WCW on television

John Wingate on the air at "Nightbeat" in 1957 (left) and William Carlos Williams in the '50s

I'll bet most readers of this commentary did not realize that William Carlos Williams made a television appearance. Yes, it was September 4, 1957, and the old stroke-inhibited but still feisty poet went to the studios of WABD (New York) and appeared with host John Wingate on a show called Nightbeat. Today we've segmented the audio version of this recording into topics. You'll note that WCW talks about television for 33 seconds, and about Stevenson, Eisenhower and Kennedy for a minute and a half (already anticipating the 1960 presidential election). Here are those segments:

  • on practicing medicine and writing poetry (1:59): MP3
  • on the Greenwich Village poets and separating from the crowd (4:15): MP3
  • on Ezra Pound (5:26): MP3
  • on Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost (3:43): MP3
  • on his links to alleged communist causes and letting people speak (2:51): MP3
  • on television (0:33): MP3
  • on Madison Avenue (0:37): MP3
  • on Adlai Stevenson, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy (1:23): MP3
  • on the place of religion in his life (1:15): MP3
  • on what he would like to be remembered for (0:33): MP3