Her body is not so white as
anemony petals(a flower) nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.
Queen Ann's Lace it a type of weed that grows wild. It has a purple center.
Anemones are a beautiful flower also with a purple center.
Queen-Anne’s-Lace is a poem about a woman who he is comparing to a weed of the same name as the title. It is interesting that Williams chooses to compare her to the “wild carrot”, the common name of the weed, and not to an actual flower because as pretty as the Queen-Anne’s-Lace is, it is still just a weed. To make it worse, he calls her even less than a plant in the first line; “Her body is not so white…nor as smooth-nor/ so remote a thing” So, she may not be pretty, but she is the nearest thing in his vicinity. This brings into question why he is even writing about her if she does not seem significant.
He compares her to a field of these flowers, which is conquering and spreading, choking out the grass around it as weeds typically do. He does not like this woman for her looks, but rather because she puts herself above every other woman, she is better than them in some way. In this regard, her whiteness, or purity, does not matter to him. This is evident in line 7, “Here is no question of whiteness,” However, at the end of the poem he contradicts this; “a pious wish to whiteness gone over–/or nothing” Line 20. “Or nothing” is the strongest, albeit the shortest line, in the poem. This contradiction to all the pretty things he actually does say about her nulls everything. It says that he wants her to be either pure or dead so that no one else may have her and blemish her again.
We know it is a person who has given her these blemishes because in line 12 he specifically says that “…Wherever/ his hand has lain there is/ a tiny purple blemish.” A part of the Queen-Anne’s-Lace is the purple center, but he uses this purple eye of the flower to connote that whether it’s natural or man-given baggage, it still shows impurity, something that he does not want on his woman.
When Williams continues to compare her to a field in the latter part of the poem, the flowers have now taken over the entire field instead of fighting for control. By the time she makes herself pure and he wants her because she is completely white – pure, she no longer has personality. She is “empty”, line 18.
The conflict in this poem is Williams’ attraction to this woman who is not physically attractive. She has a history, giving her some sort of emotional baggage, and he wants her to be pure. However, the entire reason he finds her attractive is the chip on her shoulder and the fight that she has within, making her better than every other woman. If she were to be pure, she would not have this fight, this edge, and he would no longer find her attractive, forming a conundrum for his lust.
For another view see
http://web.stanford.edu/group/journal/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Hall_Hum_2003.pdf
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