So Much Depends Upon...Poetry!

I have had a love/hate relationship with the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams for as long as I can remember.  But this week, I have shifted over into the "love" category.  In just three days I saw the power and influence of this poem, and am now awestruck by it.

Here is the poem for those who may not know it:

So much depends 
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Yes, it is a short poem with mysterious meaning and origins, and about a million interpretations.

Let me back up a little.

As part of getting my 8th graders ready for high school -- my expressed mission for returning to middle school -- I have created a short segment for each day called "exploratory."  Each Monday I present a poem and we notice things about it. For the rest of the week, I will be presenting songs, pictures, paintings, stories, videos, anything else that connects to the poem. On Friday, they will write a letter to me with specific questions to answer about the poem.  I am just getting started with this, and I am encouraged!

We had a short week, so I chose "Red Wheelbarrow" because it was short.

The first day (after they got over laughing at the poet's name), we talked about the imagery, the fact that it is just one sentence, and we even broke down the subject, predicate, and three prepositional phrases.  I pointed out that the design of the poem looks like a series of little wheelbarrows.  I pointed out the break up of compound words: wheelbarrow and rainwater.  We discussed some of the many interpretations of the poem: that Williams, who was a doctor, wrote it when a young girl he was treating was dying.  This prompted what has been traditionally my favorite interpretation -- that the wheelbarrow is the heart and the rainwater blood and the doctors are the chickens because they can't really control any of it. A lot of students really liked that analysis.

I also shared with them that someone once told me there is no such story about the dying girl, but that Williams wrote it based on a painting he saw.  By the way, there is no dearth of painting and drawings related to this poem.  Here is one:

The second day, I showed them a Prezi that was on YouTube, where a student names Allysen suggests that the poem is really about nothing but the image. 

The third day, I showed them a Prezi that a student named Katie made who said the poem was about the essentials of life:  water, food, production.  It is a cycle we all rely on.  Many students found this interpretation the most pleasing.

Even after all of that, I had a student say that he didn't think any of those interpretations were right.  To him, the poem was about hope.  Said and done.

Then they were put to the task of writing their own "So Much Depends" poem.  I showed them the examples from all age groups available on the writingfix.com website -- but was rather dismayed when I realized that the poems there are very abstract -- hardly any of them truly emulate Williams' concise description of a specific image.  This was a big deal in our classroom because we have been working for a month on discussing and identifying and using concrete language -- so I was very pleased when the poems started coming in.  I simply have to share them with my readers!  I've sorted them into categories.

Oh, and one more thing -- while the students were writing it was quite evident that in the course of the week they had memorized this poem.  I heard some third period students arguing whether the fourth word was "on" or "upon."  An English teacher's dream!

Humorous

So much depends on
this rope
if it breaks
I will fall
and I might die.
-Patrick

Goals
So much depends upon
the newly paved path
that is blocked by
the mean black cat.
-Everett

Concrete Images

So much depends
on a bus glazed
with yellow paint next
to the bus stop.
-Mariana


So much depends
upon
the Silver King
the King of the sea
discovering back bay flats
to in-shore wrecks
Destroying pilch (baitfish) school
When you hook one it will dance
Doing the top water tarpon tango
-Cameron
(Note: that's a true Florida boy poem!)

So much depends upon
a desert camo tank
splattered with blood
rampaging through the streets of
Iraq.
-Kyle

These students inspired by the cycles of life interpretation

 So much depends upon a
sea

shore washing 
up

with fish in 
it

to feed the 
world.
-T.J.


The Bumble Bees!
So much depends upon the
little bumble bees, the flower
depends on the bumble bees to
collect its nectar and pollen,
and the bumble bees depend
on the flower to make the 
pollen and nectar, and we 
depend on the bumble bees to
keep the flowers and trees
alive so we can breathe 
oxygen, and we also depend
on the bumble bees to make
the honey so we can make
candles, candies, cough drops,
and tea. 
-Estephan

Special Interests

So much depends upon
books

All the variety 
with the different choices

All the thrillers and
disappointments

Sometimes it's good
sometimes it's bad

Books are unexpected.
-Brant

So much depends upon

the bass in 
back

Getting into the 
lyrics

it changes the 
mood

spilling your feelings
out

comparing yourself to
others

remembering the past
memories

wishing to go
back
 -McKenna

 A little abstract, but with feeling

So much depends on
A newborn life,
Big shoes to grow in
Steps back and falling down,
Get back up, move forward.
Amazing adventures,
Future is ahead.
Only to know the cycle will start again.
-Tamia

So much depends
upon

a single waiting
person

making other decisions
alone

waiting for their
own.
-Preston

So much depends on a beating heart,
living life and expressing itself.
Loving, hating, and starting over.
Trying to survive the heartbreaks,
no matter how much pain it may cause,
or the happiness it may strive.
Everyone needs a heart,
because a life with love
is a life lived.
-Kelly

Troubling (no name included)

So much depends upon
the sharp pocket
knife
that cuts into
skin
to take away
pain.

The one that provoked the best one-on-one discussion with a student

Two Wolves
So much depends upon
Two wolves
One is jealousy, inferiority, ego, greed, and anger.
The other is happiness, love, friendship, and honesty.
That wolf that wins?
The one you feed.

When I read this poem by Zach, I simply couldn't believe it.  Just two hours before, I had read the Cherokee story that this poem is based on.  It is very short and you can read it here.  So I said, "Hey, you must have been reading that Cherokee story." He was taken aback and said, "Yeah, I have, and I'm part Cherokee." Then he told me how he loves wolves and how he had taken this little test to find his spirit animal and it was a wolf.  I told him that wolf is the spirit animal for teachers as well.  It was one of those great moments when I felt like I got to know a student just a little bit better.

Besides the effort they put into creating their poems, there were two other significant things that day.  First, not one student asked if the poem had to rhyme.  Second, I did not have one student say they couldn't write a poem. Those are both perennial favorite distractors when it comes to writing poetry in class.  Every student wasn't successful, but no one said they couldn't do it.

When class was nearly over, I asked the student of the bumble bee poem what he had learned this week.  His response: that little words can bring big meaning.

I loved that!

Finally, here is my poem, reflecting this experience:

So much depends 
upon

the freedom of
structure

allowing for creative
expression

in a room alive with
learning.

Next week: "I'm Nobody" by Emily Dickinson