Look!...A Red Wheelbarrow

Unlike any other poems we have read in class, this one is substantially shorter. William's..."ode" to the red wheelbarrow is so short, it almost forces us to make our own idea of it.

When reading this, I feel like the speaker is admiring the wheelbarrow, and understands its existence. The speaker, it seems, feels for it. He/she sees it "glazed", and believes "so much depends/upon/ a red wheelbarrow". Almost as if he/she believes the owners are ungrateful, and do not realize the wheelbarrow's potential and/or its pivotal mark on their lives.

Today, society is very impatient, apathetic and ungrateful. We have devices that give us contact with the entire planet, machines that get us from here to there, devices that fill moments in our life with beautiful sounds, devices that can give us physical images of a moment in time...these things have grown to be simple conventions. Williams, I think, only tried to get us to understand how beautiful this world can be, we just have to observe it is all.

Anything you have grown to get use to? Not realizing how unbelievable it was when you first experienced it? (i.e. airplanes! Floating in air while sitting on the loo!...c'mon!)