I volunteered (fuck knows why) to do this in the 'Favourite Poets' thread, but it ended up being ridiculously long so I decided to post it in its own thread. I guess the discussion can continue here.

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William Carlos Williams, ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’

Right.

I’m going to try to do this as simply as I can while still getting everything across. I apologise if I start sounding like that book in Dead Poets’ Society that the class was told to rip into pieces. I’m only speaking from a real passion for this stuff. Where I get ‘technical’, I only do so because the ‘technical stuff’ really helps us to get to the heart of why and how poetry emotionally touches us. That book in Dead Poet’s Society was on about the ‘rules’ of poetry. The rules change all the time, so I don’t think of them as rules but as ‘tools’. Every craftsman uses tools to do what they want to do. Tools have changed throughout history, but any good craftsmen needs to know what they’re doing with what they’re using.

I made the comment in the ‘Favourite Poets’ thread that William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” is probably the best example of how Modern poetry is written (to say nothing of Pre-Modern or Post-modern poetry styles, which have their own tools – or in the case of Post-modern poetry, ‘non-traditions’).

This poem is not the best Modern poem ever written. I think it’s extremely good, but by no means my favourite poem. That said, it’s without a doubt the first poem I’d show to someone wanting to learn more about the craft of writing poetry OR the craft of reading it for all it’s worth.

While ‘taste’ in poetry is of course subjective, there are most definitely tools which poets who are good at the craft will always use to varying degrees. Some poems use some tools more than others, and what tools are used varies. These tools really separate ‘poetry’ from ‘prose’ (although some of them overlap).

This little tiny poem uses an awful lot of them, believe it or not. It ticks a lot of ‘how to write poetry’ boxes. I’ll do my best to show you why.

Read the poem, and then close your eyes. Think about what you see in your mind.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

What did you see when you closed your eyes after reading the poem? Did you see just the wheelbarrow and the chickens on their own? Or did you also see a muddy path where the wheelbarrow is pushed, the chicken coupe, and maybe the whole farm, even fields surrounding it? The poem allows us to see much more than just what is written. It creates a world ‘outside’ the poem. This is important in all writing. A novel, for example, has to convince us that its world is ‘real’, or it has failed. Even Narnia or Middle Earth feels ‘real’ because of the world the writer paints.

Unlike Prose though, Poetry is all about the distillation of ideas. Pictures are painted and thoughts are written in as brief and punchy a way as possible. A poem shouldn’t outstay its welcome, a bit like a song.

William Carlos Williams was a member of a group of poets we call the ‘Imagists.’ They were reacting against old forms of poetry which were full of lofty ideas, thoughts and philosophies. The Imagists saw these as manipulative and forceful. According to them, old writers asked you to ‘get on board’ with a religious poem, a political poem, or a philosophical poem, and tried to convince you that their ideas were ‘right’ and ‘correct.’ According to the Imagists, the poem should be about showing you images which conjure meaning for the individual reader, and NOT about ‘preaching’ to the reader about morality or religion or politics or philosophy; not about ‘argument’ at all.

So, ‘so much depends’ upon the image. What you take away from a poem will be what the poem showed you, and what that made you think about, what it made you feel, not what the poem told you was ‘true.’

In this poem, the poet shows us the red wheelbarrow, glazed rainwater on the wheelbarrow, beside white chickens. That’s all it shows… except that it’s not, is it?

The Imagists had a lot in common with artists, who believe that the only way to emotionally affect is to give the viewer something to look at. One of the ‘tools’ in the artist’s toolbox is contrast of colours. The contrasting colours here are red and white. What do these colours mean to you? My feeling is that the ‘red wheelbarrow’ symbolises people… maybe sunburned as they go about their work. The ‘white chickens’ symbolise nature. So like the Romantics’ poetry (Remember Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’?), this poem seems to look at our human response to nature and where we fit within it. It tells us to look around the world and react to what we see, to feel something about it. But the poem hasn’t actually ‘told’ us anything instructively or forcefully. It hasn’t told us WHAT to think or feel.

So, the only message or meaning of the poem is the images. So much depends on the images. What depends on them? Maybe ‘how to write a poem’ depends on them. Maybe ‘how to really enjoy a poem’ depends on them.

Or, maybe, so much depends on the red wheelbarrow because without it, we cannot feed the chickens and we cannot pick up all the chicken shit.

We’ve looked at the content of the poem. Now let’s look at the structure. The deliberate and careful construction of this poem, believe it or not, is secretly helping us to get into the meaning and mood of the piece… the content.

The poem has a very definite structure. ‘Structure’ is different to ‘form.’ Traditionally, ‘Formal poetry’ – the Villanelle, the Sestina, the Sonnet etc. – has a lot of rules in its construction. Modern poets like the Imagists reacted against this by using ‘Free Verse.’ BUT just because free verse doesn’t have ‘rules’, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have structure. It just means that its structure is invented by the poet, and not any external ‘rules.’ Poets use ‘tools’ to create their free verse poems, rather than rules, but a good poet is as strict about what he’s doing as the old formal masters ever were. You could probably argue that a passable free verse poem is harder to write than a formal one.

