Response to "Winter Landscape" by John Berryman

The poem Winter landscape feels like it was specifically written as a response to the painting that accompanied it.  It specifically calls out portions of the painting and describes them.  The hunters coming down the hill, the people around the fire, the children on the ice; all are mentioned in the poem.  It goes a touch beyond that though.  The line “the long companions they can never reach” almost makes a reference to the fact that this is a painting, and that the figures can never reach their destination; almost as if the poet is lamenting the plight of the figures in the painting.  At he same time there is a hint of wistfulness about how this beautiful scene will last forever. 

This poem was read alongside another poem by William Carlos Williams titled “The Hunter in the Snow”.  I only mention it because they both seem to be written about the same painting, and I wanted to mention that “The Hunter in the Snow” strikes me as the less interesting of the two because of how much less imagery we get out of the poem.  It reads almost like the painting is being described to a blind person with no real depth given in the poem.