16 pages • 32 minutes read
The Red Wheelbarrow
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"Poem I (Spring and All)" by William Carlos Williams (1923)
The titular work in the collection in which Poem XXII appeared, “Spring and All” (Poem I) captures the rigorous and slow process of spring reclaiming the scruffy fields around a hospital. Unlike more traditional spring poems, Williams here delights in immersing the poem in exact detailing, forsaking emotional indulgences and lyrical ornamentation to present a picture of an early spring day. In tone and in metrics, this is a helpful gloss to Poem XXII.
"Tall Nettles" by Edward Thomas (1916)
An expression of the lean and stripped visual argument of Imagism, this brief lyric captures in clear and undecorated language the landscape of a rural farm, specifically the delight the poet feels when he sees nettles, resilient flowers, pushing through rusting farm implements. As with Williams’ poem, the poet resists converting the image into a tidy lesson about nature, time, or mortality. Rather the poem delights in the colors, lines, and unexpected collision of shapes and textures.
"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound (1913)
Ezra Pound was the philosophical force behind the rise of Imagism. This couplet captures a moment in a Paris underground train station with its usual press of eager and hurried passengers. A single, unexpected moment of impact urged the poet to record the couplet, which compares the faces to the petals of a tree. As with Williams (who was a friend of Pound’s), both poems share the simplicity of an image.
Further Literary Resources
"The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford" by Wendell Berry (2011)
This analysis, written by a respected poet and essayist, explores what Berry terms Williams’ “local adaptation,” that is, how Williams’ poetry reflected the world about his native New Jersey. The study includes helpful chapters on Williams’ use of syntax and rhythm and his careful use of language. An entire chapter is devoted to the collection in which Poem XXII first appeared.
"Remembering Race: Extra-Poetical Contexts and the Racial Other in The Red Wheelbarrow" by Sergio Rizzo (2005)
This exhaustive look into the historic background of the poem represents the lengths that academics have gone to create about Williams’ poem a reassuring sense of context. In this case, the writer tracked down what he argues was the owner of the actual wheelbarrow in the poem, an African American who, in the 1930s, did not enjoy any sense of equality or social acceptance. In this reading, that extra-poetical context infuses the poem with unsuspected socio-political import.
"The Red Wheelbarrow: Dissecting the Minimal Masterpiece" by Tristan Gans (2011)
This is a sensitive and generous look at the poem’s punctuation, spacings, words, and syllables. The poem defines extra-poetical contexts as irrelevant and explores Williams as a self-conscious minimalist, refining his lines and even using the space between words to haiku-like precision. The argument concludes the poem is not about a wheelbarrow or even about apprehending images but rather about words, their quiet and subtle sonic impact.
Listen to Poem
Not surprising given the poem’s wide reach in anthologies and its attractive brevity, the poem has been recorded dozens of times. Many of these recordings are projects from English classes over the years, often illustrated with photos of a red wheelbarrow and white chickens, or set against banjo music to suggest a farm.
Those transcriptions distort the impact of the poem, which pitches more to engage the imagination itself than to conjure the actual things in the poem. An impactful reading is given by Williams himself and lasts barely 15 seconds. The YouTube video uses only a black and white photo of Williams himself and thus allows the reader to conjure the images, an exercise in its own way of the imagination. Williams’ voice lifts and builds the rich sonic layering of his exquisitely brief poem.
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Related Titles
By William Carlos Williams
