November 18, 2024

Objective Representation

after William Carlos Williams

There is a little known poetic form called "Golden Shovel," a form developed by Terrance Hayes where, in so many words, someone else's poem is buried in (and provides end-line structure) to the original poem. Hayes' "The Golden Shovel" uses Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" in this way (see Hayes' poem here).

All of a sudden I have become obsessed with this form, seemingly the only way to have an original thought when all of them have been done by others with far more talent and intelligence. On the 101st anniversary of William Carlos Williams' seminal "The Red Wheelbarrow," I offer, given Williams’ fidelity to it, "Objective Representation." (And I probably cheat on the form a little near the end!)

------------------------

I'm here to tell you

   So

That you don't expect

   Much

On the education which it all

   Depends

To build the world

   Upon

The defining grades of

   A

And the cruel F written in

  Red.

We all grimace under representation's

  Wheel,

Ready to grind our bodies for the

  Barrow,

Twinkles gone, eyes now

  Glazed,

Our brains infused

  With

Lies about who controls the

  Rain

And rejection of fluoride in our

  Water.

The monsters that powers stand

  Beside

Could make you ask, "what

  The . . .?"

I myself turn an even more ashen

  White

As I hang out with the headless

  Chickens.