Trained as a doctor, William Carlos Williams maintained a medical practice throughout his life, while also writing poetry that would influence a generation of younger poets. Williams' first poetic loves were John Keats and Walt Whitman. He writes, "I reserve my 'Whitmanesque' thoughts, a sort of purgation and confessional, to clear my head and heart from turgid obsessions." It was his meeting Ezra Pound and other Imagist poets such as H.D, however, that inspired him to try experimental forms of poetry. Williams was always a promoter of the avant-garde and later in life became a mentor to several of the Beat poets. Allen Ginsberg first wrote Williams (they were both from around Paterson, New Jersey), in 1950, after hearing him read at the Guggenheim Museum. Williams was so impressed with the letter that he included parts of it in his long poem, 'Paterson' and began to counsel the younger poet. He pointed out that Ginsberg's letters contained better poetry than his poems, and Ginsberg went back through his voluminous journals extracting poetical passages and forming from them many new poems. This exercise became the basis for the poetry that eventually made Ginsberg famous. When Ginsberg finally made the acquaintance of the San Francisco poets, he was not surprised to find that Williams was a favorite among many of them.
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