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Imagism

Imagism was a short-lived avant-garde poetry movement that lasted, roughly, from 1914 to 1917, though its influence lingered. Important figures in this movement included Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle (who published as H.D.), and William Carlos Williams. By the early twentieth century, these and other poets had grown weary of the sentimentality and artifice that characterized Victorian poetry. This group of poets therefore explored a new kind of verse that emphasized economy of language and directness of presentation. Key to this new form of poetry was a radical simplification of subject matter and scope. Instead of pursuing ambitious themes about love, life, death, and everything in between, these poets sought to focus on a single image—or scene, or experience—and reveal something essential about it. This focus on a single image gave birth to the new movement’s name: Imagism. Williams was a leading figure in the Imagist movement, and many of his poems are closely associated with it. “The Red Wheelbarrow,” which is arguably Williams’s best-remembered poem, is often considered a poster child for the Imagist movement. The poem’s photographic precision and meticulous construction makes it exemplary.

The Roaring Twenties

Williams composed “The Red Wheelbarrow” in the early 1920s, a decade that is remembered as a time of massive social, economic, and technological transformation. In the years following the end of the First World War, virtually every sphere of American life and culture accelerated into modernity. The rising tides of industry helped jump-start the economy, resulting in new technologies such as vacuum cleaners, television, and the iconic Ford Model-T car. Everything from commercially available Band-Aids to silent movies made life more convenient and enjoyable. Meanwhile, the ascendence of avant-garde experimentalism in art and literature promised to “make it new.” Writing against the backdrop of these so-called “Roaring Twenties,” Williams seems to have some reservations about the rapid encroachment of modernity. He channeled these reservations into poems like “The Red Wheelbarrow,” which effectively tune out all the activity and growth that characterized the era in order to reflect on a single, simple image. Of course, even as the poem tunes it out, modernity’s encroachment can still be sensed in the sentimental feelings that arise for the speaker, who seems to cling to the ideal of a simple life in the country.

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