[Susan Vaughan]

Dumb but sincere question -- why is William Carlos Williams' poem about the red wheelbarrow in the rain worth our time as readers? I don't get what it offers.

I was always taught that it's a great example of modern imagism. I saw it again yesterday in an anthology and must say I felt puzzled, to say the least. (I know, who am I to criticize a master...) Truth is, if this poem were posted on Eratosphere, I'd tell the author it sounds like the first few lines of a poem he hasn't finished or maybe like a hasty and rather glib first draft ("so much" depends, W.C.? Like what? Give us a clue).

So why the long shelf life and high praise for something this innocuous? No doubt it could be instructive to students who may not understand concrete imagery or something, but from a reader's viewpoint, why bother? Seems little more than a sloppily taken photograph.

I assume I'm missing its obvious and universally accepted wonderfulness. Could anyone help? I'd appreciate if someone could be as straightforward and brief as possible.

[RCL]

Susan, it all depends. . .

The short version: I dunno.

The long one, try here:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poe...heelbarrow.htm

------------------
Ralph

[This message has been edited by RCL (edited December 30, 2001).]

[David Mason]

It's a piece of conceptual art, isn't it? We're forced to have the argument about what makes a good poem in part because this little thing calls itself a poem. We can argue about form--is it two lines of loose blank verse stacked in an odd way, or is it syllabic verse (4, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 4, 2), or accentual verse (2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1)--or gawd knows what?
Mind you, I don't think it's much of a poem. The intellectual content is actually all right, paralleling the Zen message, "Be here now." But it seems to me an oddity more than a poem, a thing that exists to make us ask why it exists.

P. S. I find it works best when recited in an Elmer Fudd accent.

[This message has been edited by David Mason (edited December 30, 2001).]

[Robert J. Clawson]

[quote]Originally posted by David Mason:

"...it seems to me an oddity more than a poem, a thing that exists to make us ask why it exists."

Kind of like Everest.

[graywyvern]

so
much depends upon
ar-
bitrary line breaks and
banal
descriptions
but i think it
has more to
do with being conveniently
short

[Richard Wakefield]

I agree with Dave Mason. It's the audacity of the thing's calling itself a poem that strikes me first and makes me argue with it. Then, by the very act of arguing with it, I realize I've granted it the importance that it claimed... In addition, I think it does qualify as that rarest of the rare, a true experiment in verse. Williams proclaimed "No ideas but in things" (and I agree, keeping in mind that he didn't merely say "No ideas"), and in this poem he tries to get as close to "things" as he can. There are lots of poems that do it far more successfully, however.
For me, a big problem with the poem is, ironically, that it's all intellectual. There's nothing in the sound that resonates with me.
Richard

[David Mason]

Everest is quite a bit higher.

[Hugh Clary]

Probably shallow of me, but I took it merely to mean the importance of juxtaposition in art. Gotta have dark to make the light more visible, that sort of thing.

[Susan Vaughan]

I've appreciated this interesting and funny discussion. Thank you all.

Ralph, thanks for posting the e-address with those different critics. Finding them all with just one click shows me the value of the Internet but not, unfortunately, of the poem. Maybe it's just me, but these "analyses" struck me in general as contrived, straining to pull something out of thin air. Seemed as if this poem contained so little substance that the critics had to rely on their own creativity in order to give it any meaning at all.

RJC, meaning no disrespect, in my opinion a poem is NOT like Everest at all. (Sorry if I'm misinterpreting or maybe you were being ironic...) Everest did not have to get published to attain its force in the world, and it didn't displace other mountains that might have been more worth our time (and our children's time, etc.) It's obvious we can't change Mount Everest by debating its value. But we can decide what poems we give attention to. Human, not natural, forces shape a syllabus or poetry anthology, for example. It seems like a terrible disservice to both readers and writers learning what poetry can achieve to present this sort of dead description as a model of a successful poem.

graywyvern, I laughed at your parody and strongly suspect you're right that the poem's longevity may owe no small debt to its being so "conveniently short"! Wonder if other practicalities have also applied -- literary faddism or cultism maybe? Or pressure on academics and critics to prove they "get it," no matter how farfetched?

David, hello, and thank you for answering too. I appreciate your pointing out other possible approaches (metrical analysis, Zenlike intellectual content), and I note with interest your comment that you don't think it's "much of a poem." I was also interested to see that, as I took their comments, at least three other posters expressed similar dubiousness on the poem.

I might add that my non-poetry-reading, frequent-cartoon-watching husband, upon hearing the red wheelbarrow poem for the first time along with David's "voice-over suggestion," quickly grasped his (David's) point and delivered an impressive E. Fuddian rendition of it. No enlightenment ensued, but it was pretty funny.

[David Mason]

Anthony Hecht used to recite swatches of Milton's Lycidas with a WC Fields accent. I find that pretty good going too. I don't see the point in being too reverent.