2. POETRY IN PICTURES
Imagist poets focused their writing on simple images. They attempted to
use words to paint pictures in their readers’ minds. While the poets used
imagery in the classic sense, their focus was on the sense of sight and not
so much on the other four senses. In this project, you will focus on the
visual as well. You have 2 project options to choose from, so make sure
you look at both before you begin.
3. PROJECT CHOICE #1
1. Choose two of the following Imagist poems
2. Locate or produce an image (picture) for each of the poems you
choose. Your image should serve as an illustration for the
poem.
3. Once you have the image, explain its connection to the poem in
three to five sentences (for each poem).
4. You must explain what elements of the poem are illustrated in
the picture and why you chose this picture as the poem’s
illustration.
4. AUTUMN
by amy lowell
They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia,
Opulent, flaunting.
Round gold
Flung out of a pale green stalk.
Round, ripe gold
Of maturity,
Meticulously frilled and flaming,
A fire-ball of proclamation:
Fecundity decked in staring yellow
For all the world to see.
They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia,
To me who am barren
Shall I send it to you,
You who have taken with you
All I once possessed?
5. THE COMING OF WAR: ACTÆON
by ezra pound
An image of Lethe,
and the fields
Full of faint light
but golden,
Gray cliffs,
and beneath them
A sea
Harsher than granite,
unstill, never ceasing;
High forms
with the movement of gods,
Perilous aspect;
And one said:
"This is Actæon."
Actaeon of golden greaves!
Over fair meadows,
Over the cool face of that field,
Unstill, ever moving,
Host of an ancient people,
The silent cortège.
6. PEAR TREE
Silver dust by H.D.
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted.
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;
no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;
O white pear,
your flower-tufts,
thick on the branch,
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts
7. THIS IS JUST TO SAY
by William Carlos Williamson
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
8. PROJECT CHOICE #2
1. Choose one of the images on the next slide and compose an
Imagist poem of your own.
2. Your poem must consist of 12 – 20 lines and should mimic the
style of the Imagist poetry you have experienced in this unit.
Please see lessons 2.06, 2.07, and 2.08 for information on
Imagism and to read Imagist poetry. The poems in project #1
are useful examples as well.
