Other № 137984
Les Imagistes
We would call this peaceful and
it is quiet compared to the noise
of the urban morning and
the tapping of the office workers.
But still there are birds and human footsteps
and background hiss of traffic
like scratches on an old seven inch.
The imagists were wrong, I think, you see
Imagism is creating coherence
by having an idea
and purging all that does not fit.
I argue instead
for contradiction through mass inclusion
encompass all we can
and some of it will work:
a poetics like a duck on a frozen lake
confused that he can walk on water.
16 comments
As for the this poem I think it's quite good. Though it weakens in the third and fourth stanzas. This whole thing about having an idea and creating the poem to fit the idea seems to be the opposite of what the imagists were attempting. I thought the imagists illustrated their experiences allowing meaning to emerge out of the images.
Now I've confused myself.
It's ironic that lines I love in this poem could be considered imagist.
'But still' seems inappropriate since in the first stanza you use
'...noise
of the urban morning...'
The birds, footsteps and most especially the traffic are urban noises, so the but still looks like your going to reflect on the comparative peace and quiet.
The duck image is brilliant. did you invent it?
The noise thiong comes from the fact it's a park just outside a town, so it is quiet in comparison but there's still the traffic noise.
The point I think is that imagism is too narrow; there are many other things going on in poetry than just the images. I think a very austere imagist poem can opnly work by excluding everything else; I'd rather have excess verbosity that encompasses more than a clinical precision that excludes. I've just been reading an anthology of imagist writers, and I read the poems and think yes, that's very nice, but where's the rest?
I actually love this poem, although it did take 3 reads to get round (*taps skull to check tiny brain is still there*).
This is clever because you practice what you preach--the seemingly extraneous imagery--the 7-inch, the opening stanzas. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
But I did write a terribly tedious paper as an undergrad on Vorticism, an offshoot of Imagism, discussing Pound and Brzeska and the parallels between the two artists (and art forms). I was "dancing" at the time to make tuition (Yale is so expensive!) and titled my paper "Stripping, the Metaphor." I got a B- (he took points off for the "misplaced" comma).
We would call this peaceful, and
it IS quiet, compared to the noise
of the urban morning and
the tapping of the office workers.
(never mind...it doesn't work...unless you went on to say something about the false perception of feeling peaceful.(But I am in no way at peace.)
at and 2nd stanza, it would need "so it isn't exactly quiet, either. at the end, to explain your 'but still'.
Do you think, or do I see? You are saying you think, so drop the 'you see' in 3rd stanza.
a poetics like a duck...> ? poet's, poetic's (A 'poet is' like...?)
It's not about the narrator being at peace or not (this isn't the pathetic fallacy at work) but about the place.
Poetics = a theory or set of beliefs about poetry. It's a word, haven't you heard of it? Like Aristotle's Poetics. The influence at this point I guess is Hugh MacDiarmid, who wrote a long poem called something like 'The Kind of Poetry I Want' which lists many images - a poetry like a man playing a billiard shot or shooting a gun and who analyses and considers carefully all the appropriate factors. But I'm not writing MacDiarmid's poetry of fact (although elsewhere I do attempt to) but a poetry of imagery (the images are of course influenced by the imagists, that's the point) that contains other things besides. I want to include things that don't fit to create internal cohesion actually based on contradiction.
Not sure if any of that makes sense. The point is, the duck on the frozen lake is confused, surprised, there's contradiction at work; that's what I'm poetry can do, whereas imagism is paring everything down to a level which denies complexity. I think.
Passable? Almost.
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