Sunday, April 12, 2009

An American Classic, Revisited

The other day, I again read William Carlos Williams' famous poem, The Red Wheelbarrow. It is an interesting piece of work:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.


However, upon reading it, I found that it was not strictly true. Thus, I have decided to edit it as follows. I hope you will find my new, critical edition helpful.

[not] so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens


[apart from
hauling poo].


In all seriousness, I do quite like this poem, but I think that some of the interpretations of it ("whoa, that's heavy, dude") dig way too deep.

2 comments:

dixonfamily said...

LOVE IT!!!

Shelli Snyder said...

You make me laugh so hard, Nick. I have to make sure I've already wrung out my bladder before I read your blog. And I'm shamelessly going to leave that comment in this comment in honor of you and inside words often making their way outside. :)