A Little Background Info on William Carlos Williams

Greetings class!

I have spent this semester getting up close and personal with a diary penned by William Carlos Williams. As some of you may already know, Williams is a major figure in American poetry. He was a self-consciously modern poet who constantly strayed away from convention, as poets have a strong tendency to do. Yet one of the more interesting facts about his life is that he held a much more traditional occupation as a pediatrician in Rutherford, New Jersey. Williams worked as a pediatrician for many years in this town while also pursuing his literary endeavors. Surprisingly, he was rather successful at both occupations however, his literary efforts are what he is most known for.
It was during his years in college that he met one of the most influential people in his literary career, Ezra Pound. The pair met at the University of Pennsylvania where they were both studying--in different fields of course. This friendship would go on to last for many years and lead Williams to become heavily invested in and associated with the "imagism" movement spearheaded by Pound as a result. Pound was also heavily involved in the creation of one of the most popular and influential pieces of the modern era T.S Eliot's The Waste Land. Along with his background efforts Pound also published a great deal of  critically acclaimed works of his own. So it should come as no surprise that he also played a large part in the success of Williams works as well.
Williams was coerced by Pound into taking a sabbatical that would inspire the book Voyage to Pagany  (1928). During the trip with his wife, Florence (referred to as Flossie in the diary), Williams kept a diary. The year was 1924 and they traveled through Europe visiting places such as France, Austria, and Italy. Williams lived within a few mere miles of his birthplace all of his life and so this experience for him was monumental and caused great introspection as can be seen within the semi-autobiographical novel.
I am posting pictures of both the diary and the novel so that you can see a few instances of how the two compare to one another. Each entry corresponds to a place in the novel that I would like us to take a closer look at so be sure to look at both! Unfortunately the quality of the pictures is not the best but the diary has been put on hold in the Lilly for you to look at. Feel free to transcribe an entry or two and bring it to class to discuss.