Discussion: The Red Wheelbarrow

Oh, no! Not this poem again! For the life of me, I can't tell you why some people think this one is such a big deal.

Every single one of Haskin's poems that I have ever seen beat this one hands down.



No, I'm not opinionated; why do you ask?

Unique said:

Oh, no! Not this poem again! For the life of me, I can't tell you why some people think this one is such a big deal.

Every single one of Haskin's poems that I have ever seen beat this one hands down.



No, I'm not opinionated; why do you ask?

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Well, I'm with you on that -- heck some of the stuff just tossed out in the Haiku threads beat this as far as I'm concerned. Unlike Webern who did a similar thing with music, this has never struck me as a big deal.

I especially hate the phrase "So much depends" as it is a completely worthless phrase offering nothing (as far as I can tell) to the overall piece. It is so general it might as well not be there.

YMMV but for me, I hate this poem almost as much as I hate "The Lovely Bones" and that's going some distance.

Actually I love this poem.

The thing is, context helps. He wrote this after visiting a girl that he could not cure (williams was a doctor). He looked outside and this was what he saw.

So much depends on the simplicity, on the baptism, on the cleansing. The juxtaposition of the colors, bright angry red with the white innocence, really shows the battle between the girl and her illness.

Also its simplicity is excellent compared with other very complex poems coming out during the period. So much was focused on the loss of a moral center, war, destruction, and loss of innocence while williams pointed out the beauty around us.


4 so much depends
2 upon

3 a red wheel
2 barrow

3 glazed with rain
2 water

4 beside the white
2 chickens.

I love the structure, which reminds me so much of haiku. In a way, williams americanized the form and used it to his advantage.

I really admire williams' economy of word choice.

But it comes down to context, which may also be a fault of the poem.

In the end, it's fun to teach to students. At first, they say "what's the big deal." Then you reveal the subtle structure, the subtle meaning. They love it after that. It's amazing how much you can fit into such a small box.

"The thing is, context helps. He wrote this after visiting a girl that he could not cure (williams was a doctor). He looked outside and this was what he saw."

If a poem 'needs' a back story to get its point across, IMO, it isn't working. I fail to see a connection between a dying girl and a chicken and a wheelbarrow. (And I don't think it's anything lacking in me.)

"....really shows the battle between the girl and her illness."

It might if she were mentioned in the poem, but she isn't.

"Also its simplicity is excellent compared with other very complex poems coming out during the period. So much was focused on the loss of a moral center, war, destruction, and loss of innocence while williams pointed out the beauty around us."

That sounds like we should like it because his contemporaries were writing in a different style. I should prefer Andy Warhol because his style isn't like Vermeer?

I'll agree with you that it's simple.

But I still don't think it's all that.

I agree with what's been said- the economy of words is amazing the imagery wonderful. However, I'm not completely in love with this poem. Call me old fashioned, but I have a thing for puctuation and lines with multiple words. ::shrug::

And that's very interesting about the context Unique. It does put the poem in a much different light.

Then what is the big deal about haiku? It is simple and often conveys a simple image.

I understand the idea that it's over-hyped, much of the poetry hammered in schools is over-hyped, but the poem functions on a number of cool levels.

As I said in my original post: some may consider the context issue a failure on his part, but putting it in that context is only one layer. On another level, it functions the same way as haiku.

the poem is a survivor largely because of the debate it imposes on its audience, which i would contend is one of the primary functions of a poem. had it not any suggestion of substance; had it not any intriguing aura, it would have long ago slipped through the cracks of time.

i have never been overly impressed by it, even with williams' own gloss to set the context, but i am a huge fan of his work in general.

my apologies to those who are aware of his body of work, but for the more casual folks, i'd like to offer up—just as a contrast—one of his i've always found beautifully-wrought.

To Waken an Old Lady (1920)

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind --
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested --
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.

I love this discussion. And thanks, wordsheff, for starting it off. It's like reading a tennis match or watching kids trade yo'mama insults. "Oh, good point." "Hey, you're right too." "Oh, hadn't thought of that." Good rally!

I'm torn about whether context is essential; it's only through the annotations that I was able to appreciate much of what's in the Norton Anthology. Without having the sort of classical education the Wildes and Byrons of the world would've had (which near no one has these days), the context of much of the classic works is lost.

I've only been able to make two firm conclusions:

1) I completely agree with your comment below, Dirk. That first line is a complete fizzer. Throws a mouldy funk over the rest of the piece.

ddgryphon said:

...
I especially hate the phrase "So much depends" as it is a completely worthless phrase offering nothing (as far as I can tell) to the overall piece. It is so general it might as well not be there.
...

