1. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    William Carlos Williams

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by OurJud, Feb 26, 2017.

    After watching Jim Jarmusch's excellent new film Paterson last night, I'm very eager to get my hands on some of William Carlos Williams' poetry.

    As I suspected, the book featured in the film is now priced at £150+ on places like amazon, but there's still a couple of WCW at regular price.

    I eventually went for THIS, but on reflection I'm not entirely sure what I've bought. The product title and image don't appear to match, but when I do a search on the ISBN for this product, the same cover is returned.

    Info on this book is seemingly non-existent, so I was wondering if anyone familiar with the poet and his books - or even this very product - can tell me what I've bought. I wanted a collection of William Carlos Williams poetry, but have no idea if this is what I've bought.

    Thanks in advance.
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2017
  2. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I only know the two big poems, the plum one and the "so much depends" one... but based on the cover and the ISBN, it looks like you've bought a collection of others...
     
  3. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Others in what respect? Other WCW poems, or poems by other poets?

    Also, does anyone know what is meant by 'parallel text' ?

    I've looked up the expression, but I need the answer in layman's terms so that I can understand.
     
  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think by WCW - he's the guy on the cover...
     
  5. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks. I hope you're right, but at 400 pages and the 'critical anthologies' subtitle on the cover, I can't help but think it's some kind of 'study' of the poet, rather than a collection of his poems.
     
  6. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    Might be both. A lot of poets have editions of poems out with parallel text about the poems from other authors.
     
  7. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Ah, so that's what parallel text means then??

    No real loss at only four-quid, so I'll just have to wait and see.
     
  8. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    Sometimes what it means are little asides about the poems by the editor that made the collection. I have one like that for Bukowski. It has some information about Bukowski and some explanations of some of the poems.
     
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  9. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks, Spence.

    I'm going to post the trailer to Paterson here. This is the film that sparked my interest in William Carlos Williams, and I simply cannot recommend this film enough; it's poetic, beautiful and utterly mesmerising.

     
  10. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I found another edition with the same publisher and editor, and it has poems from about 15 of his poetry publications. I'm guessing the one you ordered is pretty much the same thing.
     
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  11. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    'His' being WCW, I take it? Let's hope so anyway.

    I really wanted the one featured in the film - a hard-backed tome titled The Collected Earlier Poems: William Carlos Williams - but no book is worth £150
     
  12. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    Yes.

    You can try Abebooks or Biblio. They're more specialized than Amazon, so they may have it at a cheaper price.
     
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  13. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks. They're slightly better, but even these places want on average £45 for the book and £30 for P+P.

    Because, yeah, that's how much postage for a book from the US costs :rolleyes:

    And I suspect that these aren't even the edition shown in the film. The only one with an image showing it to be the same book is priced at $350 on Bib.
     
  14. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    The high price may just be because it's a rare and/or very desirable book. Considering so many are in that price range, people are willing to pay that much it seems.
     
  15. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    More money than sense if you ask me, but that's probably more my father speaking than me.

    It could also be because the book is featured in what I think will very quickly become a bit of a cult film. It must be a great feeling to see a book playing a fairly big part in a film, to then say, Hold on. I've got that book somewhere.
     
  16. Dnaiel

    Dnaiel Senior Member

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    My favorite poet.

    What's the "Parallel Text" for? I only see those for translations. Anyway, THIS is the set I had a long time ago. Both Kindle editions together would be about $30. Paperback a little over $40. These are, I think, all of his poems. You can click the preview and see a bunch of them.

    ETA: Good job, Spencer.
     
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  17. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks, Dnaiel, but that's still way more than I'm prepared to pay for a book.

    I'm going to hold out on buying any more until this one I ordered arrives. If it's not a collection of his poems, then I'll just have to have a rethink.
     
  18. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I've recently been reading a lot about rare books, how to value them, what collector's look for, etc. So I'm curious to know why it's so expensive. I'll have to do a search on it and see what I can find. It becoming a cult film could be a large part of it.
     
  19. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    I'd be interested to see your findings, but I have no doubt your theory about it being rare is as interesting as it will get.

    It was just a thought, but I can't honestly imagine everyone who happens to own this particular volume have all seen the film Paterson and so rushed to their computers to get it listed for hundreds of pounds on the strength of this.
     
  20. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    So I found several editions with different publication dates. They were priced from $9 and up. Of course, the cheaper ones were published later, and the quality was listed as "Good." So there are some cheaper options if you don't mind having a later publication date and slight wear and tear to the book. Given how wildly the prices varied, I have no idea what's driving them other than condition. (As they say in the rare book world, condition is 90% of the price.)
     
  21. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Collected-Earlier-Poems-Williams-William-Carlos/590135954/bd

    First Printing of the First Edition
    . Book in fine condition; and in a near fine dust jacket, with light rubbing and light edge wear. = £289.85 & £18.45 from US to UK. (My italics; this tells me it's a RARE BOOK with an inflated price...you don't buy it because you want to read it, you buy it so you can say you've got it.

    You can also see the same book on offer - on this link - for £20.99 & £3.21...
     
  22. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Well we're certainly getting there. On this occasion I'm honestly not concerned whether it's the edition featured in the film.

    @thirdwind - can you please link me to the one at $9 ?

    Never mind. Found it.
     
  23. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    This arrived today and as I feared it is not a collection of his poems, but rather a collection of critiques and analyses. The few snippets of poems we do get are chopped up anyway.

    Quite disappointed as I was eager to get my teeth into his works, and yes I realise it's probably all out there on the web anyway, but it's not the same as reading it from a real book.

    Ah well, there's other collections of his available - I'll just have to order one of them instead.
     
  24. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    Does your book match what's listed in the description and shown in the photo? Because I remember seeing another edition with the same publisher and title, and that one seemed to be a collection of his actual poems, at least based on the Amazon reviews.
     
  25. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, it matches the image in the listing.

    It's an odd one which I've reported to amazon twice, and they still haven't bothered doing anything about it.

    As you can SEE, the title in the listing matches the title on the cover in no way shape or form, but when I placed the order I simply didn't pay that much attention to the image. I searched for William Carlos Williams and this was one of the ones that came up. The price was right so I bought it.

    I really don't know if I'll ever get to the bottom of why the title in the listing doesn't match the one on the book, but amazon don't seem to think it's a problem. At least my review is on there now, alerting others to the fact.
     

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