Let’s imagine William Carlos Williams’s “Poem” running backwards, as in a film that reverses itself:
Into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot
the cat first
dipped
carefully
the right
forefoot then the
hind
as it climbed
over the top of
the jamcloset
****
When “Poem” is inverted with a slight amendment to facilitate the syntax, the word “top” emphatically pulls the camera’s concluding shot. The trajectory becomes an ascent: the escape from the “pit” of the empty flowerpot conjoins with a sense of triumph at the summit of the poem. Not only is it a much less subtle poem when it’s inverted, but it also leaves one wondering about what the effect would be if the entire “jam closet” stanza were cut from the poem.
I, of course, prefer WCW’s version of the poem, though I must say that what took me years to notice and write about in an article for the William Carlos Williams’s Review — that the key word in the poem is “pit” — would probably have gotten more attention from previous commentators if it had been in the poem’s first line.
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