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2) William Haskins is indeed a master of this style: showing us the world with a handful of words. We prattle on about you a lot, William -- probably more than you'd like -- but you bring it on yourself. Your ability is a rod for your own back.

i just can't get behind the notion that "so much depends" is a weak phrase.

it's almost a desperate reliance on the 'wheelbarrow', elevated to the point of almost sacredness.

it's such an encompassing phrase, implying something whose value can't be calculated, in the way that something like "you are everything to me", which—if you can look beyond it as cliche'—is a pretty heavy thing for someone to say if they really mean it.

p.s. poet, you're much too kind to me. and i mean that. i'm not worthy of it.

That's precisely my problem with it - I can't get past the cliche'. Or, I suppose more accurately, I choose not to. It's too much work to rearrange my perceptions so I can be moved; the observer risks spoiling the experiment.

So much "depends" on it because the poet says it does. "License" they call it right?

Though I'm not a fan of most WCW, I adore this poem. (After I first read it, I bought a WCW hoping for more of the same.)

I like short poems

I like poems that tinker with my brain's normal operating mode

I like poems to make wild statements

I like the way it looks, I like the way it works-slowing you down. Grabbing you by the neck and making you look at the ordinary in an unusual way.

The haiku analogy seems appropriate. And haiku, I mean a real haiku, not just 3 lines of words, operates on your brain in a particular way.

That being said, I know many fine upstanding, creative and intelligent people who are kind to animals and their aged parents who DO NOT understand haiku. They don't "get it" they are "haiku proof" individuals.

Their explanation of course is that "haiku doesn't make any sense." I beg to differ.

Adoration of the wheelbarrow is likely a similiar thing. Though I'm willing to accept the fact that people who think it's a great poem might have their wires crossed.I like it and that bolsters the "wiring" theory.

It's only the "so much" to which I object. The depending is fine.

I however, require a desperate sense of urgency when viewing farm utensils in the rain.

It took a long time to come over to Williams' side, especially after discovering that one could effectively read many of his works in William Shatner's voice. But I was won over after some guy brought a bunch into a poetry group. Sometimes a simple visual image can be powerful. I keep thinking of a poem I can't find which was either Seamus Heaney or Galway Kinnel, and had an image of a "tin scoop" in a barrel of oats or flour or something like that. We attach our experience to what we read in poetry, or, as Edwin Romond said, "we read a poem with our life."

unique said:

If a poem 'needs' a back story to get its point across, IMO, it isn't working.

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Then you've wiped out a good deal of classic poetry, haven't you?

With that assumption, then Sappho's poetry doesn't work. In fact, anything that needs footnotes doesn't work because you need that content to understand it. You'd have to know everything T. S. Eliot knew in order for the Waste Land to work.

As I said, context helps, but isn't necessary.

unique said:

"....really shows the battle between the girl and her illness."

It might if she were mentioned in the poem, but she isn't.

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I'm speaking about one aspect of the interpretation from the angle of the background story. You can talk about colors and associations in a number of ways. I wasn't offering a definitive exegesis of the poem, just a point of view.

unique said:

That sounds like we should like it because his contemporaries were writing in a different style. I should prefer Andy Warhol because his style isn't like Vermeer?

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No, but one reason people liked Andy Warhol was because he was different. He did stuff that no one else was doing and stood out.Granted he was a great artist, but part of it was tha the was different.

poetinahat said:

I'm torn about whether context is essential; it's only through the annotations that I was able to appreciate much of what's in the Norton Anthology. Without having the sort of classical education the Wildes and Byrons of the world would've had (which near no one has these days), the context of much of the classic works is lost.

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Context isn't essential, but it adds something extra to it. It's not mandatory, but it's nice to know.

As for context, Dante's Inferno is an excellent work, but without context (the politics of Dante's time), much of the irony and meaning in the punishments are lost.

I'm in no way saying this is the best of williams' work, but it's packed with meaning if you're willing to dig.

poetinahat said:

That's precisely my problem with it - I can't get past the cliche'. Or, I suppose more accurately, I choose not to. It's too much work to rearrange my perceptions so I can be moved; the observer risks spoiling the experiment.

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YES! I feel I should be drawn into the work, not forced to turn myself sideways to get through the door.

