William Carlos Williams Poem of the Day

For those of you who don't know, William Carlos Williams is the world's worst poet of all time. He has won Pulitzer Prizes I think...I don't know, he won something he didn't deserve. Look it up if you want to know. So anyway, here's some of Williams' trademark beautiful imagery in his poem "Danse Russe"

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining tree,--
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,--

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

(Raises hand)

Now, to be fair, in my huge Norton Anthology of Poetry, there is a little superscript one after "genius" that defines it in context as "The pervading and guardian spirit of a place." I imagine whoever was compiling this Anthology read "genius" and said "Whoa. There must be some other explanation. This guy is not a genius." My guess is they just made up that whole "guardian" thing to spare ol' WCW some dignity. But irregardless, for WCW to refer to himself as a genius in any context is wrong. Just wrong.

But as for the rest of the poem, it clearly demonstrates why WCW is a master of imagery. Can't you just picture this guy dancing around naked admiring himself in the mirror? I bet you can't get it out of your head, huh? Such is the genius of William Carlos Williams.