Mistakes Were Made

Act two: You're willing to sacrifice our love.

So one of our producers, Sean Cole, when we came up with this idea to do an episode about people who were apologizing without fully apologizing, he pointed out this poem, which is basically that in a nutshell.

In addition to making radio, Sean is a published poet.

So the poem's by William Carlos Williams, and it's a poem that's taught a lot in, uh, all sorts of poetry classes everywhere in, in particularly elementary school, which- schools, which is where I heard about it.

And, uh, the way it was taught to me was that it was an actual note that William Carlos Williams left for his wife, sort of, and I always sort of imagine, like, it sitting there on the kitchen table waiting for her.

Right.

And it's, uh, it's called This Is Just to Say.

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast.

Forgive me.

They were delicious, so sweet and so cold.

What's funny about the poem is that he never really apologizes.

He never apologizes.

He says, "Forgive me," which is kind of a command.

And so I feel like it's like, "Oh, you know, I, like, I ate the plums and that was a bad thing, but I'm not sorry I did it," you know?

It's interesting [laughs] to me that it makes you mad.

The thing that really breaks my heart is that she was saving them, and when he says probably saving them for breakfast, he knew she was saving them for breakfast.

[laughs]

There's no probably about it.

They lived together.

Now, now this is a poem that is often, um, imitated?

Imitated, spoofed by, by many a poet.

It's kind of become a game among poets to, like, write a version of This Is Just to Say.

Um, my favorite one is by a poet named Kenneth Koch.

Okay, let's hear him.

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.