esrosedotblog

One of the first things you learn in any good contemporary literature class is a simple poem.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends upon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the white chickens.

--William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

It says all that needs to be said about the process of modern poetry.

And then there is the content of the poem itself. Not always the same thing as the process.

Recently one of Williams' biographers found the apparent source of inspiration.

The Forgotten Man Behind William Carlos Williams’s ‘Red Wheelbarrow’

I love this kind of literary detective work. It was what was taught to me in the courses I took at MIT where such studies were called "the humanities". As opposed, I suppose, to science or engineering. Which is pretty dumb for a smart technical school. Anyway.

In our third and fourth years we were presented with optional courses and I chose American literature.

And there it was.

We read a lot of Williams. He was an original. A medical doctor who practiced the most modern kind of poetry.