Paterson (poem) caught Williams' attention for its use, with a technical skill that seemed to rival Pound's in "The Cantos", of such diverse and seemingly prosaic materials as notes from a congressional investigation, an X-ray report and a physician's testimony on cross-examination. He wrote to fellow poet Louis Zukofsky, "I've begun to think about poetic form again. So much has to be thought out and written out there before we can have any solid criticism and consequently well-grounded work here." In 1944, Williams read a poem by Byron Vazakas in "Partisan Review" that would help lead him to solutions in form and
So You Want to Write a Fugue? forget the rules, and write one"). Lyrically, the 5-minute piece concludes tongue-in-cheek with the decision to "write a fugue right now!" The piece contains numerous quotes from various works of Bach, including the famous sequence of notes "B-A-C-H", the Second Brandenburg Concerto, and Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (altered from major mode to minor). <poem>"So you want to write a fugue? You've got the urge to write a fugue You've got the nerve to write a fugue So go ahead and write a fugue that we can sing Pay no heed to what we've told you Give no mind