http://youtu.be/3mLzU3dF6gY

(Do take the time to listen to the whole interview. Though for our purposes today, we need not listen any further than five minutes in or so.)

Williams says:

so much depends
upon

the red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

But the poem is actually about “a red wheel barrow.” (Allow me to pause here to mention the word wheelbarrow has no hyphenation in the poem, a both frustrating and fascinating mistake or decision.)

So what is the difference between a red wheelbarrow and the red wheelbarrow? To some, I imagine there is no difference. The scene is so compact and discreet, it might as well be the red wheelbarrow because there are no others presented, no rival wheelbarrows.

However, I think the red wheelbarrow is different — if only in slight degrees. The red wheelbarrow implies there are multiple wheelbarrows. It implies there is something singular and specific about this certain red wheelbarrow, in this certain location. It in some ways turns our focus to the dew and chickens and the color red, the distinguishing elements of the wheelbarrow.

The word the in this instance carries a degree of undertones, a subtext of something peculiar or even sinister. By specifying the red wheelbarrow, it suggests there are other wheelbarrows. And since it would not be the working red wheelbarrow or something to imply it is the only usable wheelbarrow (as the original poem suggests) makes me wonder if perhaps there is something even more important than the wheelbarrow’s farm-related duties. Perhaps there is dried blood at the base of the wheelbarrow. Suddenly the pastoral, slice-of-farm-life poem contains a whiff of murder mystery.

Is that drawing a bit much from the difference of a single article? Yes, probably, maybe. It was the natural path my mind wandered when I first considered the difference between the two words, so maybe it is not so radical? Or maybe, if the poem had always been the, I would have never trod down that line of thought.

But we can at least suggest this: When a poet has only twelve words to convey a meaning or scene, so much depends upon the space between a and the.

The post The Space Between “A” and “The” appeared first on Tampa Review.

In undergrad, I read Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape and loved it. Then, near the end of that same semester, I had a chance to see the play performed by a man Beckett had personally chosen to play Krapp. It was like seeing the piece performed in Beckett’s own mind — I was thrilled.

Until I saw the play.

It turned out Beckett had an avant-garde play in his mind, and I had a minimalist play in mine. Every motion of the man playing Krapp — from his peeling a banana to his walking across the stage — felt stilted and ridiculous and unnecessary to me. It was such a profoundly disappointing production that it effectively ruined even the reading of Krapp’s Last Tape for me.

Hearing an author read their own work can be much the same way. In the most recent MFA residency period at Tampa, poet Ben Lerner mentioned how poet Robert Creeley preferred his line breaks to be read with a pause and how Creeley bristled when William Carlos Williams read through the line breaks and headed only punctuation.

In the above video, T.S. Eliot reads “The Love Song” like he’s asking a hundred consecutive questions. I read love song like Johnny Cash would — that’s how I read all poetry, with the steady rhythm and low grumble of a steam train.

There is, in the hands of the readers, a certain privilege to read a poem or story the way we prefer. We may take the meanings how we like; we may hear the speaker’s voice how we want.

And to those ends, maybe it is best to leave Becket, Elliot, and Creeley to their writerly roles, and leave the reading to the readers.

The post The Odd Dangers of Writers as Readers appeared first on Tampa Review.