Imagism

This Is Just To Sayby William Carlos Williams

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probablysaving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold.

IMAGISMReported by: Miss Florabel M.

BiasongAbuyod National High School

Teresa, Rizal

Imagism Defined Imagism is a name given to a movement in poetry, originating in 1912, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/imagism-def.html

The Imagists A group of American and English poets whose poetic program was formulated about 1912 by Ezra Pound. The imagists wrote succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement.

H.D.Hilda

Doolittle

Richard Aldington

Amy Lowell

D.H. Lawrence

John Gould

Fletcher

Ezra Found

F.S. Flint

Forerunners of Imagism

Imagism, as a movement, is often credited to have started with T.E. Hulme, who created the Poet's Club in 1908.

After the death of T.E. Hulme, Ezra Pound spread the idea of "dry, hard, classical verse“

Tenets of Imagism

   1. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.

   2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.

   3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome”

Ezra Found

Tenets of Imagism… 1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.

Amy Lowell

Avoid inversions and clichés of the old poetic

jargon Example of inversion:Yourself, how do you do,Very well, you I thank.

Example of the old poetic jargon:To ope my eyesUpon the Ethiope splendourOf the spangled night.

Exact word which conveys the writer’s

impression to the reader must be used. Example :

Great heaps of shiny glassPricked out of the stubbleBy a full, high moon.

Tenets of Imagism… 2. To create new rhythms – as the expression of new moods – and not copy old rhythms which merely echo old moods.

(New cadence means new idea.)

Tenets of Imagism… 3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject.

4. To present an image (hence the name ‘imagist’)

(Poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities.)

Example:“The Calm”At noon I shall see waves flashing,White power of spray.

The streamers, statelyKick up white puffs of spray behind them.The boiling wakeMerges in the blue-black mirror of the sea.

Tenets of Imagism…5. To produce poetry that is

hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.

(This does not refer to subject but to rendering of subject.)

6. Concentration is of the

very essence of poetry.

Tenets of Imagism

Sea Garden (H.D.)

Rose, harsh rose,marred and with stint of petals,meagre flower, thin,sparse of leaf,more preciousthan a wet rosesingle on a stem—you are caught in the drift.Stunted, with small leaf,you are flung on the sand,you are liftedin the crisp sandthat drives in the wind.Can the spice-rosedrip such acrid fragrancehardened in a leaf?

In the Station of the MetroEzra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet black bough.

for listening!!!