William Carlos Williams published “To Waken an Old Lady” in one of his early poetry collections, Sour Grapes (1921). Although an example of his early work, the poem was written after Williams’s dedication to the Imagist movement and, as such, is exemplary of the minimalist, image-driven, free-verse which defined it. William Carlos Williams is considered one of the primary poetic figures of American Modernism, and is famous for his use of vivid imagery, short lines, and everyday diction. “To Waken an Old Lady” is an optimistic reflection on aging and mortality written by a young poet, and its dedication to a singular image told in bare-bones simple speech demonstrates the poetic strategies to which Williams remained committed throughout his literary career.

Poet Biography

William Carlos Williams was born in New Jersey in 1883. Williams’s mother was Puerto Rican and his father, though English, had been raised in the Dominican Republic. Because of his parents’ heritage, Williams grew up in a household in which both English and Spanish were commonly spoken. As a child, Williams was a devoted student and child, and this dedication to hard work led to his early acceptance to medical school when he was only 19 years old. While Williams completed medical school and embarked on a lifelong career in medicine, he also discovered a passion for poetry, publishing his first book (Poems) in 1909.

While Williams married and moved into his lifelong residence in the New Jersey suburbs where he would raise a family, he continued to be an active participant in the literary world. In college, Williams met Ezra Pound, with whom he would become lifelong friends and literary peers. While Williams was not in Europe for the formation of the Imagist movement under Pound with poets like H. D. and Richard Aldington, his continual communication with Pound and others by letter made him a crucial long-distance member of the poetry movement. In part because of this link, Williams became not only one of the most important Imagist poets but one of the most important Modernist literary figures in the United States.

William Carlos Williams continued to pursue successful careers in both medicine and poetry for the entirety of his life, becoming an important literary symbol to the Beat movement and mentoring young poets who took part in the San Francisco Renaissance, the Black Mountain school, and the New York School. Williams died after late-in-life health issues and was buried in New Jersey in 1963.

Poem Text

Old age is

a flight of small

cheeping birds

skimming

bare trees

above a snow glaze.

Gaining and failing

they are buffeted

by a dark wind—

But what?

On harsh weedstalks

the flock has rested,

the snow

is covered with broken

seedhusks

and the wind tempered

by a shrill

piping of plenty.

Williams, William Carlos. “To Waken an Old Lady.” 1921. The Gutenberg Project.

Summary

William Carlos Williams opens his short-lined poem “To Waken an Old Lady” with the first half of a definition: “Old age is” (Line 1). The rest of the poem, then, works to define this “is” by developing an image (Line 1). The initial metaphor is that of “a flight of small / cheeping birds” (Lines 2-3). The flock of birds metaphorically representing old age is situated in winter by the details of their surroundings, namely “bare trees” and “snow glaze” (Lines 5, 6). Williams continues to develop this image, showing old age as not simply a flock of birds in winter, but one in motion. The birds are “Gaining and failing” (Line 7); they are “buffeted / by a dark wind” (Lines 8-9).

At this point in the poem, Williams’s own voice interrupts the flow of his imagery, almost as if it is reacting in real time to a surprising development with the observed flock. This reaction is expressed by the exclamation “But what?” (Line 10), dividing the first half of the poem from the second. The flock of birds with which the poem is occupied are no longer flying through the “dark wind” (Line 9), but now “has rested” on “harsh weedstalks” (Lines 12, 11). The birds are surrounded by “broken / seedhusks” (Lines 14-15) which cover “the snow” (Line 13). Although these husks may at first appear to be yet another image of struggle or wintry lack, they are in fact evidence of a feast upon which the resting flock has sated themselves. Williams concludes the poem with a reminder of the difficulty of old age, in the form of the dark “wind" (Line 16). However, this wind is “tempered” (Line 16) by the flock’s song, a “shrill / piping of plenty” (Lines 17-18). In this way, the poem’s image of old age as struggle is itself “tempered” (Line 16) by plenitude and rest.