This poem has a structure of:

3 words
1 word

3 words
1 word

3 words
1 word

3 words
1 word

Imagists wrote very minimalist poems. They were particularly inspired by Eastern forms which distilled their ideas into the smallest amount of words possible. And you could say this poem is made up of several little Haikus. These haikus allow you to stop and meditate upon the whole image, one small piece at a time.

First, we see the wheelbarrow, painted red.

Then, the ‘camera’ zooms in and focuses in on the wet texture of the wheelbarrow, and its ‘glaze of rainwater.’ This gives a picture of what the weather’s like in this scene: it conjures up an image of a dull and dreary day, using just three words. It does this by using a clever line-break, but we’ll come to that later.

Then, the ‘camera’ pans right (or left) and we see the collection of white chickens milling about. This movement of focus on different images is almost like the beginning of a film. Except that we haven’t got a ‘voice over’ to tell us what to think about the scene, as in a Hallmark Channel film. We’ve only got the scene itself. It’s enough. The writer trusts us to make meaning of it ourselves.

I’ve said poetry is all about tools. But, hang on. Other forms of writing have tools. Novels have images (we hope). The thing that really separates poetry from prose though, is the individual Line. Poems, as well as being whole poems, are broken up into lines which break, sometimes at obvious points (‘end-stopped’ lines in formal poetry) and sometimes at unusual points. Where a line breaks at an unusual point, the poet is doing something. Deliberately (or at least, they are if they’re very good). The line is at least as important as all the other tools in poetry, but also the most often over-looked.

Sometimes a line breaks before an idea is finished, and this is called Enjambment. This can affect the meaning of each part of the line. It can set us up with a meaning or a thought, and then surprise us in the next line by changing its meaning entirely.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

At the first line-break – ‘depends’ – the poet is beginning to make an argument. SO many arguments begin with ‘It all depends.’ At the outset, we get the impression the poet is about to tell us something important. But, remember that Williams (being an Imagist) is against being told what to think or feel. So he slowly reveals to us that it all depends
upon (What? Come on man, just tell us!)

a red wheel
barrow

Huh? What? You’re fucking with us, poet. We want to hear something important, don’t play around. But, he’s saying, so much depends upon the image. How you FEEL about something will depend entirely on what you’re SEEING, because ‘seeing is believing.’

‘Upon / a red wheelbarrow’ is a joke, in a way, because not only is he saying that his argument (whatever that is) depends upon the wheelbarrow, he’s also allowing us as the reader to hop on board the wheelbarrow itself; to ‘climb upon’ it, and all by isolating the word ‘upon.’ ‘Upon’ is both an abstract and a physical word, and it’s being used as a pun here.

We all know that ‘wheelbarrow’ is one word, except that here, it’s not. That is because Williams wants us to see not just the wheelbarrow, but its working parts, too. The camera zooms in to the wheel first (where you imagine the tire, the axle and the spokes), and then over to the ‘barrow.’ And the effect happens just because he decided to break the line where he did. Line breaks can surprise and change meaning in the blink of an eye.

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Again, ‘rainwater’ is one word. But here, it’s not. When we read ‘glazed with rain’ we think of the sky pouring down on this wheelbarrow. But then we ‘zoom in’ to see its separate water droplets shimmering on the surface of the wheelbarrow. We saw the ‘rain’, now we see its ‘water.’

‘Beside the white’… what? River? Cliffs?

No, chickens. We are seeing the beauty nature, but it’s not high and lofty and ‘self-important’… it’s working class and mundane. Because that’s what the Imagists were about too, like the Romantics: real poetry for real people, doing real, everyday things. We’re not all part of the gentry. Some of us are farmers who slog hard for a small wage. We have ‘small’ lives, and this is a ‘small’ poem, both in size and in theme.

Another thing that separates poetry from prose is rhythm. Metrical poetry uses metre to create a rhythm, and these rhythms are used all the time in formal poems. Wordsworth’s ‘The Daffodils’, for example, is written in ‘Iambic Tetrameter’, which describes its rhythm.

Carlos Williams hasn’t done that, because he’s writing in Free Verse. But he still delights us with the sounds of words in a similar way. The words ‘sing’ and ‘make music.’

I’ve already talked about the 3,1; 3,1; 3, 1; 3,1 structure. This allows us to read the poem in a certain way, in a slow, meditative, almost Zen-like rhythm. It’s kind of hypnotic, just like the scene it paints. This structure is almost like the frame of the painting, which compliments what’s in the painting itself. It allows you to focus on it.

But Carlos Williams also uses his language to ‘lull’ us, by using different sounds which work together, compliment and mirror each other. I’ve highlighted some of the sounds which are working together here which make the poem a pleasurable read rather than an ugly one.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

So, ‘ends’ and ‘red’ are the most obvious ones. But also, ‘ends’ and ‘on’ sound nice together (both ending in ‘n’), ‘depends’ and ‘upon’ share ‘p’ sounds, and red and wheelbarrow compliment each other in their ‘r’ sounds. All these sounds make the poem trip off the tongue nicely.

