing poets now writing.