16 Words: William Carlos Williams and "The Red Wheelbarrow"
16 Words: William Carlos Williams and "The Red Wheelbarrow"
By Lisa Rogers
Released September 24, 2019
"Look out the window. What do you see? If you are Dr. William Carlos Williams, you see a wheelbarrow. A drizzle of rain. Chickens scratching in the damp earth." The wheelbarrow belongs to Thaddeus Marshall, a street vendor, who every day goes to work selling vegetables on the streets of Rutherford, New Jersey. That simple action inspires poet and doctor Williams to pick up some of his own tools—a pen and paper—and write his most famous poem.
Lisa Rogers is an elementary school librarian and a former newspaper reporter and editor. In 2016, she received the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children's Book Discovery Award for an early version of 16 Words. She holds a master's degree in Library and Information Science and is a member of SCBWI. This is her first book for children.