It's hard to believe, but it has been ten years for The Red Wheelbarrow, the Rutherford, NJ anthology that has done so much to boost the poetry of the tri-state region and create a nexus of poetic energy around the birthplace of famed poet Dr. William Carlos Williams. This is our biggest and best book to date, bursting with poetry, prose and artwork and epitomizing Williams' beliefs that a poem is a machine made of words and the epic is the local fully realized.Since Williams was a baby doctor we often get asked if we were delivered by Dr. Williams. Our answer? Not yet, but we're getting there!

There's a marvelous revival of poetry underway in Rutherford, NJ, home of the influential American poet William Carlos Williams. A Symposium on WIlliams has led to a poetry cooperative, several websites, two ongoing workshops, and a monthly reading. The RUTHERFORD RED WHEELBARROW POETS ANTHOLOGY is the living proof of the great vortex of poetic energy that has been created. The book features an unpublished poem by WIlliams and also poets like JOHN BARRALE, CELINE BEAULIEU, SONDRA SINGER BEAULIEU, GEORGE DE GREGORIO, MARK FOGARTY, JIM KLEIN, LOREN KLEINMAN, ZORIDA MOHAMMAD, DEBORAH SCHANTZ, CLAUDIA SEREA and many more!

The Red Wheelbarrow Poets have staked a claim to one of the most valuable pieces of poetic ground in the country, Rutherford, NJ and the legacy of Rutherford's poet/physician William Carlos Williams. Each year for the past eight the group has produced an annual collection of the best poetry (and prose) from this lively and vibrant community. This year's Featured poet is Don Zirilli, who has also contributed four essays on Williams he has delivered at RWP readings in the past year.

Spring and All (1923) is a book of poems by William Carlos Williams. Predominately known as a poet, Williams frequently pushed the limits of prose style throughout his works, often comprised of a seamless blend of both forms of writing. In Spring and All, the closest thing to a manifesto he wrote, Williams addresses the nature of his modern poetics which not only pursues a particularly American idiom, but attempts to capture the relationship between language and the world it describes. Part essay, part poem, Spring and All is a landmark of American literature from a poet whose daring search for the outer limits of life both redefined and expanded the meaning of language itself. “There is a constant barrier between the reader and his consciousness of immediate contact with the world. If there is an ocean it is here.” In Spring and All, Williams identifies the incomprehensible nature of consciousness as the single most important subject of poetry. Accused of being “heartless” and “cruel,” of producing “positively repellant” works of art in order to “make fun of humanity,” Williams doesn’t so much defend himself as dig in his heels. His poetry is addressed “[t]o the imagination” itself; it seeks to break down the “the barrier between sense and the vaporous fringe which distracts the attention from its agonized approaches to the moment.” When he states that “so much depends / upon // a red wheel / barrow,” he refers to the need to understand the nature of language, which keeps us in touch with the world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of William Carlos Williams’ Spring and All is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Red Wheelbarrow 9 continues the tradition of poetic excellence associated with Rutherford, NJ, hometown of major American poet William Carlos Williams. The Red Wheelbarrow Poets continue to attract the best of local poets and others drawn to the flame of modern 21st Century versifying. The RWP runs an ongoing weekly poetry workshop (it has been ongoing for ten years now) and monthly readings at both the Williams Center and GainVille Cafe in Rutherford. Participants in those three events are eligible for inclusion in the anthology, and this year we have nearly 50 poets and writers in a book that is bursting at the seams with poetry, prose and art. May the tribe increase!

2009 Caldecott Honor Book An ALA Notable Book A New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book A Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book NCTE Notable Children’s Book When he wrote poems, he felt as free as the Passaic River as it rushed to the falls. Willie’s notebooks filled up, one after another. Willie’s words gave him freedom and peace, but he also knew he needed to earn a living. So he went off to medical school and became a doctor -- one of the busiest men in town! Yet he never stopped writing poetry. In this picture book biography of William Carlos Williams, Jen Bryant’s engaging prose and Melissa Sweet’s stunning mixed-media illustrations celebrate the amazing man who found a way to earn a living and to honor his calling to be a poet.