upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
The lines above constitute the entirety of a poem entitled “The Red Wheelbarrow” by the American poet William Carlos Williams, who died on this date in 1963.
Speaking of poetry, last Friday was the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) and I missed the celebration completely. You know Dr. Seuss. He wrote Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street and Yertle the Turtle and If I Ran the Circus and lots of others. What you probably don’t know is how to pronounce his name.
It doesn’t rhyme with Mother Goose.
Wikipedia states that he himself noted that it rhymed with “voice” and a friend of his, Alexander Liang, wrote this:
You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice (or Zoice).
And speaking of March 4th, American presidential inaugurations from 1789 through 1933 occurred on March 4th. Since then, thanks to passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the inaugurations have been held on January 20th.
As proof, here is a January 20th scene in Washington, D.C., not too many years ago:
Rather than working yourself into a tizzy over the American political scene in the 21st century, however, just remember:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
