【Philippines】
Writing Is a Nefarious Business
Our Daily Correspondent
“Have you been doing anything you shouldn’t, William Carlos Williams?” asks the venerable women’s-hour host Mary McBride.
“Writing for forty years!” replies the poet with alarming jocularity. “That’s a nefarious business, you know!”
What’s so interesting about this 1950 radio clip—besides the fact that you can practically hear WCW’s professional game-face deteriorate as his phlegmatic interviewer goes on—is that you get a real sense of what the doctor’s bedside manner must have been like. The old chestnuts, the complete silence—but before that, the bonhomie. When McBride asks him to read a poem, for instance, he says coyly, “There is one called ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ that people seem to enjoy. Let’s see if I can remember it … ”
But then, Williams gets very passionate: soliloquizing at length about the role of art and culture, and later about the rage he feels at seeing people die as a result of poverty and social injustice. ”I work off my impotent anger!” he says, indeed sounding angry. “I want to bring it to people’s attention, that’s all I can say. Hoping they’ll buy the book!”
There is a slightly awkward silence. “Do you think your mother had a great deal to do with your finally choosing writing?” McBride asks.
“I don’t think Mother had anything to do with it,” he says somewhat impatiently. “She had a lot to do with my choosing medicine.”
Then some fast-talking pianist plays “London Bridge.”
Sadie Stein is contributing editor of The Paris Review, and the Daily’s correspondent.
Search
Categories
Latest Posts
How I met my partner on X/Twitter
2025-06-27 01:34Endless Summer Wells
2025-06-27 01:29Jhumpa Lahiri on Her Work as a Translator
2025-06-27 00:51‘The Birds’ at Rikers Island
2025-06-27 00:50Trump who? Tech giants join massive effort to uphold Paris Agreement
2025-06-27 00:07Popular Posts
The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls
2025-06-27 01:45Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women
2025-06-27 00:22Even Trump's Earth Day message was anti
2025-06-26 23:56Featured Posts
Getting Started with Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts
2025-06-27 01:48Philip Roth, 1933–2018
2025-06-27 01:46Staff Picks: Kendrick, Cardi Covers, and Cautionary Tales
2025-06-27 01:39Curtis Sittenfeld's Unambiguous Sophistication
2025-06-27 00:37Popular Articles
Who Gets to Be “Brooklyn Born”?
2025-06-27 01:25Schlemihls and Water Sprites
2025-06-27 00:36The #MeToo Poem That Brought Down Korea's Most Revered Poet
2025-06-27 00:20Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.
Comments (143)
Habit Information Network
Even Trump's Earth Day message was anti
2025-06-27 01:51Unobstructed Information Network
The Difficulty in Writing About Murder
2025-06-27 01:02Habit Information Network
Announcing Our Summer Issue by The Paris Review
2025-06-27 00:49Unique Information Network
“First of All I’m Naked”: On the Collected Poems of Michael Lally
2025-06-27 00:47Happiness Information Network
Miami Heat vs. Brooklyn Nets 2025 livestream: Watch NBA online
2025-06-27 00:21