"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:
so much depends
upona red wheel
barrowglazed with rain
waterbeside the white
chickens.
Adam Kirsch breaks it down:
In his Autobiography (1951), Williams explains that his goal as a writer is to capture the "immediacy" of experience: "It is an identifiable thing, and its characteristic, its chief character is that it is sure, all of a piece and, as I have said, instant and perfect: it comes, it is there, and it vanishes. But I have seen it, clearly. I have seen it." This is just what he does with the wheelbarrow, the rainwater, and the chickens: trivial in themselves, their sheer uninsistent presence strikes the reader as somehow disclosing the very essence of being.
(Image via Prashanth Kamalakanthan)
The Dish 