Poem Analysis: William Carlos William's The Parable of the Blind

The Parable of the Blind

William Carlos Williams
This horrible but superb painting
the parable of the blind
without a red
in the composition shows a group
of beggars leading
each other diagonally downward
across the canvas
from one side
to stumble finally into a bog
where the picture
and the composition ends back
of which no seeing man
is represented the unshaven
features of the des-
titute with their few
pitiful possessions a basin
to wash in a peasant
cottage is seen and a church spire
the faces are raised
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
to the composition one
follows the others stick in
hand triumphant to disaster

In William Carlos Willam’s poem, “The Parable of the Blind” (based on the painting by the same name), I found his description of what is happening in the painting to be too straightforward. While I understand that some poems can be this way, I found this one to be not as entertaining as others I’ve read. Usually, when I read a poem based on a painting, there is a sense of story that the poet will create based on the imagery they see—they won’t simply tell what they see in the painting. But, then again, the ending of the poem where he states, “where the picture of the composition ends which no man seeing…” was my favorite line, since it broke the fourth wall. It described the men walking to the corner of the frame, rather than them plunging into the bog.