William Carlos Williams on Paterson_May 31, 1951
Author's Note
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Commentary on the work

A Waterway in Modern American History, Paterson

This magnificent and grand epic begins at the Passaic River and the Great Falls.
To read this poetry collection, which is somewhat more complex and deconstructive than the film, it would be a good idea to take a brief look into the history of the city of Paterson.
Williams created his poetry collection, Paterson, based on the history of the city of Paterson, in a modern civilization that meanders like a river and pours like a waterfall.


City Paterson “lies in the valley beneath the Passaic Falls/With his back outlined by the waters the falls have sent down.
He lies/on his right side,/with his head by the thundering sound of water that fills his dreams! Forever asleep,/his dreams walk/around the city he insists on remaining anonymous.”


Volume 1 of the collection primarily narrates Paterson's history, and Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the "Founding Fathers," who appears frequently in the poems, "witnessed the Falls in 1778 and was struck by what was then an overwhelming force."
. .
“A stone aqueduct was planned to run in a straight line along the planned road to Newark, with outlets for various factories every 1.5 to 3 kilometers along the river.”
Thus, in 1792, the city of Paterson was created.


Paterson's early industries consisted of cotton and steel mills that were powered by water mills built on dams and canals above the falls, and it is also famous for producing the 'Patterson Colt' pistol.
With this rapid development of urban industry, “factories attracted a multi-racial population.”
As the race became more diverse, various discriminations and oppressions arose, and these issues went beyond conflicts and sparked strikes and labor disputes.
Williams juxtaposed excerpts from local newspapers and archives to illustrate the conflicts, problems, and abuses that arose in these radically industrialized cities.
The prose texts collaged with the poetry of the poems boldly and vividly reveal the city's historicity and reality.


Paterson was created based on the history of this city.
Williams advocated that poetry should be expressed “not as ideas but in things,” and his writing style created a literary movement called “Imagism.”

One of the things Williams valued most when writing Paterson was writing "as if speaking."
Williams's characteristically vivid colloquial sense, sometimes overly elliptically omitted, so much so that it was inevitable to add words before and after the translation into Korean.
His frequent quotations of letters almost verbatim should be viewed in the same context.
The insertion of different 'voices' from various people succeeds in making Paterson seem like a single, polyphonic mass of sound, a living, breathing, gigantic organism.
_From the 'Work Commentary'

Paterson's world, transformed by the language of the city and the notes of a waterfall.

“The waterfall makes a roaring noise as it hits the rocks below.
In our imagination, this loud noise is a word or a voice, especially a horse.
It is poetry itself as an answer.” Williams begins Paterson with a general observation of natural elements and then finds his own form.


I called my protagonist Mr. Patterson.
When I talk about Paterson throughout the poem, I'm talking about both the man, Paterson, and the city.
I continued writing for eight years, publishing each chapter as it was completed.
There was a lot of media interest and some encouraging words were heard.
I've been thinking about all that for a long time.
I knew you had something to say to me.
I knew I wanted to say it in my own way.
I knew it wasn't in a finished form, but I knew it wasn't formless.
I had to invent my own format.
If you can call it a form, that is.


Paterson is the mythical figure of the city and the protagonist of the poem.
Volume 1, entitled 'Outlines of Giants', depicts the overall landscape of Paterson, gathering together the natural elements that make up the city.
The line, “I will begin/from the individual things,/(...)/and gather them all together and make them universal,” outlines the narrative style of this collection and Williams’s work.


In Volume 2, Williams expands the meaning of the urban space called Paterson, recreating the various aspects of civilization, objects, and humans in modern language.
As the title suggests, “Sunday in the Park,” the poem features multiple voices in various forms.
Williams believed that Paterson's history was soon to become American history, so he "began reading everything he could about the history of Passaic Falls, the park in the foothills beyond, and its early inhabitants."
The poetry's liveliness was greatly enhanced by cross-editing prose, poetry, and historical sources cited from various places.


In Volume 3, “The Library,” the poet says, “We seek, we seek/Following the wind/Until we do not know whether it is the wind that rules us/or the power of the wind.”
On February 8, 1902, a fire destroyed the Danforth Public Library, the Passaic River overflowed in March of that year, and a devastating tornado struck the city later that year.
The library is rebuilt on a new site, but the poet realizes that the ultimate end of 'beautiful things' is death.
In Volume 4, “Running to the Sea,” the sea is seen as the place where all rivers flow, and modern civilization is viewed gloomily and pessimistically by comparing it to Paterson’s urban situation and history.


In the fifth volume published in 1958, the poet tried to maintain the unity of the previous Paterson worldview.
“Paterson’s world/awakens/its rocks and streams/from a feeble but/long winter’s sleep,” and with tragic footwork, like a satyr dancing, Paterson’s world continues.


As readers read Paterson, they can glimpse why Jim Jarmusch chose this collection of poetry over the many other works of poetry, and how it was used and borrowed in the film.
The main characters, Patterson, a city bus driver, and Williams, a pediatrician who closely cared for patients.
The perspectives of two people who, starting from “individual things” and moving towards “universal” life, were able to observe the life of the entire city through the lives and observations of individuals.
You realize that those gazes are quite similar and connected.
Now, let's take a walk through every corner of Paterson with William Carlos Williams' poetry collection, Paterson.
It's time to get up close and personal with the city's history, nature, and residents.

Editor's Note

I am the editor of the Korean edition of William Carlos Williams's Paterson.
This collection of poems is quite different in density and texture from Jim Jarmusch's film [Paterson], but it allows us to encounter a different Paterson from the one in the film.
Paterson's magnificent, mythical natural landscapes and the bustling, vibrant history of the city are interspersed throughout the poetry collection.
Before reading in earnest, we recommend that you first read the commentary on poet Hwang Yu-won's work and the editor's book review included in the collection.
Welcome to Paterson.