Kora in Hell

by William Carlos Williams

Kora in Hell is Williams' series of Improvisations, published in 1920.
[Drawing by Stuart Davis.]

Williams' artfully crafted poetry in verse is on full display in this collection:

"A woman on the verge of growing old kindles in the mind of her son a certain curiosity which spinning upon itself catches the woman herself in its wheel, stripping from her the accumulations of many harsh years and shows her at last full of an old time suppleness hardly to have been guessed by the stiffened exterior which had held her fast till that time." (Chapter XVII excerpt).

"A poem can be made of anything. This is a portrait of a disreputable farm hand made out of the stuff of his environment." (Chapter XXX excerpt).

Prologue: The Return of the Sun

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.