Some Thoughts on Ezra Pound

Imagism was a poetic movement started by Ezra Pound which focused on concrete and clear imagery. The Norton Anthology of American Literature explains: "Pound first campaigned for 'imagistic,' his name for a new kind of poetry. Rather than describing something - an object or situation - and then generalizing about it, imagist poets attempted to present the object directly, avoiding the ornate diction and complex but predictable verse forms of traditional poetry." Pound explained it as follows: “The point of Imagism is that it does not use images as ornaments. The image is itself the speech. The image is the word beyond formulated language.”

Pound was especially influenced by the vivid imagery used in Oriental poetry.

Look at his poem “In a Station of a Metro”:

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

The poem is a type of Haiku (a very short poem in the Japanese tradition). The words are simple and clear, with vivid imagery used.

Look at Pound’s poem “Ts’ai Chi’h” in which he describes falling rose petals:

The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-colored rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.

The poem is made-up almost exclusively of vivid images.

Now consider a longer poem by Pound. Take, for instance, “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter.” This poem is an adaptation by Pound from a poem originally by the Chinese poet Li Po. This poem is also full of vivid imagery. Unlike the previous haiku-poems listed above, where the images are used merely to capture a visual impression in time, in “The River-Merchant’s Wife” the images have a deeper function. Many of the images in the poem show the relationship and feelings between the River-Merchant and his wife (the speaker in the poem).

Exercise 1: See if you can identify these images that show the relationship and / or feelings of the River-Merchant and his wife towards each other.

Exercise 2: A reoccurring theme in Ezra Pound’s ouvre is the idea that riches and status does not equal happiness. Keeping this theme in mind, look at the poems “Salutation” and “The Garden.” Explain how this theme is applicable in these two poems.

Exercise 3: In “The Garden” the woman is described as “a skein of loose silk blown against a wall.” Elaborate on this image, and different connotative meanings of silk, and how this characterizes the woman. In other words, what can we infer about the woman from this image.

Exercise 4: The poem “The Garden” contains an allusion. Identify the allusion, mention where it is from, and describe what it may mean within the context of this poem.

Denotation & Connotation

A word has typically three parts; namely its (1) sound, its (2) denotation, and its (3) connotation.

A word's denotative meaning is its basic meaning as you would typically find in a dictionary. Apart from its denotation(s) a word may also have connotative meaning(s). The denotation for “red” is the color it represents. However, “red” can also remind us of other things like “passion”, “love”, “blood”, and “danger”. These latter meanings are connotations to “red”.

Poets often choose words not only for their sound and denotation, but also for their connotations. “A frequent misconception of poetic language is that poets seek always the most beautiful or noble-sounding words. What they really seek are the most meaningful words, and these vary from one context to another” (Sound & Sense, p. 45).

Exercise Questions:

Make sure that you can answer the following questions from the “Reviewing Chapter Three”-section in Sound & Sense, p. 48:

1. Distinguish between connotation and denotation as components of words.

3. Explore the ways in which a word may have multiple denotations, and multiple connotations, showing that different denotations may gave different connotations.

4. Explore the ways in which the context will determine which denotations and which connotations are relevant in a poem.

5. Show how levels of diction may characterize the speaker in a poem. (Compare with question #2 in the previous post.)