The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon (1)
a red wheel
barrow (2)
glazed (3) with rain
water (4)
beside the white
chickens
FOOTNOTES
(1) On.
(2) A large open container for moving things in, which has a wheel at the front and two handles at the back, used especially in the garden.
(3) To give a smooth glossy surface to.
(4) Water that has fallen as rain.
ANALYSIS
“… No ideas but in things.”
“Anything is good material for poetry. Anything.”
“In prose, an English word means what it says. In poetry, you’re listening to two things . . . you’re listening to the sense, the common sense of what it says. But it says more. That’s the difficulty”
So much ink has been wasted, trying to reveal what this originally untitled poem means altogether. Not willing to rephrase them, I would unashamedly make the best effort possible hereby:
Both the first and fourth stanzas begin with a four-syllable, ending in a two-syllable line; while, when splitting the words ‘wheelbarrow’ and ‘rainwater’ into two, the poet starts the second and third stanza with a three-syllable line. This technique is apparently being used to keep the eyes of a reader moving towards the end of this one-sentenced poem; without any habitual pause after each line.
Stark contrast is to be observed between the magnificent images here: between ‘red’ and ‘white’; and between the non-living ‘wheelbarrow’ and the living ‘chickens’. (This is—‘most arguably’—what the life is like in an American village!)
‘Glazed’ is probably the cleverest word chosen to paint a different wet wheelbarrow as seen through the eyes of a poet. (He had used the term before in another context: “. . . above a snow glaze”.)
Alas! Williams seems not eager to tell us what really ‘depends’ on a wheelbarrow! (A “load” expected, naturally!) One has to dismiss any need for symbolism, and confess unavoidably: William Carlos Williams was a poet who succeeded in making the ordinary appear extraordinary!
Nima Tahsili