The Imagist Poem

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel 
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

			--William Carlos Williams


In a Station of the Metro

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

			--Ezra Pound

The City


In the morning the city
Spreads its wings
Making a song
In stone that sings.

In the evening the city
Goes to bed
Hanging lights 
Above its head.

			--Langston Hughes
*****************
Both of the following poems were published in the anthology Reflections on
a Gift of Watermelon Pickle, ed. Dunning, Lueders and Smith (1966).  


The Toaster

A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red
Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.
I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,
He hands them back when he sees they are done.

			--William Jay Smith


Apartment House

A filing cabinet of human lives
Where people swarm like bees in tunnelled hives,
Each to his own cell in the covered comb,
Identical and cramped -- we call it home.

			--Gerald Raftery


*********************
You are going to describe something metaphorically without naming the 
object explicitly.
Pick an everyday object from around the house, such as a 
dryer or iron. 
Now list some things that it reminds you of or that it could be like.
Now all you have to do is write four lines to describe your object.
Your lines could rhyme AA BB just the last two above or your poem
might rhyme only two lines or perhaps not rhyme at all.

********************

Teacher's Notes

I am playing pretty fast and loose with the original intent of 
"les imagistes", but the ultimate aim is to study metaphor and 
images.  
The Red Wheelbarrow is one of the most anthologized poems in 
American literature. If you look at it carefully, you will see 
that each line depends upon the one below for completion.  Is it also a
symbolic poem about the Russian revolution?  Believe it or not, this is
one interpretation and in a whacky way it seems to make sense.  The 
red wheelbarrow is a symbol of labour, the water glazing is the tears of
the revolution and the chickens are the symbols of western capitalism
that surrounds the glorious wheelbarrow.  Williams said it was just an
imagist poem.  In an art class, I had the students illustrate the poem
and all of their pictures looked the same which has got to be a stamp
of approval for the success of this poem.   

The "Metro" poem is really descriptive if you had been in one of Paris' 
smoke smudged subways and stood on the platform and looked at the 
row of faces surrounded by darkness on the other side.  Think of an 
apple tree branch in spring with blossoms on it right after a rain
shower.  Remember the black bark with white blossoms?  Brilliant 
poem isn't it?

Langston Hughes is one of my favourites.  I gave some of his poems 
to a jazz guitarist who wanted some lyrics.  He just about went 
crazy when he read them because of their expressiveness.  I don't 
think an album came out of it but if you are an aspiring musician
you might look at Hughes' lyrics.

Thanks to Lind Williams for the information about the two anthologized 
imagist poems.