Re: Google translates "The Red Wheelbarrow"

> General Zod wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 8:26:18 AM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
> 
>> On Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 6:21:14 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 11:58:42 PM UTC-5, Michael Pendragon wrote:
>> 
>> "so much depends
>> upon
>> 
>> "a red wheel
>> barrow
>> 
>> "glazed with rain
>> water
>> 
>> "beside the white
>> chickens."
>> 
>> This looks interesting.
>> 
>> Let's put this back into sentence form:
>> 
>> "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens."
>> 
>> It's not a particularly interesting sentence.  Its description of the title wheelbarrow as "red" and the chickens as "white" is mind-numbingly unimaginative.
>> 
>> Certainly Williams could have used more unique color words: a "bloodied" wheelbarrow beside the "ghostly" chickens would have been interesting.. But then even the basic color words have the power to help conjure up an image. As a bonus, I get a third color, green: I can't imagine a wheelbarrow and chickens without imaging them on grass.
>> 
>> 
>> The third color I get from it is brown.  The brown earth of plowed fields, dirt paths, and the hard-packed earth and scattered straw of chicken pens.
>> 
>> But that's just part of my original point: that the reader brings his own images and meanings into WCW's generic lines.
>> 
>> And, let's face it, a farming implement isn't the most scintillating of topics.
>> 
>> The sentence is written as a lead-in: it hints of great things/events that will hinge upon a wheelbarrow ("For want of a nail..."), and would make a decent introduction to a short story in "Farmer's Almanac."  But as a stand-alone sentence, it's an incomplete thought ... an unexplored scenario ... an unwritten story.
>> 
>> Well, that's what imagist poetry was all about; just presenting an image and that's it. There's the paradigm one by Pound:
>> 
>> The apparition of those faces in the crowd:
>> Petals on a wet, black bough.
>> 
>> Yeah ... imagery in search of a poem.
>> 
>> There's haiku, which I think works the same way.
>> 
>> Pretty much.  I've never paid much attention to haiku, but I have a vague feeling that the third line is supposed to both summarize and transform the two that preceded it.  Or that could just be wishful thinking on my part.
>> 
>> 
>> I think there is a bit more; I was simplifying. The haiku I like the best presents 2 images, which play off each other - that bisociation leading to either a laugh or an a-ha momet.
>> 
>> And there's Gwyneth Box. IIRC, she had a good quote to the effect that's what some of her poems were doing; but damned if I can find it.
>> 
>> 
>> Her poems (the few that I've read) contained excellent descriptions.  I remember one that had described a palace that she'd visited, and when she provided link to some photos of the palace (or perhaps I'd googled it?), I immediately recognized if from her description.  That's some pretty impressive writing.  I consider it more "poetic" prose than "poetry," although it contained enough poetic elements to qualify it as a "modern" poem.
>> 
>> Well, that's it; she wasn't trying to write imagist poems, just using imagism as a technique. That's all it is, really.
>> 
>> The idea is "show don't tell." Don't tell the reader anything. Just show him the image, and let his imagination take it from there.
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, we're on the same page with this one.
>> 
>> You're just more accepting of it, whereas I look on it as laziness on the part of the poet.
>> 
>> What can I say? I was trained in uni. If I'd had the money to stay in, I'd probably be training a new generation myself.
>> 
>> My imagination goes to an old peasant looking out the window at his wheelbarrow and his chickens in the rain, thinking how beautiful it all it, and thinking, "this is what life's all about" or "this is happiness" or somesuch; the type of feeling someone else might get looking at a work of art. That leads on to thinking about the simple life and whether it truly is the way to find peace of mind, and on and on.... Of course none of that is in WCW's poem, but his poem is the catalyst.
>> 
>> 
>> You've just completed the homework assignment, I'd described in my last post: ["Write a short story with the opening line: 'So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.'"]
>> 
>> Very much so! When I got to that part, I tried moving my above paragraph down, but I couldn't make it fit smoothly.
>> 
>> 
>> It would make an even better lead-in for an advertisement:
>> 
>> "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.  Make sure your wheelbarrow is one you can count on..  Sears Roebuck."
>> 
>> Starting this New Year's, works in the U.S. start going into the public domain again. So I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that in the future. (Not Sears of course; possibly Home Depot.)
>> 
>> On the plus side, it's (cough) open-ended nature inspires the reader to ask questions like: What could depend on a lowly farm implement?
>> 
>> Well, it's not just the wheelbarrow, but the wheelbarrow and the chickens (and, presumably, the ground they're on). For my imaginary peasant, these things represent security, having his own property, meeting his own needs, being fully at one with his creations (vs. Marx's alienated industrial worker); all nice things to think about.
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, it's food for thought ... but the reader brings his own basket to the picnic.
>> 
>> 
>> Yes. It's reminds me of how I've heard the I Ching described. (I've never tried the I Ching, so I'm only guessing.)
>> 
>> I've seen many interesting references to the I Ching myself over the years, but have never gotten around to trying it, as Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan reference it often:
>> 
>> https://www.biroco.com/yijing/dylan.htm
>> 
>> "The biggest thing of all, that encompasses it all, is kept back in this country. It's an old Chinese philosophy and religion, it really was one… there is a book called the "I-Ching", I'm not trying to push it, I don't want to talk about it, but it's the only thing that is amazingly true, period, not just for me. Anybody would know it. Anybody that ever walks would know it, it's a whole system of finding out things, based on all sorts of things. You don't have to believe in anything to read it, because besides being a great book to believe in, it's also very fantastic poetry..." -Bob Dylan
>> 
> 
> 
> He sang about the I-Ching in a song also......



Exactly.

😏 


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