I would describe these poems as minimalist and imagist.
The entire "The Red Wheelbarrow" is minimalist in being only sixteen words and stripping away all extraneous details:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
It is imagist in simply being a series of images—description which uses any of the fives senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. This poem is stripped down in that it uses only a few plain words. It only relies on visual images, and it chooses only a few elements of a scene. It doesn't interpret , tell us what to think, or express emotion as a lyrical poem would. It simply shows us a series of images and in so doing, illustrates how the red of the wheelbarrow and the white of the chickens are enhanced by their proximity to each other. It...
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invites us to resee what is around us: not reinterpret its meaning, but justsee it.
In "This is Just to Say," Williams is again minimalist and imagist. He explains his eating of the plums by describing them with sensual imagery that makes them seem irresistible:
they were deliciousAt the same time, the imagery is minimal and quite stark, the poem only 28 words. Each word stands out in such a simple format. Some have also called "This is Just to Say" found poetry, arguing it is simply a note pinned to a refrigerator converted into a poem.
so sweet
and so cold
In these two examples, Williams writes in the sparse style of the Modernist, conveying an image and leaving the interpretation open to his readers.
In "The Red Wheelbarrow," point out to your students that Williams asserted that "a poem should be shaped like an object." If you turn the poem sideways, you will see both literally and symbolically, the "handle" of the wheelbarrow and the "dip" of the bin. Ask them to consider color, shape and juxtaposition of objects, and why Williams might choose to elevate the everyday to the poetic.
In regard to "This is Just to Say," Williams once said that poems must consider "those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose." Thinking of that statement, encourage students to examine the relationship of the speaker and his unnamed mate. What do the senses have to say about their relationship? What inferences can be made? In another telling comment, Williams remarked: "To refine, to clarify, to intensify, that eternal moment in which we alone live there is but a single force -- the imagination." Here the speaker is overtaken by his senses, acts without the other knowing his motives, and turns the moment of confession into poetry.
In both poems, although the lines seem fragmented, like a haiku, each is dependant upon the other to complete the idea.