Author’s Statement on Beauty

In William Carlos Williams’ poem entitled “Pastoral” (opens: “When I was younger…”), the poet considers how our sense of beauty is malleable.

The poem ends, “No one / will believe this / of vast import to the nation.” By which, of course, the implication is that this is important.

In “Pastoral,” WCW finds beauty in “furniture gone wrong” and “properly weathered” fixtures that “if I am fortunate” are “smeared a bluish green.” For Williams, patina (that bluish green film that accumulates on surfaces like copper) is a source of beauty. You can take this down a fun rabbit hole from “bluish green” to the more technical patina, then the Latin root of patina—“a shallow dish”—and this makes me wonder if Williams is cleverly self-correcting—that his perceived “adult” sense of beauty is “smeared” with something that is surface-level, shallow.

After leaving the world of “Pastoral,” it seems plausible that we’re supposed to understand vanity is not a game we can win; however, it’s “of vast import to the nation” that we are vigilant about checking in with ourselves to avoid pitfalls in our concept of what is beautiful.