The Plums That Were In The Icebox By Ediam Carlos Williams Analysis

“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.” At first view, you may not believe this simple casual note of apology becomes a poem if it is broken into several lines. People might feel slight resistance to accepting it as a poem. Nevertheless, this is a poem which was written by William Carlos Williams, the well-known poet for his uncustomary and revolutionary experimental works with his unique styles. Even though it has been more than 80 years since the poem has published in 1934, it still makes its readers confused and wondering whether it can be a poem.
However, its contents, style and form which are seemingly unlikely
While reading the first stanza, “I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox”, we come to know what the speaker has done, and then, reading the second stanza, “and which / you were probably / saving / for breakfast”, we get the inside story. As you can find out, this poem was written in ordinary, everyday language and free verse, which the people living in America at that time must have been using. Thus, whoever read this poem, without any difficulty, could understand the story, which is apparently about a sort of note left on a table or a refrigerator in the kitchen. A man opens a door of the refrigerator and found the plums, which seem so delicious that he cannot resist eating them, even though he knows that the plums belong to another member of his family, his wife in fact. Neither, it seems, are there special materials in the contents nor special poetic diction. It is just an occurrence which happens or is likely to happen in our ordinary days. That is one of the reasons many of us could see the scene in a vivid imagery as if it is a short film or a
His poem is not divorced from our everyday lives whereas lots of conventional poems we generally read are. Even if conventional poetry is indirectly connected to our reality, many readers have difficulties to find meanings from the poetry and apply them to their real lives. I think poetry is worth reading when it is humane enough so that people can draw meanings from it. If it insists on its conventional styles and forms too much, it becomes not humane anymore. Therefore, his thought is also applicable to this era, in particular, when everything changes so fast ever and so many ideas are overflowing here and there that many of us are confused about what paths to follow, while not realizing that clinging to conventional ways is not always the best strategy to live our