Eric 9/4

Ah the empty signifier. In class we were shown the example of Hemmingway's "A Short Story." I'd like to share a work of poetry that is merely an empty signifier. The poem is "Red Wheelbarrow" by poet William Carlos Williams; a prodigious writer of empty signifiers.

Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

There it is, in all its glory. WCW has used a few vague objects, seperated them in an awkward fashion, and created a "poem" that allows the reader to attach pretty much any meaning they want to it.

the reader may feel that they are the wheelbarrow, that the rain is their suffering and pain, and that the chickens are all the people that depend on them. another person may feel that the wheelbarrow represents the government, the rain represents the forces of corruption, and the chickens represent the people who will die when the rusty wheelbarrow collapse on them. Some people may feel they are the chickens, that their lives are meaningless, they are ugly, they are impotent, that nothing depends on them, and that they could never compare to that important, sexy, and virile wheelbarrow

glazed with rain
water

I personally despise this poem. The only thing I find incredible about it is its unbeleivible audacity. It is so ridiculously simple, so simultantiously brilliant and demented that I am probably jealous I didn't think of it first.