|
| |
Seeing Things That Just Aren't There
Many people read a poem and think, "What's the deeper meaning? What is the poetry
really trying to say?" Most of the time that's exactly what the writer wants, he
wants the reader to look beyond the words and see the underlining meanings and emotions.
Poets will use settings and symbols to describe and explain something that they may not
even be talking about. However, there are the times what a poet will write something
simply to write it. Sometimes a writer will tell a story with no hidden meanings, simply
to tell that story. Some readers think that if they aren't seeing a hidden meaning then
they do not understand the poem correctly. This can cause a reader to read too deep into a
poem and see meanings that really aren't there.
"This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos Williams, is one of those poems that is
short, simple, and really has no deeper meaning.
But what if it did? Say for instance that when he writes, "I have eaten / the
plums" (Williams 55, lines 1-2), Williams is really saying that he's brought out some
family argument or tainted past memory. The plums could represent some past problem that,
"you were probably / saving / for breakfast" (lines 6-8). Breakfast could
represent a time in the future when the whole family would be together to discuss this
problem. But the writer brought it out too early and now he's sorry. When Williams writes,
"Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold" (lines 9-12), he
could really be saying that's he's sorry for bring up a past that may be sweet for him,
but is also so cold and sad for the family. Talking about food and breakfast gives this
poem a real family feel to it. So maybe it reflects problems with a family.
Another meaning for this poem could be one that has to do with corporate America. What
if the plums represent something ad beautiful as youth, peace, and innocents, while
"the icebox" (line 4) in which they're stored represents the cold heartedness of
America today? This youth and peace could have stored in the icebox, or put in the back of
American peoples minds in order to focus on money, power and the will to succeed. The
person that brought out these old feelings of innocents could be a child who just wanted
to have that sweet feeling of happiness. Now this child is asking for forgiveness because
these feeling of innocents and happiness are looked at today as weaknesses. Although the
plums were "so sweet / and cold" (lines 11-12), he still must apologize for
eating them because America seems to only care about succeeding and crushing anything in
the way in order to meet it's goals.
There are several things that people could read into any type of poem. Although I think
this poem only means what the words say, I still gave some example of how too much can be
read into it. After thinking of a couple things that, "This Is Just To Say"
could mean, it helped me to realize that sometimes it's okay to just read a poem and enjoy
the rhythm and words of it. Although I do enjoy dissecting a poem and looking for a
profound deeper meaning, this helped me to see how, sometimes, I might be digging too hard
and instead of understanding a poem better I'm just tearing it apart and loosing the
original meaning.
|