Smell!
Smell! - context Summary
Published in Spring and All
Published in Williams’ 1923 collection Spring and All, the poem dramatizes a speaker addressing his own nose. It tracks a blunt, bodily appetite for smells—especially the rank, muddy odors of early spring—mixing disgust, desire, and comic self-reproach. The poem foregrounds immediate, tactile perception and questions social decorum as the body insists on knowing and tasting everything, reflecting Williams’ attention to ordinary sensation.
Read Complete AnalysesOh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed nose of mine! what will you not be smelling? What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose, always indiscriminate, always unashamed, and now it is the souring flowers of the bedreggled poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth beneath them. With what deep thirst we quicken our desires to that rank odor of a passing springtime! Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors for something less unlovely? What girl will care for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways? Must you taste everything? Must you know everything? Must you have a part in everything?
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