poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

The poem is about socialism. William Carlos Williams is a Socialist. Break it down:

"So much depends upon" .. well this is self-explanatory. something or someone (or group) is in dependence of someone/thing/(group).

"a red wheel barrow" --Red, Wheel Barrow. The wheel barrow is symbolic of what farmers use and workers use. The Blue collar workers. Red will be discussed.

"glazed with rain water" NOTICE HOW HE DIDN'T USE DROPS. He wanted to parallel the color BLUE with 'water'. Red & Blue so far. Rain - symbolic of sweat; a havier burden of the barrow. The water is on the barrow... sweat is on the blue collar workers.

"besides the white chickens" White - the white collar workers And finishing off the patriotic
Red, White & Blue ordeal.
Chickens - insulting. What are chickens used for? getting fat and eating :)

So we have:
Red, White & Blue
Blue Collar Workers with sweat, admirable almost
White collar workers being personified as chickens.

He leaves the wheel barrow next to the chickens, the chickens doing nothing. The wheel barrow is symbolic of what the chickens need to survive: chicken feed, eh? So, Williams is suggesting that the US switch to Socialism. Brilliant.

This poem reminds me of the "abstract art" made only from metal bent this way and that, so bare and abstract that it could have meant *anything*. This is abstract poetry with a vengeance. There could be a thousand symbolic meanings attached to it, because it's so vague that the images could be interpreted as almost anything. Like the statues with no clear form, poetry with no real implied meaning can be anything, mean anything, seem like anything. If that's so, how can you say your one interpretation of this piece is correct? There are probably a hundred people with different versions.

What's abstract about it Gooba, um I mean Emily? Being composed of a string of particulars, of physical details, that makes it concrete, not concrete with an umlaut in that it's not a shaped poem...

Take Wallace Stevens, now that's "abstract", behold

Valley Candle:

My candle burned alone in an immense valley.
Beams of the huge night converged upon it,
Until the wind blew.
The beams of the huge night
Converged upon its image,
Until the wind blew.

this entire comments page i think is a poem about the subjectivity of art

OK guys this poem sucks some serious balls. Maybe i should scribble some random stuff down in a little notebook and stash it away for someone to find after im dead and declare it brilliant. Here's my first entry:

Why?
Shoehorns are Good,
I like food
Help!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Wm. Carlos Williams sucks!

I like Missy's "literal" interpretation of this poem, in that a simple tool or machine is connected to so many facets of our lives. There's a sense of "connectedness" in the poem expressing that so much important work "depends" on the simple functions of a wheelbarrow.

Wallace Stevens is Waaaaaay less abstract than WCW. Stevens is using poetry to explore phenomenolgy, and he does so very clearly. But to get this, you have to know what he is doing, and have Read some phenomenolgy. "The Phenomenolgy of Perception" by Merleau-Ponty is a good place to start.

As for WCW, while many of the critics have been unnecessarily caustic on this site, I have to agree with them that it is indeed problematic that there is such a diverse spectrum of interpretation of this poem, nealrly all of which seems plausible.

Being too open to different meanings, many of which are contradictory, makes a poem LESS meaningful, not MORE meaningful. While enigma may sustain interest in a poem for a time, it is not lasting. Because WCW does not tell us, or even give us a clue as to what it is that depends on the red wheel barrow, we are deprived of a means of effectively approaching the poem.

how so benny? naming a real thing or class of things is concrete, naming a conceptual thing or class of things is abstract, right? And I only meant on the level of diction. Williams tends to speak in terms of things, real things, while Stevens often speaks of concepts, ideas. And you fail to explain why Phenomenology of Perception proves Stevens is less abstract, or Williams more. I can say I've read it, or Writing and Difference, or The Big Hookah, and it doesn't do a thing...

As I recall (from my long-gone college days), WCW composed this poem while looking out of the window of a recently-deceased patient's room. The scene described is what he saw.

red wheelbarrow is 'simply' a snapshot, of life or living. grey is a rather dull color, and preston a duller shade ........wonderful the reaction to shading.