There is one poem that stuck out to me in William Carlo's Spring and All: XXII. I knew I saw it before, but I did not think it was William Carlos Williams. Instead, I thought it was e.e. cummings based on the simplicity and lack of punctuation. Moving on...
XXII
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Let's look at some of the quick observations:
- No punctuation
- No capitalization
- Stanzas in sets of 2 lines (couplets)
- 4 stanzas
- First line of each stanza contains three words and 3-4 syllables
- Second line contains one word and two syllables
- No rhyme scheme
Just from this list, it seems like the poem is small and very shallow. Honestly, what can you do with a total of 22 syllables? Even reading over the previous poem is of no real help except to show that Williams' choice of subject is very random. However, we did discuss a lot about Williams' work in class and the overall topic of Spring and All. To understand XXII, it is important for one to note how Williams believes in imaginations. Such a simple poem depicts the reality of a red wheelbarrow and the description allows one to imagine the whole picture: chickens, rain glaze, and a wheel barrow. I can clearly picture the image that Williams is trying to portray, yet I also know that not everyone's image is going to be the same. One of Williams theme in the poem is also creation. Anyone can create the image of chickens and wheel barrows, but are any two the same? It is this idea of creation coupled with imagination that Williams points out.
On the other hand, our class discussion also spent a large amount of time on Williams' idea of plagiarizing. Is it wrong to plagiarize? What if we know that someone else had already said something in the best way possible, would it not be best to just copy that person's work? In a way, I framed that last question to relate to Williams' idea of plagiarism. His example of wiping out the whole world and starting anew is to show how even in a new start, we would end up where we are now because that right now is probably one of the "best" situations. In addition, there has been so much trial and error already that having a new world would simply mean more trial and error that makes it similar to the world were living in now. For example, if I were to say, "Draw a tree," what would one draw? Is there a brown trunk with roots on the bottom and branches on top. Then some green leaves covering the top of the tree? Couldn't there be a tree with no stump, just lots of dirt? It is through nature and evolution that the tree we think of today with the trunk and leaves to be the best combination of gathering resources for itself. In relation to the analogy, it is most likely that if trees were to be wiped out and start anew, after some evolution, it would end up like the trees that we know (or at least very similar).
Back to the poem itself, people can imagine certain pictures about chickens and a wheel barrow. Although some may be different, most of them will have very similar characteristics. Does this mean that someone plagiarized someone else's work? Or is it simply because that's just the main preception of chickens and wheel barrows?
Reference: Williams, William Carlos. Spring and All. Imaginations. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1970.
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2 comments:
What if by purposely making a copy of someone's work, Williams is trying to make his point clear. He always alludes to the fact that nothing is real unless you make it original and real. so isn't he just pointing out that everything is a copy until it is made real. This was discussed in class when we talked about painting the ocean, it is only a copy, but if we draw what we interpret, it becomes something we made real. I don't really know how to explain what I am thinking but I think that Williams use of plagiarism is to make a point pertaining to reality and copies and originality.
I also think that what makes his work seem so shallow is that fact that he is trying so hard to keep the audience from "high sounding interpretation" he simply states what he sees or means as simply as possible, leaving us little to interpret. Like when he talks about the sun on the plaque on the floor, we want so badly to interpret what the sun is doing on the plaque on the floor, but we can't because it is what it is.
I agree with your assessment Daniel. Williams seems to want the readers to imagine what they are reading-- in poetry, anyway.
Near the end of Spring and All, Williams spent much time discussing about the difference between poetry and prose: poetry is of the imagination and prose is used to educate. In this sense, Williams' poems only pertain to the senses while his prose bring up philosophical points.
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