{
 "id": "william-carlos-williams/canthara",
 "title": "Canthara",
 "poet": "William Carlos Williams",
 "poet_slug": "william-carlos-williams",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems",
 "book_slug": "al-que-quiere",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 16,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51997"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31878",
   "https://archive.org/details/temperscarlos00willrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51997",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006060238",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35667",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007676947"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
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  [
   {
    "text": "The old black-man showed me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "how he had been shocked",
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   },
   {
    "text": "in his youth",
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   },
   {
    "text": "by six women, dancing",
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   },
   {
    "text": "a set-dance, stark naked below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the skirts raised round",
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   {
    "text": "their breasts:",
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   {
    "text": "bellies flung forward",
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   {
    "text": "knees flying!",
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   },
   {
    "text": "—while",
    "indent": 8
   },
   {
    "text": "his gestures, against the",
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   },
   {
    "text": "tiled wall of the dingy bath-room,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "swished with ecstasy to",
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   },
   {
    "text": "the familiar music of",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "his old emotion.",
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}