Portrait of a Lady
Portrait of a Lady - context Summary
Published in 1917
Published in 1917 in Williams’ collection Al Que Quiere!, "Portrait of a Lady" appears amid his early modernist experiments. The poem uses clipped, conversational lines and painterly references to frame a speaker’s sensuous, somewhat fumbling address to a woman. Its shifting images and repeated questions interrupt fluent description, producing a playful tension between visual art and bodily presence that reflects Williams’ move away from formal diction toward immediate, image-driven verse.
Read Complete AnalysesYour thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung a lady's slipper. Your knees are a southern breeze -- or a gust of snow. Agh! what sort of man was Fragonard? -- As if that answered anything. -- Ah, yes. Below the knees, since the tune drops that way, it is one of those white summer days, the tall grass of your ankles flickers upon the shore -- Which shore? -- the sand clings to my lips -- Which shore? Agh, petals maybe. How should I know? Which shore? Which shore? -- the petals from some hidden appletree -- Which shore? I said petals from an appletree.
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