Tuesday
01Sep2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 01:51PM

- * The painting, Wheelbarrow, is by Morris Graves (b. 28 August 1910 - 2001), a Zen Buddhist and gardener from the Pacific Northwest, much influenced by oriental attitudes toward art and nature.
- * Graves named all his dogs and cats Edith, after the Virgo poet Edith Sitwell (born 7 September 1887 - 1964), herself an acolyte and biographer of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth the First (also born 7 September, but 1533 - 1603).
- More of his work here.
- *
- so much depends
upon
- a red wheel
barrow
- glazed with rain
water
- beside the white
chickens
- * Word for word, given its brevity, The Red Wheelbarrow is one of the most scrutinized poems in the English language.
- * The author, William Carlos Williams (born in the Garden State of New Jersey on 17 September 1883, d. 1961), was a pediatrician as well as a poet.
- * The poem, essentially a Japanese haiku, enters American literary space spelling out the ellipsis implicit in all haiku: so much depends upon . . . The remainder of the poem contains the traditional seventeen syllables, if "glaz'ed" is read poetically.

- * Virgo rules gardening, farming, pets, flowers and livestock.
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