William Carlos Williams

Classic Scene

Classic Scene - meaning Summary

Industrial Tableau in Brief

The poem sketches a brief urban tableau: a red-brick power-house rises like a chair topped by two aluminum stacks. Williams notes the contrast between the imposing industrial structure and the adjoining squalid shacks, focusing on the small detail that one stack emits smoke while the other is idle beneath a grey sky. The image compresses social and mechanical disparity into a concise, observational snapshot.

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A power-house in the shape of a red brick chair 90 feet high on the seat of which sit the figures of two metal stacks—aluminum— commanding an area of squalid shacks side by side— from one of which buff smoke streams while under a grey sky the other remains passive today—

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