Imagist Poets

1. Imagist Poets Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams

2. What is Imagism? An imagist poem expressed the essence of an object, person, or incident, without providing explanations. • Most closely influenced by Japanese haikus, which evoke an emotional response through the representation of a single image or a pair of contrasting images. • Imagist movement lasted only about twenty years, but poets influenced many other writers, such as T. S. Eliot.

3. Ezra Pound1885-1972 • Born in Hailey, Idaho territory (ID didn’t become a state until 1890) • Attended University of Pennsylvania for two years, then to Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, earning a degree in philosophy. • Briefly taught a Wabash College and hated it. With only $80 in his pocket, he sailed for Venice and never looked back. • Spent most of his life in Europe after college • Inspired the dramatic changes in American poetry • Insisted that writers “make it new” by discarding forms, techniques, and ideas. • Despite this, Pound drew upon poetry of ancient cultures

4. William Carlos Williams1883-1963 • Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, and unlike many of the imagist poets, he remained a U.S. resident. He died in the same city of his birth. • Attended the University of Pennsylvania and later Perelman School of Medicine. He was a practicing pediatrician as well as a poet. • Believed that the common experience contained the seeds of the extraordinary. • Poems depicted ordinary people, objects, and experiences in everyday language. • Poet Laureate of the United States and won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. • Suffered a series of strokes prior to his death.

5. Understanding Imagist Poetry • Engage your senses • As you encounter each image, try to re-create in your mind the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or physical sensations the image evokes. • Some senses are more pronounced than others.

6. Characteristics of Imagist Poems • Evoke Emotion • Spark Imagination • Use Limited, but VIVID images • Are brief, but meaningful

7. The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. Vs. the? Contrasting Colors Importance of rain to farmers? How does this reflect the imagist emphasis on the concrete?