Jena Osman on sentimentality and objectification in William Carlos Williams

On November 11, 2008, the Kelly Writers House hosted a program called “William Carlos Williams and the Women: The Legacy of WCW at 125.” Sarah Dowling, Jena Osman, Pattie McCarthy, and Michelle Taransky. Here, above, is a portion of the video recording of this event — Jena Osman’s talk on sentimentality and objectification in Williams’s imagism. She begins by discussing the poem “The Young Housewife”:

At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband’s house.
I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.