From Chapter 7 of “A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle” (from Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (Speak: The Penguin Group, 2008))
Some background
7. I’d like to talk about poetry for a minute. As a poet, I first have to commend you for the generous use of poetry in your work. “A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle” includes a wonderful homage to William Carlos Williams’s famous poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow”, in which the Duke rhapsodizes about hash browns: “So much depends upon the golden hash browns, glazed with oil, beside the scrambled eggs.”
Throughout Paper Towns are references to Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself”, which serve not only as literal clues for Quentin, but as subtext for Q’s experience as well. (Something I highlighted when blogged about this book over at Guys Lit Wire.) Based on some of last year’s vlogs for B2.0, I know Whitman’s one of your favorite poets. What others do you read on a return basis?
I love poetry, even though I have no talent whatsoever for writing it. (My musical tone deafness extends to meter, I think.) I like all the usual suspects: Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot and Yeats and Cummings and W. C. Williams and etc. I also read a lot of poetry from the Islamic world, and I read a lot of contemporary American poets. I am obsessed with a book by Katrina Vandenberg (who happens to be a nerdfighter) called Atlas, which I reread at least once a year.
From Kelly R. Fineman’s John Green – the WBBT interview
Click to read the in-story context
“Now I know why you wanted to go [to the Waffle House]. It has nothing to do with hash browns!”
“Everything has to do with hash browns,” she said. “As the poet wrote: [the Duke quotes her William Carlos Williams-inspired poem]…”
So much depends
upon
the golden hash
browns
glazed with
oil
beside the scrambled
eggs
Click to read William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Whellbarrow”
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
John Green Reads Poetry 