Thus the city I wanted as my object had to be one that I knew in its intimate details. New York was too big, too much a congeries of the world's facets. I wanted something nearer, something knowable. I deliberately selected Paterson as my reality. My own suburb was not distinguished or varied enough for my purpose.
- William Carlos Williams, from his Statement preceding his long poem Paterson
* To save you a trip to dictionary.com, a congeries is an assemblage, aggregation or heap.