Canthara
The old black-man showed mehow he had been shockedin his youthby six women, dancinga set-dance, stark naked belowthe skirts raised roundtheir breasts:bellies flung forwardknees flying!--whilehis gestures, against thetiled wall of the dingy bath-room,swished with ecstasy tothe familiar music ofhis old emotion.
Words in this poem
- stark adv.
- Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canthara is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!, Project Gutenberg ebook #51997; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Carlos Williams, Canthara, in Al Que Quiere! (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51997, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-al-que-quiere/canthara.html, id L01106.
Form and metre
Canthara is 15 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.0 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 73% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 A---------A---- meA · shocked · youth · dancing · below · round · breasts · forward · flying · while · theA · room · to · of · emotion
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The old black-man showed me | 6 | ······ |
| how he had been shocked | 5 | ····· |
| in his youth | 3 | ··· |
| by six women, dancing | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| a set-dance, stark naked below | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| the skirts raised round | 4 | ···· |
| their breasts: | 2 | ·· |
| bellies flung forward | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| knees flying! | 3 | ·/˘ |
| --while | 1 | · |
| his gestures, against the | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| tiled wall of the dingy bath-room, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| swished with ecstasy to | 6 | ··/˘˘· |
| the familiar music of | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| his old emotion. | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.