"Does reading the phrase 'the red wheelbarrow' immediately conjure up William Carlos Williams's poem of the same name? Williams was one of the imagists, early modern poets who focused on an economy of language in free verse that spoke as much in image as in rhythm. Try it for yourself in a short, visually focused poem."
This is a great thing for me to do. With all of those visual skills I have :)
So, first, does that phrase conjure up that poem?
No. Soz.
I feel I know it, or should know it, or have encountered it at some point. I mean I studied American Literature. And the term 'imagists' sounds familiar.
A poem I do love, with incredible imagery, is this one:
Design, by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Take an image, and then load if with a religious crisis: love it. Is 'God' good? Is the idea of him being all-powerful and all-pervasive good, or actually a tad scary (Big Brother style)? Love it.
Anyway, here is an attempt at a poem from an image that is burned into me:
The tube is in your mouth.
Your eyes and face are over-full
of water (pudgy, puffed),
Closed and bruised.
The nurse asks if I am ok.
I am not.
This is a great thing for me to do. With all of those visual skills I have :)
So, first, does that phrase conjure up that poem?
No. Soz.
I feel I know it, or should know it, or have encountered it at some point. I mean I studied American Literature. And the term 'imagists' sounds familiar.
A poem I do love, with incredible imagery, is this one:
Design, by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Take an image, and then load if with a religious crisis: love it. Is 'God' good? Is the idea of him being all-powerful and all-pervasive good, or actually a tad scary (Big Brother style)? Love it.
Anyway, here is an attempt at a poem from an image that is burned into me:
The tube is in your mouth.
Your eyes and face are over-full
of water (pudgy, puffed),
Closed and bruised.
The nurse asks if I am ok.
I am not.
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