He was a pediatrician who delivered babies and wrote poetry in Rutherford, New Jersey. They said he wrote between patients, after patients and at night. He wrote poems like “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “Complaint.” For a while I read him late, as if we were having coffee together in the hospital cafeteria, waiting for a delivery, a lab test to be done, a patient’s family to appear. Some of it makes your neck hairs stand up to read it, a person’s life colliding with reality while you watch, feeling the reverberations. It’s what turns healthcare into medicine at 2 AM.

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was an American poet and physician. His work is in the public domain.

To read “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “Complaint,” click on these links:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/red-wheelbarrow

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/complaint-0