poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

you guys are all idiots for spending time at this web page analyzing this poem. Im only here because I have an in class essay tommorow that was asigned today and i was hoping to find something interesting and beneficial to my essay. Unfortunately, all of you are just writing your misguided opinions. By misguided i mean that none of you have done any research. Obrviously, it would become clear to you that William Carlos Williams poems are not meant to be taken literally, hence the phrase "No ideas but in things" from the poem "A Sort of Song", part of the Spring and All collection. By writing about "things" instead of ideas, he is attempting to eliminate the clutter that the mind has a tendency to make thus establishing the poetic nature of reality. Nothing more.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves what this is, "the red wheelbarrow" symbollically. Now, some have taken this to far by assuming what the image stands for without evidence from WCW. I am offering this. The Red Wheelbarrow represents the poem, "the red wheelbarrow." For a poem to work, so much of it depends upon the image it conveys in simple, spoken language. Yes, on one level it's about a red wheelbarrow and some chickens. But on a deeper level, it's about poetry. The Red Wheelbarrow he is referring to is an image. So much of the poem depends upon an everyday image. We could look at it in another way and say that so much of his career as an artist depended on the simple images of his farm life, but I think this poem is a lesson in poetry.

I also, (Like Donna Anna) saw an immediate connection in Williams' work to Chinese and Japanese art, where the appreciation of massive voids, or of the relationship between stones is just that: appreciation. You shouldn't over analyze these poems. Just enjoy them.

A lesson it poetry, but also an exposition of reality. Just as enjambment can expose the connections(or tension) between elements of speech, the "space" enjambment here suggests, exposits the interconnectivity between objects of the real world, or the complex relationships between objects in a given field(field, something WCW was fond of using)

I believe the poems means that you kind find beauty in the most ordinary everyday things and in life.

Think about rain on a red wheelbarrow and how beutful it is and look at how he just seems to mention "white" chickens without any dirt. The commonhood of the wheelbarrow and the use of it own a far is essental to the farm which I take as life, but is not only a wheelbarrow it is a red, sparking with rain wheelbarrow in a world where the chickens are white. Maybe he is even saying that life is not only work it is beauty. I'm not sure but this is what I think.

You people all have unique and intreguing ideas about what "The Red Wheelbarrow" means. If I ever need to be reminded that there are thinking people left in the world, I will be sure to come back to plagiarist.com. Keep thinking, people. Don't let Slutten and the rest of (her? his?) kind bring you down.

Now, regarding Preston Grey - you need to lighten up, my friend. Try this - first, procure some sort of intoxicating substance, preferably marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms or lysergic acid diethylamide. Ethyl alcohol works too, but it isn't as effective. Next, use the intoxicant. Before all of this, you want to get some of the wierdest poems you can find, such as W.C.W.'s "The Red Wheelbarrow," "Danse Russe," or "The Thing." After you begin to feel slightly "light-headed," read the poems. Bingo. You will appreciate, and even love these poems from that day forward. I'm dead serious.

this poem is just simply a picture. it is something williams saw and thought was a nice picture. much like the campbells soop can by Andy Worhol.

just to elaborate on my last comment. I think this poem is about not taking things for granted. The first line "so much depends upons" stresses the significance of the images proceding the line. It means that a lot of things depend upon the red wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens, So therefore shouldn't take them for granted.

I don't think there is a period at the end of the poem...

I don't know, I thought this fact really adds to the meaning to the poem. The poem talks about taking simple things for granted, and without the period, you can add other stuff that you take for granted to the poem, making it personal.

Hi Krista,

I don't think the period at the end stops you from adding anything you'd like to the poem, although of course anything you add becomes your poem and not WCW's.

The period doesn't detract from the sentence - it simply marks the end of it.

Williams agrees with me, since he put a period at the end of his poem. It's there in every edition where this poem appears.