Desmond Petway
December 1, 2013
English 28A

Modernist Poet: Carlos Williams

The modernist poet Carlos Williams wrote a very unique poem called “The Red Wheelbarrow”. The poem is set up into four couplets, which is a stanza composed of two lines. The poem also has no punctuation and every word within the poem is not capitalized. Carlos Williams also uses the technique called enjambment to separate closely related words that they may fall into different lines. An example of enjambment would be “wheel barrow” and “rain water”. This idea of enjambment allows the reader of the poem to slow down and really decipher the poem. Another intriguing aspect of “The Red Wheelbarrow” is the illustration of an actual wheelbarrow. In each couplet the first line is longer the second which provides the imagery of a wheelbarrow. However the second line of each couplet become the wheel of the wheelbarrow. A “wheel” is described as a circular object that revolves on an axle and is fixed below a vehicle or other object to enable it to move over the ground. Each word on the second line acts as a “wheel” in order to help the flow of the poem move from couplet to couplet. Duty and perseverance is the theme of the poem. In lines 1-4 of the poem it states, “so much depends upon a red wheel barrow”. Wheelbarrows have been around since the ancient Greeks and served the function of carrying loads for buildings. The wheelbarrow was an essential tool to help humans in creating masterful works of