Poetry is art. You guys are acting like "beauty" or "significance" actually exist outside of one's own mind. They don't. There's no universal form of "art" or "poetry" that all sentient beings no matter how smart or dull could all agree was "good."
A poem is a personal endeavor, not a sales pitch. If a poet writes a poem then his relationship with the poem has only to do with truth, honesty and personal satisfaction. If he likes the poem he has written then he has produced good poetry.
As readers we have a different relationship with a poem. For all the pomp and glitz surrounding poetry there is really only the relationship between the singular reader and the singular poem at that exact moment they're reading it, or remembering it. However the poem effects them is POETRY.
Sometimes the relationship is good. Perhaps I also enjoy the imagery of the wheel barrel. Perhaps the chord of resonance it strikes in me runs deep and I connect to the sentiments of the poem at a very root level. That's a good relationship with a poem.
However let's say I didn't like the poem at all ,didn't "get it" as it were. Or maybe I found it trite, or cliché. Maybe I've seen a billion poems before it that were exactly the same and when I read it the only memories or thoughts it conjured were negative or of the common variety. Then it's a bad relationship with the poem and I probably won't like it.

But none of this bears any reflection on the poem itself.
The fact that most people like Shakespeare's sonnets doesn't necessarily mean they're GOOD. It just means they reach a LOT of individuals. No, not good, but important? Highly. Societies and cultures are built upon such shared reactions, good or bad.
Which is why the context of read poetry can be important. Poetry isn't just a collection of words about wheel barrels or chickens. It's a snapshot of a time and place. We can see the lines and the sentiments that resonated with a people of a thousand years ago...or even twenty...or even our current neighbors.
Vocabulary is only half of comprehension. What good are all the poems in the world if they're just disembodied words floating through ether to be taken or discarded on the basis of their first appearance.

The fact that Williams liked his poem enough to get it published means it was good poetry. The fact that so many different people like it makes it important. Whether or not it has any value to you, as a reader, says imho much more about you than it does the poem or Williams.

gromhard said:

Poetry is art. You guys are acting like "beauty" or "significance" actually exist outside of one's own mind. They don't. There's no universal form of "art" or "poetry" that all sentient beings no matter how smart or dull could all agree was "good."

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Condescendingly said, but interesting. Give the people here a little more credit; if we all agreed, well, this thread wouldn't have run as far as it had.

The original question was not whether the poem was good; it was whether the poem reached us. We've answered.

The discussion here has been around whether people liked it or not, not so much whether it was good.

It would follow, then, if beauty and quality of art are entirely subjective, there is NO basis on which to distinguish any art from any other in terms of quality. If that's the case, I can't totally agree.

The fact that Williams liked his poem enough to get it published means it was good poetry.

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Don't quite agree. People can publish for any number of reasons, many of which bear no relation to how good they actually think the work is. Much less what anybody else thinks.

The fact that so many different people like it makes it important.

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This statement contradicts your earlier assertion that significance doesn't exist outside our own minds.

Whether or not it has any value to you, as a reader, says imho much more about you than it does the poem or Williams.

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All it says about me is that I see it differently from Williams. What does that tell you? That I'm not Williams.

What it says about Williams, and the poem, is whether they reached me. So, who do you know better now?

William Haskins said:

the poem is a survivor largely because of the debate it imposes on its audience, which i would contend is one of the primary functions of a poem. had it not any suggestion of substance; had it not any intriguing aura, it would have long ago slipped through the cracks of time.

i have never been overly impressed by it, even with williams' own gloss to set the context, but i am a huge fan of his work in general.

my apologies to those who are aware of his body of work, but for the more casual folks, i'd like to offer up—just as a contrast—one of his i've always found beautifully-wrought.

To Waken an Old Lady (1920)

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind --
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested --
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.

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Now, see, this to me is something worth looking at and spending time on, and, dog help me, IMO has more going for it than that damn Wheelbarrow poem. It isn't that I think The Red Wheelbarrow is a bad poem, I don't find it a significant poem, which is how it has constantly been portrayed to me.

This I think IS a significant poem. I understand that not only am I out of step with most of my contemporaries at the time, but even now, I'm on the outside of this discussion concerning the "wheelbarrow" piece.

With apologies to all who love this piece, but I can't help saying:

little matters
about

the lone wheel
barrow

grown over with
weeds

beside the split
coop.

