Poetry is like making a joke.
If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke,
you’ve lost the whole thing.
T. S. Eliot
Words come, an idea, an image, an inspiration. But nothing snaps, nothing crackles, nothing pops. A scene but no story. A story but no revelation.
A JOKE:
Three men walk into a bar; Ralph, Lorenzo, and Harry. Each orders a beer. They drink their beers down, talk for awhile, then leave the bar.
Are you laughing? Of course not. It’s not funny. This is not a joke. This is a scene. No punchline. Nothing catches you off guard. No twists, no turns, no flash, no surprise.
A POEM:
Like a joke, a poem hits a bone; a funny bone, a wishbone, the sternum protecting the heart. You are touched. See the words printed below. Is this a joke or a poem? Or neither? Read for your self.
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
I agree with you. This is not a poem. This is a description. No punchline. Nothing catches you off guard. No twists, no turns, no flash, no surprise.
The American poet Dr. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) wrote this. It is a poem. Why? There is a punchline, a twist, a turns, a flash, a surprise. Williams put it at the beginning of his poem.
so much depends
upon
Reading that grand proposition, you would assume that something upon soooooooo much depends must be very grand and important. The poet sets us up to expect significant words, like love or justice or peace of kindness. But what does the poet claim has so much depending on? Garden equipment, barnyard birds, and rain. What exactly depends upon these? And how could it be so much? How much is so much? This conundrum makes it a poem.
What do you think? Why do think there is such enormous dependency on wheelbarrows, rain, and chickens?
Or could the dependency be on anything? Or everything?