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William Carlos Williams commented on "The Red Wheel Barrow" on March 19, 1952
I’ve [. . .] gotten some fame, but I should probably say notoriety, from a very brief little poem called “The Red Wheelbarrow.” [. . .] I had a letter from a lady in Boston [. . .] that said, “I love it. It’s perfectly wonderful. But what does it mean?” [audience laughs] In the first place, I say modestly it’s a perfect poem [laughs] [. . .] It means just the same as the opening lines of [John Keats’s] Endymion, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” And so much depends upon it. But instead of saying “A thing of beauty,” I say, “a red wheel / barrow // glazed with rain / water // beside the white / chickens.” Isn’t that beautiful?
 
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