Two Poems by William Carlos Williams with Close Readings

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

(From "Selected Poems" ed. Charles Tomlinson)

Close Reading:

• Williams uses simple words and objects in an impersonal manner, yet this is subverted by the phase “So much depends / upon” which insists that no matter ho simple the subject matter it is important.
• The poem is a single sentence, stretched over four stanzas, with eight total lines, half of which contain only one word. This elongates the reader’s experience, forcing the reader to focus on each individual image.
• The poem shows the influence of cubism, a French art movement in which the painters would paint the subject from all available angles to create the most complete picture possible. Williams’s poem implants simple, distinct, colourful images in the mind of the reader and effectively becomes a poetic painting.
• James E. Breslin notes “…short jagged lines and long vowels slow down our movement through the poem, breaking off each part for exact observation.”
• There is a clear passion in the poem, developed by the continued study of the subject.
• Charles Tomlinson argues that, “…what depends on the wheelbarrow…is that its presence can be rendered over into words.”

To Have Done Nothing

No that is not it
nothing that I have done
nothing
I have done

is made up of
nothing
and the diphthong

ae

together with
the first person
singular
indicative

of the auxiliary
verb
to have

everything
I have done
is the same

if to do
is capable
of an
infinity of
combinations

involving the
moral
physical
and religious

codes

for everything
and nothing
are synonymous
when

energy in vacuo
has the power
of confusion

which only to
have done nothing
can make
perfect

(From "Selected Poems" ed. Charles Tomlinson)


Close Reading

• Williams wrote in the margins of the manuscript, “I was trying to think out loud.”
• This poem could be seen as Williams’s manifesto: the removal of the person from the poetry to focus on images. Instead of focusing on the Speaker’s interpretation of the subject of the poem, the readers must rely on their own interpretations.
• The poem is an exercise in grammatical deconstruction.
• The phrase “Nothing I have done” is immediately dissected into its components: the word “nothing,” “the diphthong // ae,” (I) and the “first person / singular / indicative // of the auxiliary / verb / to have” (simply, have).
• The main focus of the poem is, as Christopher J. MacGowan argues, the “capability of the infinitive ‘to do’”
• “To do” potentially has “an infinity of / combinations,” but is limited by “moral / physical / and religious // codes”
• This is because “to do is what all verbs, as parts of speech expressing action, do.” (Sherman Paul)
• “Everything / and nothing” become synonymous when the “energy” of the language is destroyed by all the “codes” making “nothing” and “everything” feel the same.
• In this situation, Williams argues that only “to / have done nothing / can make / perfect.” Note that “to have done nothing” is in the past perfect tense.
• The main thesis of the poem becomes not what has been done, but what could be done.

Bibliography:

Breslin, James E. William Carlos Williams: An American Artist. New York: Oxford UP, 1970

MacGowan, Christopher J. William Carlos Williams Early Poetry: The Visual Arts

Background. Ann Arbour, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1984

Mariani, Paul L. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: American Library Association, 1975.

The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ed. Ramazani, Jahan, et al. New York: Norton, 2003

Paul, Sherman. The Music of Survival. Urbana, Chicago, London: U of Illinois P, 1968

Tomlinson, Chirstoper, ed. William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems. By William Carlos

Williams. New York: New Directions, 1985

Williams, William Carlos. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams ed. Litz, A.

Walton and MacGowan, Christopher. Vol. 1:1919-1939. 2 vols. New York: New Directions, 1991