The Yachts
contend in a sea which the land partly encloses (1)
shielding them from the too-heavy blows
of an ungoverned ocean which when it chooses
tortures the biggest hulls, the best man knows
to pit against its beatings (2) , and sinks them pitilessly.
Moth like in mists, scintillant (3) in the minute
brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
they glide to the wind tossing green water
from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls
ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing,
making fast as they turn, lean far over and having
caught the wind again (4) , side by side, head for the mark (5).
In a well guarded arena of open water surrounded by
lesser and greater crafts (6) which, sycophant, lumbering
and flittering follow them (7) , they (8) appear youthful, rare
as the light of a happy eye, live with the grace
of all that in the mind is fleckless, free and
naturally to be desired. Now the sea which holds them
is moody, lapping their glossy sides, as of feeling
for some slightest flaw but fails completely.
Today no race (9). Then the wind comes again. The yachts
move, jockeying for a start, the signal is set and they
are off. Now the waves strike at them but they are too
well made, they slip through, though they take in canvas (10).
Arms with hands grasping seek to clutch at the prows,
bodies thrown recklessly in the way are cut aside.
It is a sea of faces about them (11) in agony, in despair
until the horror of the race dawns staggering the mind;
the whole sea becomes an entanglement of watery bodies
lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold (12). Broken,
beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.
FOOTNOTES
(1) The yachts are in a lagoon or a small bay where they are safe from the dangerous ocean, waiting for the race to start.
(2) This clause modifies the noun hulls. Thus, [The ocean] tortures the biggest hulls [that] the best man (probably the best of sailors) knows to pit against its (the ocean’s) beatings.
(3) The yachts seem scintillant due to reflection of the sun on their glossy sides.
(4) The yachtsmen are being described as working hard to direct the yachts toward the mark i.e. the start.
(5) See note 4 above.
(6) The yachts are surrounded by yachtsmen with different degrees of sailing skills.
(7) The yachtsmen are busy moving around on the yachts.
(8) The pronoun they refers to the yachts.
(9) The moody ocean gets too calm to allow a race for a while but suddenly the wind comes again.
(10) To take in canvas, a term used in sailing, means to pull the sail(s) out of a right angle with the wind into a sharp one in order to reduce the propelling effect of the wind on the sail(s) and, thus, to control the speed. Although the strong wind, which causes the waves to strike at the yachts, makes the crew take in canvas, the yachts easily slip through.
(11) Them refers to the yachts.
(12) The watery bodies are placed in a situation where they are forced to tolerate what is intolerable to them.
ANALYSIS
Williams’ “The Yachts” was meant to be in Terza Rima*. Nevertheless, as he notes in his letter to John Thirwell, the poet gave up rhyme…and was quickly carried away by [his] own feelings. What has actually remained of this rhyme scheme in “The Yachts” is, therefore, little more than eleven three-line stanzas in free verse.
The poem can structurally be divided into three parts: The first eight stanzas that serve as the beginning, a sudden shift introduced in the ninth stanza, and the finale presented in the last two stanzas.
The first part of the poem is an elaborate description of a yacht race: some elegant looking, skillfully made yachts are in a part of the ocean enclosed by land, i.e. away from the destructive blows of the mighty unstoppable ocean, waiting for the race to start. The yachtsmen are busy on the yachts preparing for the race, which is a confrontation of crafts and skills, and in which, as in any other race, the most skillful will prevail. After a short disappointment caused by a sudden calm of the sea, the race begins and the yachts are off, cutting through the ocean waves. This is how the poem begins, but before moving on to the shift, a point requires attention here. Throughout this first part, the yachts are described to be in confrontation with one another, which is nothing unusual in a yacht race, and also, it seems, with the ocean: the pitiless ocean that tortures the biggest hulls (lines 2-5) laps at [the yachts’] sides…feeling for some slightest flaw (lines 18-20), and the waves strike at them (line 23). Apart from creating an atmosphere of hostility between the yachts and the ocean, these somehow ominous lines could be interpreted as signs that something unpleasant is about to take place.
Appearing after eight stanzas of detailed material description, the shift has been called both abrupt and irrelevant by most critics of the poem. Nevertheless, if the ominous lines mentioned above may be regarded as signs of an unpleasant incident or a shift, something many critics disagree with stating that the omens are too small for such a great shift, then the shift seems irrelevant rather than unjustifiably abrupt: nothing happens to the yachts but to the ocean, or something in the ocean, it seems. The reader gets entangled in a sea of arms hands and faces, wondering whom they belong to and what they could possibly be doing in a yacht race! Cruelty and desperation radiate from the ninth stanza but the hopeless victim(s) of the unknown cruelty are yet to be identified.
Lines 27 and 28 begin the finale of “The Yachts”, where the outcome of the race is mentioned. The poor victims are the watery bodies who are the real losers of the race. No matter which yacht wins the race, the poem gives no indication of a winner yacht nor does it state that such an indication is of any importance at all, the watery bodies are doomed to an inevitable defeat: they try in vain to catch the yatchs’ attention and to be taken along with them, but are left behind and the skillful yachts pass over. While it seems cruel indeed to leave someone in such a fashion as the yachts do, one cannot pass judgment unless he knows who exactly is being abandoned. Who are these watery bodies then?
The answer to the question above is disappointingly simple. It is not clear who the watery bodies are, for the poem provides the reader with no conclusive hints of their identity. However, the poem makes it rather clear that they are the very ocean that has always threatened the yachts, i.e. the ocean is considered to be made up of an enormous number of watery bodies. A part from this, nothing more as to their identity can be inferred from the poem. The very introduction of watery bodies in a poem that for the most part consists of realistic descriptions makes the impression, on the reader, that the watery bodies are being forced into the poem where they do not seem to belong.
The lack of conclusive evidence, which comes from the poem itself, leaves the critic with no choice but to look elsewhere to come up with an interpretation. This, which we in the Tehran Hopkins Club regard as an instance of artistic failure, has naturally generated an abundance of different interpretations of “The Yachts”. We believe the ones that appear in the following website** are probably the best ones available online, specially the articles by Elisabeth Schneider and Paul Mariani. Mariani’s Marxist interpretation provides the poem with its missing link through a biographical analysis of the poet and a social and historical analysis of the United States of Williams’ time.
* Follow this link for a comprehensive definition of Terza Rima:
www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/terza.html
**
www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/williams/yachts.htm
Adam Lloyd