Milly Pnotporn Jantarakolica

Mr. Matthew Bishop

English 12
19 September, 2017

On “To a Poor Old Woman”

In the poem “To a Poor Old Woman,” Williams Carlos Williams uses enjambment to

suggest different meanings of the same sentence. Throughout the poem, he paints an image of

a poor old woman who was walking on the street, munching a plum. It seems like she hasn’t

eaten for some period of time because she really loves the taste of the plum. The narrator

even describes that she devotes herself to the plum. Williams writes, “They taste good to her/

They taste good/ to her. They taste/ good to her” (4-7). By breaking the same sentences in

variety of ways, it stresses different words in each line. In the first sentence, “They taste good

to her” is an original, typical sentence meaning that the plum tasted good to her. Thus, it sets

up an expectation for the reader. However, the second line breaks into two parts “They taste

good” and “to her.” which stresses the word “taste”. By this, it sounds like the narrator is

questioning whether the plum does not look good. Lastly, Williams separates “They taste”

from “good to her” resulting to “her” being stressed. By means of this, it doubts whether the

plum tasted good to anyone else besides her. Overall, the purpose of splitting this particular

sentence to stress different words and meanings, is to further emphasize poverty. He

demonstrates that the word “good” for poor people and rich people might be different.

Furthermore, he draws an attention to the misfortune of the social class gaps. Not only

breaking the sentences to play with words, but using the line breaks Williams is able to create

alternate meanings of them.