The text of this work includes two settings of poems by William Carlos Williams, as well as names of all the poets he translated during his lifetime. The two poems are "Autumn" (1937) and "Sonnet in search of an Author" (1962). In the center of the work, the names of the poets intermingle with fragments from the two poems in a dream-like fantasy. At the close of the work the names of all the poets are heard simultaneously, with the name ‘William Carlos Williams’ embedded in a duet between Alto II and Tenor I.
Autumn (1937)
A stand of people by an open
grave underneath the heavy leaves
celebrates the cut and fill
for the new road where
an old man on his knees
reaps a basket- ful of
matted grasses for his goats.
Sonnet in search of an Author (1962)
Nude bodies like peeled logs sometimes give off a sweetest odor, man and woman
under the trees in full excess matching the cushion of
aromatic pine-drift fallen threaded with the trailing woodbine a sonnet might be made of it
Might be made of it! odor of excess odor of pine needles, odor of peeled logs, odor of no odor other than trailing woodbine that
has no odor, odor of a nude woman sometimes, odor of a man.
The Names of the Poets:
Mexican: Mariano Del Alcazar, Lupercio de Argensola, Alí Chumacero, Alvaro Figueredo, Miguel Hernández, Rafael Beltran Logrono, Luis Palés Matos, Pablo Nerud, Silvina Ocampo, Nicanor Parra, Octavio Paz
French: Nicolas Calas, René Char, Paul Éluard, Yvan Goll
Chinese: Wang Ch’ang-Ling, Wang Chien, Ho Chih-Chang, Liu Chung-Yuan, Tu Fu, Meng Hao-Jan, Ping Hsin, Tsang K’o-Chia, Kuo Mo-Jo, Li Po, Mao Tse-Tung, Li Ts’un-Hsu, Wang Wei, Cho Wen-Chun, Li Yu
