The Wedge is a 1944 book of poems by American modernist writer and poet William Carlos Williams, created in response to requests from American servicemen during World War II for a pocket-sized collection of Williams's work. Despite the nature of these requests, several publishers rejected The Wedge due to grounds of either a perceived lack of literary quality or wartime shortages. The book was eventually handset printed by Henry Duncan and Wightman Williams at Cummington Press and bound surreptitiously on the premises and at the expense of one of the publishers who had previously rejected it. The book is dedicated to poet Louis Zukofsky, who helped Williams with revising and rearranging the poems for publication.
Williams' original concept for The Wedge was for it to contain several forms of writing. These would include improvisational works he wrote in the 1920s, prose and selections from his play Many Loves. Eventually, with Zukofsky's assistance, Williams narrowed the book's focus. He reduced the book's material, eliminated the prose selections but added an introduction based on an address he gave at the New York Public Library in October 1943. In the opening poems, Williams states what would become the working strategy for his long poem Paterson, which he began not long afterwards.
Bibliography
- Williams, William Carlos, ed. Christopher MacGowan, The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume II: 1939-1962 (New York: New Directions, 1988), ISBN 0-8112-1063-4
