Before Imagism

Poetry…the name itself sounds pretty. Now, words conjure different images and feeling for different people, but when I hear the word “poetry” or similar words like “poetical” or “lyrical” I imagine things like soft silk, English countrysides and lavender. Girly things. Maybe it’s different for you but poetry still has this reputation of impossible language, improbable metaphors and sometimes being just plain stupid, or worse, boring.

You wouldn’t be the first to dismiss poetry on the diction commonly associated with it: flowery, sentimental and saccharine. In fact, several poets in the early twentieth century felt similarly. Around the turn of the century and for a long time before that, the most common and popular poetry was this kind, called “genteel” poetry. It was pretty, stuff for ladies to embroider onto cushion, meaningless words for young boys to copy and impress their sweethearts, all the things that many people complain about when it comes to poetry. Well a group of poets decided to change this and started a movement known as Imagism.

Ezra Pound is really the father of this movement, which got started in 1912 when he helped a young poetess publish two of her poems. Her name was Hilda Doolittle but she was known primarily by her initials, H.D. Other poets contributed to the Imagism movement including Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, James Joyce, F.S. Flint, John Gould Fletcher, William Carlos Williams (Free verse! Free verse!) and D.H. Lawrence.

Works Cited:

"Ezra Pound." Poets.org N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Jun 2010.

(Note: I can't put URL in the blog so the Works Cited is technically unfinished but there you are.)