William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Above is a poem that was first shown to me in Year 7 by one of my favourite teachers of all time: Mr Green. Mr Green was only my teacher for a year but he remains today one of my idols and someone I aspire to be as I go about my job.

As for the poet, William Carlos Williams is one of the literary giants of American poetry alongside Eliot and Pound but less well known or studied. However, after my brief encounter with Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow I was hooked and have been an ardent admirer ever since.

What attracted me to this poetry? Most people simply laugh when I quote this poem for them. Often it is followed by a blank stare or a derisive remark about my seriousness. Many people think that the structure, let alone the material, makes it unworthy to be considered Poetry (NB: a deliberate capital).

On some level I completely agree, if you consider poetry simple from the Coleridge or Patterson perspective: long, rhyming and blatantly clear. Also, as I constantly hear from my students, most people hate poetry at school and automatically distrust anything labelled as such as being difficult or deliberately confusing.

However, I think it is this attitude that is the problem. Poetry, like all things in life, is difficult if you can’t appreciate it in a way that you enjoy. That’s why when I read poetry I don’t try to understand everything the poet is trying to say. For me, it’s the vibe or overall mood that the poet creates that matters to me. It sounds strange coming from a teacher but I don’t care if I don’t fully understand it.

This then is the reason I love William Carlos Williams, or WCW (not World Championship Wrestling) and his poems. Take for instance The Red Wheelbarrow: on face value it is deceptively simple – a poem about a red wheelbarrow sitting outside in the rain beside some chickens. This to most people makes it worthless because, unlike Coleridge who writes about albatrosses and life/death on the sea, the content is not of value. Yet for me, it is this simplicity that elevates WCW’s poetry where others falter. The pacing and structure of his poem creates a sense of serenity that relaxes us as we imagine this wheelbarrow just sitting outside in the rain. It takes me back to my childhood: sitting in my dad’s study looking enviously outside as the rain came down on the garden table and the park in which I loved to play. It brought back that sense of innocence that we lose so quickly these days as our lives becoming increasingly cluttered with study, work and electronic distractions. Lastly, it reminded me of the great joy that comes when the rain stops: the smell of fresh growth in the grass, the intoxicating smell of clean washed concrete and the knowledge that I was once again free to roam the green expanses outside.

That enough of my waxing lyrical about his poems and I would just suggest that you look him up: you’ll be pleasantly surprised. But the final word as usual is left to me and in honour of WCW, I wrote this poem:

Waiting for my wife (2009)

The acrid smell of
cigarettes make me
COUGH
and
COUGH.

purplepinkandblue
flashpastinhaste

Korea town sydney:
a monotonous sea of black hair
as the busker prepares his
awkward
microphone
stand.

Thoughts of dinner gnaw at my stomach.
Dylan, simon, garfunkle, joplin in my ear.