In The American Grain

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams, 1925

I read this in the spring of 1978.

I'm not sure what motivated me to read this book. I had just finished with all my college classes and had been looking forward to reading whatever I want but here I was reading essays from the poet William Carlos Williams.  It must have been some interest I had developed from some of the American Studies courses I had taken the previous academic year. So whatever the reason I know I really enjoyed this book. I've always liked to read history and although Williams was not a historian he approached  the idea of what it meant to be an American in a unique historical manner.

It seems that Williams' attempt to define what it means to be an American is very relevant today and perhaps more people should be reading this book at this time.

This book is on a bookshelf upstairs and I should get it down and take a look at it.