Week 5

Welcome to class.  Hope you are well, and keeping up with reading and writing assignments.

Here I review the free verse poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," by William Carlos Williams, a poet who strove for simplicity and directness of language, which is one means of making poetry more accessible and of showing how everyday, ordinary experience speaks to us, or can, in poetry.  The still life scene of a barnyard, "red wheel / barrow/ glazed with rain / water" (lines 3-6) at its center, arrests our eye in an act of pure contemplation.  The "white / chickens" of the final lines enliven the scene.  In what sense can the poet claim "so much depends / upon" (lines 1-2) these humble elements?  One answer is that art depends upon our immediate sensations and perceptions of the animate and inanimate alike, and our ability to make some sense of it all, or to order it in seemingly meaningful ways.  The Imagists were a group who drew inspiration from the poetry of the East, including haiku and tanka, poetic forms in which precise, concrete images, strictly limited by syllable number and line length, tell the whole story, however indirectly.  

Poet Mary Oliver writes of "The Red Wheelbarrow"  that it "might serve as a 'text' for a discussion of free verse", that it "has passed through endless scrutiny, and still it refuses to give up all its secrets."  Williams famously said "no ideas but in things."  The Imagists focused on the object world, the act of attention,  the play of imagination, and language. 

We are fascinated by objects ("materialism" to the side) and our emotional ties to objects remains strong.  Size, shape, color, number–each is a marker, meaningful, bespeaking our collective history and language itself.  The particular is important, and just as life is lived in detail, art lives by it.  Imagery is the collective pattern of images–representations of one thing by another (here language).  The term Figurative language also refers to imagery–specifically a metaphor, simile, personification, symbol, or other used to convey an image by means of identity or comparison.    "Presentiment–is that long Shadow–on the lawn/Indicative that suns go down" (lines 1-2) writes Emily Dickinson, as she defines the word by means of reference to a concrete particular we have all seen–the sun descending, casting long shadows, foreshadowing something . . . rather ominous in her equation, a symbolic darkness.

Presentiment–is that long Shadow–on the lawn

Presentiment–is that long Shadow–on the lawn–

Indicative that Suns go down–

The notice to the startled Grass–

That Darkness is about to pass–

What does Dickinson do here that is unusual, remarkable?  She defines an abstract word–presentiment–by means of sound (liquid n's and long hissing s's) and metaphor.  The setting sun, casting long shadows on the lawn, brings home the feeling of imminent danger.  "Darkness"(line 4)  is near, seemingly predatory, and the "startled Grass"(line 3) betrays its fear.  We are the grass, perhaps, the suns our all in all, and Darkness the fate we flee, calamity, death.

The two general classes of letters, vowels and consonants, have particular attributes:  a vowel can be perfectly uttered alone, but a consonant cannot until joined with a vowel.  Semivowels are consonants that can be imperfectly sounded alone, and which sound protracted at the end of a syllable, as with l, n, z,   in al, an, az.  Semivowels c, f, g, h, j, s, or x  require strong breath or air– aspirates they are called.  L, m, n, and r are called liquids, as they seem to flow.  K, p, t,  in ak, ap, at are called mutes, for they cannot be sounded without a vowel and stop the breath.  The feeling accompanying these sounds, here only briefly discussed, is used to certain effect.

 Hush!  Be quiet!  Shut up!    The abruptness of the t and p makes for a connotative difference in the sound of each of these imperatives.  Like the difference between rock and stone, word sounds_even letter design– may correlate to the meaning or connotation of a word.  The play of sound effects noticeable in alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia (buzz, bee, rumble, roar) is one of the resources to which poets' ears are tuned.

The Word Plum       by Helen Chasin (b.1938)

The word plum is delicious

pout and push, luxury of

self-love, and savoring murmur

full in the mouth and falling

like fruit

taut skin

pierced, bitten provoked into

juice, and tart flesh

question

and reply, lip and tongue

of pleasure.

Identify the sounds in the poem above that bring to mind the actual sounds and sensations of eating.