poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

This is what I think because of it (who knows what he was thinking when he wrote it - maybe he didn't even know what he was thinking) - but here goes:

Blood is red - blood also carries vital things - to the cells of the body: oxygen, nutrition. And blood carries things AWAY from the cells – waste, carbon dioxide (right?). Anything red, I right away think of blood. Water is another life giving liquid. The wheelbarrow is red, the color of life giving blood, and it is glazed with life giving water – life itself.

The farm setting yields thoughts of fertility, growth – life.


Philosophy’s ideals and particulars.

Isn’t it easier to get a simple thing right? So therefore a simple thing is closer to perfection?

There is beauty in the simplicity. Elegance.

The wheel was the most important invention in history. The wheel IS movement. So many inventions depend on inventions from before. So much depends on systems of thought – like empirical thought. It’s a celebration of human achievement maybe. Hurray for us humans inventin such useful things that we can do so many important things with. This particular wheelbarrow is glazed with life giving water – the human body is more than 70% water, right? Our essence is on that wheelbarrow – our essence is in our inventions – our thoughts are our being, our being depends on our thought – some kind of Sartre kilo brick of a Being and Nothingness book somethin or other . . .

What is it that really carries us?

OR – Maybe he mocks typical value systems - everything that depends on anything is nothing – as in, who should care about any earthly thing? Everything is as worthless as a stupid old wheelbarrow. Mankind is too distracted by earthly works, his head is always down focused on insignificant things. One is better off dedicating thought to other things – such as – I don’t know what. Poetry, for example.

I always thought the poem was talking about the importance of farming and agriculture to society and life itself. "So much depends" upon the scene from rural life-"a red wheelbarrow" and "white chickens." Also essential to life and farming is the "rain water." Just my thoughts, maybe it's simple, but I think we often forget about the importance of agriculture (for food) in the hustle and bustle of our "industrial" and increasingly "technological" lives.

I've never really looked into the symbolism of this poem the way others have.... But spoken, the poem is a tongue twister. No one in my literature class could recite it without stumbling on at least one word.
It forces you to read slowly. And I think Evan could be right in a way. When you hear people recite it one after another, there's a certain foolishness to it.

I head that Dr. Williams was inspired to write this poem after he cared for a sick child. It was a housecall, the child had high fevers, and finally her condition improved. Her parents were so grateful. Williams looked out the child's bedroom window and saw outside in the yard. Her red wheelbarrow toy was there. If this story is true, the poem becomes even more meaningful.

Reading the comments on this site has been enlightening, and not only about the poem. I find it intriguing that people feel that they have to claim that their own interpretation is the only correct one, and slam others for how they see it. As for the poem itself, I had not thought of many of the interpretations discussed.

Personally, I think WCW is essentially painting a picture with his words. As opposed to a photograph I see it as a painting. He invokes the uses of colors and uses them like paint. The rainwater ‘glaze’ also brings in the sense of art and the artist. The poem itself is as a still life. I feel that in reading it, it is impossible to not imagine a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens, the first stanza gives it weight and importance, prodding us to think about it and dwell on it. Obviously we can’t ask WCW to tell us what he wanted us to see in this, thus I feel that this poem, more than most, really encompasses the idea of what we see is what we get. If while reading you see more, then there is more there. If not, then there doesn’t have to be. The poem’s simplicity gives it strength.

Williams was in the medical field. He visited a child for a house call and apparently the child was very sick because he died while Williams was there, and then looking out the window he noticed the red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens.

If you want to deconstruct the poem itself you notice that the words have become just words, they are de-emphasized by the structure of the poem in which the main words are broken up – Wheelbarrow (barrow is on the next line), rainwater (water comes on the following line) white chickens, which flows together is broken up by two lines. The flow of the poem itself is obstructed, somewhat in a staccato fashion with the simple manner of breaking up the ending words and separating those words on a new line – it interrupts the natural flow of human speech.

The poem itself is simple in fashion; it contains simple words, words that would be used by children, uneducated men/women all the way up to the higher educated population. Therefore the message it contains is for everyone.

It possesses an obvious pastoral motif. There is an interesting connection with the wheelbarrow and the world itself. Since life depends on crops/produced provided by the “simple” farmer, without the wheelbarrow, an important instrument in farm life we as human beings would be in lacking in sustenance. You can see how “so much (life) depends / upon a red wheel / barrow”.

You can see the inspiration to this simple message.

Its just a simple observation that carries a serious message touching on the simplicity of life and moreover the inevitabilities of death and how we simply come and go, but in the end, everything still depends upon a red wheel barrow, glazed with rain water, besides the white chickens,

It’s a beautiful thought. A poem that is different for everyone, open to a personal interpretation from everyone who reads it (as illustrated by the guy above who felt it was about a woman’s vagina and the poets inspiration derived from her glistening vulva).

Think the way you want, but I just wanted to share the back-story of it because it might (and I think does) have some relevance.

I won't claim to have the "right" interpretation, but here's mine:

There is such beauty in the simplest of things.

Try it.

(Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)

Dean.

I love this- thats all I have to say!

I would generally classify myself as a poetry-lover; after all, I've been writing it since I was 4. However, I don't like this poem at all. I hope I will not be harassed for saying that. I hope I am as free to express my dislike of this poem as others are to express their love of it.

If the mark of a good poem is to be so vague that it has a different meaning for everyone who reads it, then this is a good poem. However, I've always believed that good writing was characterized by effective communication. Because of that perhaps outdated philosophy of mine, I don't think this is a great poem. I don't even think it's a good poem. It may be famous, but that doesn't make it good, not in my eyes anyhow. Anyone could write a poem like this. There isn't anything remarkable about it at all.

The "Red Wheelbarrow" reminds me of paintings I have seen that were painted by elephants. Art aficionados paid thousands of dollars for these paintings, loved them and assigned various meanings to them, but of course no meaning really was in them and they were not really works of profound insight.

What depends? All of our civilization. Wheelbarrow is technology. Rain, water are life necessities. Chickens symbolize agriculture. Red - that is art. White our powers of observation.