The Red Wheelbarrow

Given their striking white color, the chickens call attention to themselves and capture the poet’s attention. Within the tight, spare, clean argument of Williams’ poem, the chickens symbolize a necessary element of animation and the gift of animation all around.

The chickens, alone of the few images the poet notes, are capable of movement and gift the otherwise static tableau with the spark of life. Chickens might have erratic or graceless movements, but unlike the wheelbarrow, they move of their own accord. However, that movement is hardly the stuff of poetry. Unlike other birds, chickens are essentially flightless, content to peck and roam about the same space as humans in awkward choreography. They do not achieve the elegant beauty of other birds. As such, the chickens inspire less the idea of nature’s beauty as they do the concept intrinsic to the Zen-like wisdom of the poem itself: They are beauty unnoticed. Admire, the poet argues, the sheer chicken-ness of the chicken. If chickens can merit elevation into the grace, structure, and music of a poem, then surely, the poem argues, the world itself opens up with limitless possibilities.