Carlos Williams Poetry

In the early 1900s a new era of poetry had swept in. Imagery would craft a generation of poets, and with it would be William Carlos Williams’ opportunity to break out into the world of poetry. Williams would be a pioneer in the movement and help to generate a widespread interest in this new genre. Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” would be used as example of Imagery for years.

Born September 17, 1883 to Williams George Williams and Raquel Helene Hoheb, William Carlos Williams was destined to become one of the most influential poets of the 20th Century. Williams was greatly influenced by his family. Although he lived in a house full of men, the two women in his life, mother and grandmother, were the most important adults to him (Baym 2008). Both Williams’ mother and grandmother are present in many of his poems.

Young Williams studied in Rutherford, New Jersey for nearly fifteen years; he later went on to study in Switzerland after his family moved to Europe. Williams later returned to Rutherford for high school, but would not stay long, as his parents moved to New York City’s Horace Mann High School, one of the best schools in the state. It was at Horace Mann High School that Williams found an interest in poetry. Williams later noted, “I had no full realization of what was taking place but I was crazy about those classes, though I wouldn't have acknowledged it to anyone. For the first time I had actually looked at a poem and it had interested me" (Reuben).

When Williams started university he went into medicine and enjoyed it immensely, but knew that what he really wanted was to study writing. However, Williams continued to study medicine as he knew that the money it provided would help him live comfortably while still being a...

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...a setting. The last two lines complete the picture. With the mention of the chickens the reader is easy able to assume that Williams has just described a farm scene, but he has also done something else. Williams, in dissecting the image of the wheelbarrow, has also transformed the common definition of a poem. With careful word choice, attention to language, and unusual stanza breaks Williams has turned an ordinary sentence into poetry (Modern American Poetry).

Williams thought of himself as the most underrated poet of his generation (Baym 2007). But in reality he was a very inspirational writer that influenced writers around the world. At the end of his life, Williams was the patriarch of young poets and his creativity flowered (Baym 2009). Williams’ new style and work helped to change how people interpreted poetry and had fostered in a new generation of poets.