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Here, the sounds of ‘glazed’ and ‘rain’ echo each other with their ‘ai’ sounds, and ‘side’ and ‘white’ also echo each other. The first two use ‘assonance’ (matching vowel sounds) to sound similar, and the latter two, as well as using assonance, are ‘near-rhymes’. When words within a line rhyme to create an effect, it’s called ‘internal rhyme.’

So, it’s not the best poem in the world, but a bloody good one, and a good one for learning how to write poetry.

I have a headache.

No offense but I think that this has far surpassed the limits of my interest in poetry. A 16-word poem? Really?

None taken... LOL

Not all of this is on 'the poem' itself, some of it is context; but yeah, 16 lines... really.

You can say as much or as little as you like about good poetry... or you can say nothing, up to you.

Harmless, this write up unlocked a lot of this poem for me. You have a good grasp of not only poetry, but an easy and accessible way of writing about it. As much as I've always loved the imagery of this poem, I've never been able to understand the structure until you wrote this:



Thanks for making this thread.

No worries Washing Machine. Glad you enjoyed and learned something.

It wasn't supposed to come off as pretentious, not at all. At the end of the day, people love poetry because it says something to them.

So... ya know, people are welcome to look at all this stuff about 'what makes it work', and how it helps people who want to write poetry, or not... just enjoy the fact that it does.

Btw, in my tired haze I said 16 lines... It's only 8 lines actually.

I liked this poem SO much better when I thought Mecca had written it.

FTFY?

Let's talk about what doesn't make a poem work. I read a lot of poetry that goes over my head, and this is one of those that could have run the risk of doing that before I decided to stick with it and rereadx1000. How does a novice reader like myself decide what is worth a few more looks and what is worth a quick page turn?

Are there things that I can look for that stick out like a sore thumb? I guess it's a combination of subjectivity and experience, isn't it?

This might look like I'm contradicting myself, but the best thing you can do as a novice is to look for stuff people recommend (or that you enjoy already), see what floats your boat, get as much as you can, and just enjoy reading it. If it doesn't inspire you, it doesn't.

If you want, you can then try to figure out why it works, why it's doing what it's doing, emotionally affecting you, whatever... or why you think it doesn't. There are plenty of good poets who use every trick in the book. I just don't like them. And that's subjective.

A lot of the techniques I've written about up there are used in a lot of different poems, all achieving different effects... so...

hmmm, is that an answer?

Don't you think it's possible that I could write a single 16-word sentence and then write a 10 page analysis of that sentence? What does this say about poetry? What does this say about language?

What would you say about this:


The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed
with rain water

beside
the white chickens.

or


The Red Wheelbarrow

so much
depends
upon

a red
wheel
barrow

glazed with
rain
water

beside the
white
chickens.



?

Your line breaks in the second are of a lesser quality.

In my opinion



'So much' doesn't do enough to justify an entire line. 'So much depends' is more of a complete thought. 'Upon' has less of an impact on its own because 'depends' was also on its own, which takes our full attention off the word 'upon', which was so important in the original poem.





Again, 'a red' is just not powerful enough to stand on its own in a line; there is no complete image or thought, as there was in 'a red wheel'. Again, the emphasis on 'barrow' is taken away by the fact that 'wheel' is also on its own. 'Wheel' isn't very strong without 'red' accompanying it. And the original break after 'a red wheel' into 'barrow' seemed to imply that the wheel and barrow are one object, with one colour.



There are very few cases where you'd want to end a line in 'with'... it's a crap word which leaves a reader hanging. You've also lost the lovely 'a' sounds of 'glazed with rain' if you read it as 'glazed with...... rain.' Again, the word 'water' loses the close focus that Williams wanted us to have on it because rain is also on its own in the previous line.



Again, 'beside the...' Why would you want to end a line on the word 'the'? Boring, useless word unless it's joined to 'white.' Again, the original three words at the first line here combined the sounds of side and white very nicely. A pleasing sonic effect which is broken when written like this. There is less surprise when we come to 'chickens' because previously, 'white' was also trying to be a surprise... but failing. You could argue that 'white' and 'red' are more highlighted, so you like them on a line on their own, but for all the other reasons, I think Williams' line breaks are better.

Last thing. Poetry is designed to be read aloud. Read your new version aloud, see where your voice naturally pauses at the end of a line. Is it weird and annoying that you hear 'glazed with......... rain' and 'beside the..... white....... chickens' because of where you placed the line breaks?

This is only my opinion. I wouldn't say that Williams' version is 'right' and yours is 'wrong.' But I can tell which one works better, and why.

Of course you could. No-one's saying you couldn't. But it wouldn't necessarily be poetry. It might be.

But you can't tell me that there aren't better written sentences than others; you can look at something and tell me that it isn't even a sentence. In the same way, there are better written poems than others. And some things aren't poems... they aren't trying to be.

A poem uses the tools that poets use. I've seen some excellent one-sentence poems. All poetry relies on the Line as one of its tools, and if your line was strong enough, it could be poetry.

A canvas covered in paper and glue may be art. But it's not a painting, it's collage.

oh i thought this was about some absurd angle involving a Fingerpoke of Doom or something

i thought this thread was gonna have somethin to do with the nwo