AUC: Don’t take my word for it…

[Originally published in the Long Beach Union (student paper at Long Beach State), in my bi-weekly column called...]
Another Useless Column

Why does so much depend on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens? For the non-lit majors, that is an allusion to a poem by William Carlos Williams (actually, that is the poem, turned from statement to question) published in 1923.

Why does this poem continue to be anthologized year after year? Yes, it’s a good poem. And it’s short. And there are no capital letters in it. But is it the be-all, end-all of poetry? Apparently, it is. And who am I to disagree?

Still, I wonder if it might be what I call inherited exaltation. That is, are the works that comprise the canon of literature, in part, considered so because at some point someone convinced a bunch of people that these works were great? From then on, all the scholars in the field have been trained, from grade school through college, to accept that Corpus of Works Believed by Scholars To Be Great, and thus they pass this, well, propaganda along to their students.

I could argue that the respected works of literature are merely those that have captured the attention of someone in an influential position, not necessarily those that are “the best,” whatever that means. But this ain’t no term paper, so I won’t.

To quote Paul Williams’ “Rainbow Connection”: “Somebody thought of it/And someone believed it/Look what it’s done so far.”

This applies to virtually every field out there: art, film, science, music, etc. Particularly music. One person’s Milli Vanilli is another’s Mozart. No, really. Who’s to say that Rob and Fab won’t be revered a century from now? It’s no crazier than thinking the sun orbits the earth. (Come to think of it, I have always just taken Copernicus’ word for it about heliocentricity. Hmm…)

Oscar Wilde stated, “All art is quite useless,” and by that definition, there’s a lot out there that must be art. Wilde’s argument was that the only reason to create something that serves no function (art) is to admire it intensely. And one must surely admire a poem, to discuss it at length. Granted, far more people are admiring Madonna having a baby.

So will it ever be a matter of life and death as to why so much depends on a red wheelbarrow? In a world of oppression and inequality, rampant with war and famine, should anybody care?

Perhaps the only way to be happy is to take a completely insignificant thing and turn it into something very important in your life. Distract yourself from realizing what an utter quagmire of hopelessness your life really is, whether through admiring poetry or “Entertainment Tonight.”

My opinion about the wheelbarrow? Heck, I don’t know. Sure, I could write a lengthy essay about it; I can’t let a lack of knowledge stop me. Of course, knowing is not actually relevant to poetry: it’s a matter of having a supportable interpretation. Or even an insupportable one. Or wearing support hose while interpreting poetry.

But I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, so what does it matter?


Doug admires this column intensely.

[* or at least I did admire it in 1996 when I wrote it, pretty much on spot to make a deadline]