English Language and Literature, JU

William Carlos Williams

(The interpretations are given here taken from Mashrur Shahid Hossain sir's article "news from poems": the significance of small things in the poetry of William Carlos Williams  published in The Eastern University Journal, Vol.2, No.1) 

One of the most prominent poets of the Imagist and Objectivist tradition. William Carlos Williams consistently attempted to present "the thing itself" as accurately and vividly as possible. In his poetics, he tried to address the subject/object, imagination/reality dichotomies: the function of imagination is not to temper reality but to successful transform it into something, not necessarily sublime-different. And it is by telling imagination dance over a commonplace thing, he believed, that one may experience a new significance in the thing in particular and/or a fresh perception of life in general. 

So much depends upon how we see a thing as seeing is imaging and imagining at once. Williams motto "No ideas but in things" leaves a things infinitely interpretable. It discourages the fixity of 'meaning' and mobilizes the dialogue: the thing, the referent, is open for regeneration and new interpretation.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens 

'The Red Wheelbarrow' may adequately, if not satisfying, be seen as simply a vivid presentation of an image 'a red wheelbarrow', glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens." But... yes, you got it ... the is not presented the way it is above in a single, flat, unbroken sentence. The opening statement and the experimentation with typography and mechanics leave the image speak for itself. The object is as it is retaining what Williams calls its 'fixity' and 'finality' (Larrissy, 1990); what imagination does is to lend the image rhythm: "tides, waves, ripples' ("English Speech Rhythms," quoted on Larrissy, 72). So the very appearance of the poem whispers that there something more than precise, vividness is involved. 

Let us see at least 13 ways of seeing or looking "the red wheelbarrow" --

1. Take it as an everyday picture- a paragraph of a rustic setting- just after it pours

2. Both the wheelbarrow and the chickens look fresh as the rain washed away dusts and stains. It gives the feeling of renewal of life and mobility.

3. If so, at the same time, it suggests that all resurrection is followed by a threat (as the barrow may crush the chickens)

4. If the wheelbarrow represents civilization or human effort towards progress, then the rain water glazing on the barrow may suggest divine affirmation while the presence of chickens or the animate beings suggests that civilization/progress being blessed by the divine as there to help human beings or life on earth.

5. It may also suggest that to be constructive or helpful for humanity, civilization or machine age needs to be balanced by the spiritual (the rain) as the scene captured may suggest, otherwise it may be destructive for the humanity as the very crucial positioning of the barrow and the chickens (that the chickens may get smashed by the barrow's wheels) suggest. That is the material is important but it should be tempered by the spiritual.

6. The color contrasts may speak: "red" meaning violence/lust/fire and "white" meaning peace/sense/snow; we then can read the poem as a subtle protest against violence; or that even after rain (something divine?) the situations stays the same: the chickens are in danger beside the (relatively innocent) wheelbarrow.

7. So much depends upon the interdependency (see the way the first line balances over the second line in each stanza and the way each stanza is balanced by each other, rhythmically) of human-made wheelbarrow and god-made chickens (e.g. chickens take shelter under the barrow during rain).

8. The chain of existence of the spiritual/unearthly (rain), the inanimate (wheel barrow) and the animate (chickens). It may be enriching to note that the production of rain is itself cyclic, combining the heaven and the earth.

9. After the last interpretation, the human body is absent in the picture and the interdependent positioning of the three elements may suggest that human's survival depends on the spontaneous interaction between these elements.

10. Also that all these non-human elements, to exist, need to be seen or interpreted by humans (it is a human who looks at the scene and a human who is reading).

11. And also that humans need all these things to incite their imagination and to create.

12. The wheel barrow is man-made, standing for civilization and mobility, and is blessed by god, the rain.

13. The red wheel barrow may suggest revolutionary spirit and the 'white' chickens the possible/expected future peace which is, ironically, in constant threat.      

This is Just to Say  

I have eaten
  the plums
that were in
  the icebox

   and which 
you were probably 
     saving
for breakfast

   Forgive me
they were delicious
   so sweet
 and so cold

1. It just describes a boy stealing a plum.

2. It just a message left by the wife/husband who ate the plum to the husband/wife who was sleeping; the casual tone in saying "Forgive me" is then convincing.

3. More generally, it is just a typical refrigerator note informing the owner that someone ate the plum secured for breakfast; the "Forgive me" is there not to seek forgiveness but to finish the message in a formal but casual way (the title also suggests this casualness).

4. It is just a poem of the original sin. of Eve's eating apples which were delicious but cold, the tone then betrays audacity and lack of repentance.

5. It is just a casual acknowledgement, if not confession, of a sexual violence as the phrases "in the icebox" and "saving for breakfast" suggest: the object was "delicious" and "sweet" but "cold" suggesting either indifference (if it is about post-marital sexual relation) or unresponsiveness (if it is about forced encounter).

6. It is just a celebartion of physicality against the backdrop of spiritual or puritan philosophy.

7. regarding the time when it was written, 1934, referring to post Depression mass urge and necessity to snatch food from the store-houses of the rich.