The title alone was enough to pique my interest. Why call it simply “Poem,” Mr. Williams?  I looked up poem in the New Collegiate Dictionary (because it was handy) and was presented with a couple of interesting notions: 1) a poem is “characterized by the use of condensed language chosen for its sound and suggestive power” and 2) a poem is a “creation, an object, or an experience having beauty suggestive of poetry.” Neither were earth-shattering notions, of course; I’ve wandered through the realm of poetry before. But, they were eerily suggestive with “Poem” on the page of William Carlos Williams’ Selected Poems lying open in front of me.

            The movement of the cat, an experience often observed as graceful, efficient, powerful, poetry in motion even, seems an obvious choice to illustrate the idea of poem. Here is a simple, but beautiful, example of a something suggestive of poetry using condensed language to sound out the message, or the meaning, or the whatever. Each short line suggests the slow, deliberate, evenly paced steps of a cat, perfectly balanced, showing no sign of effort. The strides “over the top of the jamcloset” are represented in much the same way as the descent “into the pit of the empty flowerpot.” Does the cat accept success and failure with equal attention, taking it all in stride? Perhaps the cat has its eyes on a prize beyond these present obstacles.

            Is this experience a poem because it is labeled as a poem or is it labeled as a poem because it is a poem? Which comes first — the poem or the “Poem?”