SOURCE: “The Muted Lyrics of William Meredith,” in The Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Autumn, 1963, pp. 73-85.

In the following essay, Ludwig offers a thematic and stylistic overview of Meredith's poetry.

In his third and most recent volume of verse, William Meredith devotes a deft villanelle called “Trees in a Grove” to “five things put in mind by sycamores.” First, he thinks of “a sad bald-headed man / In a pepper-and-salt tweed suit who knew the trees.” In the second verse, he recalls

I was seven the summer that I first got hold Of the white pied spicy word of sycamore, The age when children will incant new names. That night I dreamt I was a flying man And could escape the backyard of our suburb By saying sycamore, rise through the trees. 

It may be pushing the dream too far to say that Meredith has turned...