The Red Wheelbarrow

“The Red Wheelbarrow”

William Carlos Williams

Page 771

Poetry is one of the most unique writing styles available to authors. Poetry has the ability to take on many different forms, wither short or long, and use different writing devices such as onomonopeia, alliteration, and rhyme. William Carlos Williams was born in 1883 in Rutherford, New Jersey. After graduating from high school, Williams attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and upon graduation practiced medicine as a pediatrician for the rest of his life. Williams is a self-taught poet, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. William Carlos Williams, author of “The Red Wheelbarrow”, is one of those poets who is able to incorporate a large amount of meaning and imagery into a small package. “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a poem that is only eight lines long and has a total of sixteen words, but creates some of the most vivid images to its readers.

The first stanza of the poem reads, “so much depends upon” (771), as a reader I am already intrigued because I have no clue what so much is depending on. The second stanza of the poem connects together with the first, “a red wheel barrow” (771). Now as a reader I understand that so much depends upon this red wheelbarrow. Williams separates the word wheelbarrow into two words so this stanza can be just as long as each other one. The image of a red wheelbarrow is now very clear in each reader’s mind. Williams picked am object that everyone knows and uses as few words as possible to describe it.

The third stanza of the poem, “glazed with rain water” (771) now paints an even more detailed image of the wheelbarrow. Once again, Williams uses the simplest terms to paint the most vivid images. Most readers have a pretty good idea as to what things look like after they are covered in rain, but rain along with the red wheelbarrow is even more knowable. Finally, the