Contents: Poem Text Poem Summary Themes Style Critical Overview Criticism Sources For Further Study |
William Carlos Williams 1923
william Carlos William’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” was first published in the collection Spring and All in 1923. The poem is a good example of Williams’s statement, “No ideas, but in things.” As an unusually broken up sentence, the poem presents the reader with a seemingly ordinary object (the wheelbarrow) as the exclusive image. The poem focuses so deeply upon this image that the reader discovers the wheelbarrow is not an ordinary object, but is the poem itself. Such close scrutiny of an image reminds one of certain aspects of art. As in painting, the poem uses line and color to form the image of the wheelbarrow. Notice the painterly language. The colors red and white contrast sharply with one another, while the word “glazed” works to transform the image into its new, poetic form.
