A conspicuous lack of punctuation contributes to the poem's tonal ambiguity. While the second stanza begins with a conjunction, implying a connection to the first stanza, the third stanza is separated from the first two by the capitalized "Forgive". In a 1950 interview, John W. Gerber asked the poet what it is that makes "This Is Just to Say" a poem; Williams replied, "In the first place, it's metrically absolutely regular...