The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams

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"so much depends
upon a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens."

With regard to the inspiration for the poem, Williams wrote that it

"sprang from affection for an old Negro named Marshall. He had been a fisherman, caught porgies off Gloucester. He used to tell me how he had to work in the hold in freezing weather, standing ankle deep in cracked ice packing down the fish. He said he didn’t feel cold. He never felt cold in his life until just recently. I liked that man, and his son Milton almost as much. In his back yard I saw the red wheelbarrow surrounded by the white chickens. I suppose my affection for the old man somehow got into the writing."