We twist words and test the limits of meaning almost every time we put poetry pen to paper. It's accepted as license. When we critique a poem, especially when we try to assess a work's value, we are doing the same thing that the poet did. The Red Wheelbarrow means nothing to me. Probably very important to the author as someone here pointed out as "a snapshot" of life. Perhaps it was the original critic who attached the importance. Who knows? I'm just not sure that ANY value exists in addressing a person's particular opinion about a piece of poetry. Address the work, not the person.

poetinahat said:

Condescendingly said, but interesting. Give the people here a little more credit; if we all agreed, well, this thread wouldn't have run as far as it had.

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I didn't mean to be condescending if that matters at all.

The original question was not whether the poem was good; it was whether the poem reached us. We've answered.

The discussion here has been around whether people liked it or not, not so much whether it was good.

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Other points of discussion have been brought up since.

It would follow, then, if beauty and quality of art are entirely subjective, there is NO basis on which to distinguish any art from any other in terms of quality. If that's the case, I can't totally agree.

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This is a philosophical arguement as old as time. One side says "beauty is just opinion" and the other side goes "no, beauty can exist independantly" one of the sides has never been able to cite an example though...

Don't quite agree. People can publish for any number of reasons, many of which bear no relation to how good they actually think the work is. Much less what anybody else thinks.

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I grant. I know nothing of Williams intentions in getting that poem published. He could have had a gun to his head for all I know.

This statement contradicts your earlier assertion that significance doesn't exist outside our own minds.

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Are you just being difficult? I can't tell so I'll answer as if this is an honest assessment of what I said:
When I said that "significance" didn't exist outside your mind I meant as a stand-alone quality.
For something to be significant there must be a predicate, it has to be significant to something.
When I call Shakespeare's sonnets important, I mean they're important to us on a socio-cultural level. But as far as the sonnets themselves go, without that socio-cultural context they're no better than any other sonnets.

All it says about me is that I see it differently from Williams. What does that tell you? That I'm not Williams.
What it says about Williams, and the poem, is whether they reached me. So, who do you know better now?

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Exactly. Now let's follow that logic some.
You're not just different than Williams, you're different from John Smith over there who DOES like Williams' poem.
And if a football arena of people like that poem then you're different from all of them...and if I like the poem you're different from me.
If the poem makes me feel then you're unfeeling to me.
If the poem makes me happy then you're cynical to me.
If the poem strikes me as holy then you're evil to me.
Now this all seems overblown right? This seems like I'm reading too far in. Yet, now instead of Williams, imagine we're talking about the poems that make up the Psalms.

We DEFINE ourselves by the poetry and art we read or do not read or understand or do not understand.

lololololololol..........oh my gosh.....I can't breath......lolololololol...........okay......lololololol.......I want to jump into this wheelbarrow......heheheheheh.......I just love these conversations.....okay.....white chicken, red wheelbarrow.....I see capitalism vs. communism.............that's it............it's a labor union manifesto for me!..............Power to the people!............it all depends on our ability to reach consensus, We the People against the State!!

(no offense to cw/sick friend)

often times, it's difficult for the reader to fill in the blanks.......you guys have gotten me for that numerous times! And, I thank you for it. Because, I, as I'm sure all artist will, write from my perspective, from my personal angst, for my own relief, condemnation or hope. I wield my "pen" and make the world suffer my delusions. Beg all to see my evident revelations.

I write because I am an addict to writing, even as it consumes me in all it's terribleness. If saint, you suffer noblely with me. If devil, you destroy.

I love you all for all you are and pray you write much more.

gromhard said:

I didn't mean to be condescending if that matters at all.

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Actually, to me, that matters a lot. Thank you.

This is a philosophical arguement as old as time. One side says "beauty is just opinion" and the other side goes "no, beauty can exist independantly" one of the sides has never been able to cite an example though...

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Okay. To me, comparing Piss Christ with the Pieta' would seem a lay-down misere. I'm happy with unending philosophical arguments; they make the world go 'round. Maybe they become annoying sometimes, but debate is good.

Are you just being difficult?

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No, not trying to anyway. I spotted a contradiction and pointed it out. I don't see where that's being difficult. We're having what I hope is a good-natured debate.

We DEFINE ourselves by the poetry and art we read or do not read or understand or do not understand.

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Hmmm. I'd say those things define us in relation to others, so I basically agree.

I still love this thread -- even more now. It gets boring when we all agree.

But, back to the topic: I also see a haiku-like quality in the poem, but the "so much" rankles; to me, it's lazy work. I'm not going to rave about how much the poem affects me, but I think Mr Haskins makes a good point: regardless of how it reaches people, it's significant in that the debate over it has lasted so long.

Will Piss Christ last as long for the same reason? I wonder.