Today I overheard the word “wheelbarrow” as I passed a couple of people in conversation in the office hallway.

For reasons unknown to us all, encountering this word stimulated a certain combination of neurons to fire in my brain, which caused me to recall the day twenty-odd years ago when I first encountered the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams in freshman Honors English.

It’s funny how so many of my memories from high school center on that second story classroom in the “old” half of that particular building, where all three years of Honors English classes I took were held (most of those memories come from grade 10, many involving the half-ironic hero worship of a certain English teacher/Jeopardy! champion by myself and a few friends). I guess as much as we all complained about the constant parade of literary and textual analysis we all had forced upon us in that room, those experiences worked their way into the way I think, and became part of who I am. I suspect that all those essays are somewhat responsible for my need to deconstruct and analyze every aspect of a piece of art before I can truly appreciate it*. I also blame that room for my reflexive attempt to set classic poems to the melodies of public domain tunes and sitcom theme songs**, but that’s probably less significant overall.

But, that’s not really the point, despite the fact that I saw fit to hang multiple footnotes from that single paragraph.

The day that poem was presented stuck with me for reasons I’ve never quite understood (though as you’ll see, I think I’m finally getting it), but I’ve got a pretty vivid impression of the lesson to this day, because it didn’t fit the pattern of the other 170 or so days I sat in that particular class that year. We read the poem, the teacher sort of glossed over some of the imagery, and more or less just said that the lesson to be learned here is that “some things just defy traditional analysis, and don’t mean anything at all.” That was it. No follow-on essays, group work, or other assignments. It was simply This poem doesn’t mean anything.

That always sat strangely with me. It didn’t fit the pattern. We tried to find meaning in everything in that course, even when it didn’t entirely make sense to us – I think I learned more about the art of spinning bullshit in that classroom than anywhere else since. At the time, it seemed weird that we’d just let this one go, but being the generally cooperative student I tried to be, I dutifully acknowledged the word from on high and waited for the next bit.

The thing is, this poem, despite its brevity, is prime material for anaysis. It’s considered one of the more significant American poems of the early 20th century, and a precursor to all sorts of burgeoning movements in poetry. It posesses a unique meter and structure, having more in common with Eastern literary custom than traditional English verse. The imagery is simple on the surface, but the choices of language and structure suggest lots of deeper meaning. I had a hard time then, as now, reconciling the fact that such a highly-regarded piece of literature is nothing but a meaningless trifle. The wikipedia link above alone is highly suggestive as to interpretation, and just this one link in the article’s references provides pages and pages of analysis from all sorts of critics and students trying to get at what WCW was trying to say with his evocative word picture.

Looking back on it, I suppose there are all sorts of reasons behind why that lesson went the way it did. Maybe the teacher simply didn’t like that particular poem, or was having a bad day personally and simply wasn’t feeling up to tackling the subject. As an adult, I know we all have days like that, where we simply half-ass our way through the work day until we can get to the other side of it. Maybe they truly believed it was meaningless. I don’t know why; I probably never will.

I do know that for whatever reason, an adult in a position of authority fed us a line of crap that day, and amidst all the many hundreds of class periods I spent in that school, this one, or at least a vivid dreamlike represenation of it, remains with me at the expense of so many others.

Maybe in retrospect, that particular lesson on that particular day was one of those events that eventually adds up to a person coming to terms with the realities of adulthood: That authority figures are just as fallible as the rest of us; or that these people, even if they have our best interests at heart, are all dealing with their own personal challenges in other aspects of their lives, and aren’t always giving us their best effort. It’s not malicious or personal, it’s just the way the world works.

Indeed, so much depends upon things that are striking, yet seemingly insignificant. Often, these things turn out to be way more important than we give them credit for; we just may not have found the proper perspective.

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* – many people find this aspect of my personality irritating, often asking (and I’m pretty sure I’m quoting multiple individuals here) “Why do you have to be so critical? Why can’t you just *enjoy* things?” The secret is that in most cases, my my enjoyment of something comes directly from deconstructing and analyzing things, and finding hidden meanings and connections. Appreciating something at simply the surface level feels so…(um) superficial.

** – seriously, once you make the Emily Dickinson-to-“Yellow Rose of Texas” connection, it’s all over, and before long, you’re setting Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to the theme from Gilligan’s Island and finding it works if you double the last line of each stanza to fit the tune’s verse structure.