I spent some time today pondering the “space between words”— wondering why it matters and if it is something that is uniquely human. And so I thought I might share a poem written by doctor/poet William Carlos Williams:
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens
This is a near ubiquitous poem. Its style can be replicated quite easily— you could write a thousand verses just like it about any scene you see in ordinary life. Yet maybe if you were like me, when you were asked to do this very exercise in eighth grade English class, you knew that no matter how hard you tried, your imitation would never live up to the original. And, that it was possibly a show of your own artistic ineptitude to try and copy it1.
1
I also hated having to draw the poem in art class.