SOURCE: Kutzinski, Vera M. “The Distant Closeness of Dancing Doubles: Sterling Brown and William Carlos Williams.” Black American Literature Forum 16, no. 1 (spring 1982): 19-25.

In the following essay, Kutzinski compares Southern Road and William Carlos Williams's Paterson in order to derive insights into the definition of American poetry.

I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double, And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, And, standing by these characters, disclose All that I seek. … 

—W. B. Yeats, “Ego Dominus Tuus”

I hold my breath, and try not to shake my tree house, so high away I only hear the melancholy slap of their hands, and see them move from side to side, dressing the cypress in their wet clothes, passing and coming so close to...