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Les Imagistes (Other) by Nicholas Jones 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.
Up the ladder:
Wolverines, me, and the last American Buffalo.
Down the ladder:
Your silhouette still drinks at my table
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.7
Posted: January 31, 2006 2:32 PM PST; Last modified: January 31, 2006 2:32 PM PSTWeighted score: 5.85 Overall Rank: 1578 Comments:
Your proposed method seems less like a duck on a frozen lake and more like a duck shot by a Duck-shot shell.
Ah but if you take this philosophy the duck probably shot itself with the Duck-shot shell.
I actually love this poem, although it did take 3 reads to get round (*taps skull to check tiny brain is still there*).
See I thought we were the duck and his poem was the lake. I think I understand now. It's really wabbit season.
Imagism is considered more of a parallel to sculpture than to painting. So the idea of "purging" or paring seems very apt--rather than layering images they focus on the core, the clean lines.
This is clever because you practice what you preach--the seemingly extraneous imagery--the 7-inch, the opening stanzas. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Do you sculpt alot?
No, I'm more of a pinch potter.
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).
I like CS Lewis on the use of imagination. His image of the lion in Narnia, for example, came as a dream, but he developed the image, the character, beyond the initial vision using logic and allusion. Your duck walking on ice, and confused by the image of walking on water, is ready, as think you might be implying, to make something poetic and meaningful from that experience.
Reading all the stuff put down here, I'm inspired to write a poem titled "Dreamer". As for your poem.... its good. its got matter and a sense of imagining where you are.
maybe : punctuation would make first stanza more clear?>
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...?)
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I think the first stanza does make sense. Perhaps it needs the addition of the world 'place' - We would call this PLACE peaceful'. The point we would it peaceful, and it is in comparison to the town, but there are actually still lots of noises, including traffic. I could articulate the sense of place better, more description, but at this point the poem is meant to be pseudo-imagistic. No single image is sufficient - neither peacefulness or noise - because context is so important. So pure imagism would lead to distortion, because I could only a purely imagist poem by ignoring certain aspects of the scenario.
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.
This is actually clever. The thing I'm missing is it flowing. Sad but I think it needs a poet's touch, or maybe just an editor's. "I argue ... work" doesn't move things along as much as the rest, I think.
Passable? Almost.
It seems to me you have fixed ideas about what poetry should do. I don't want it to flow. It's about watching a frozen lake, that's the complete opposite of flow.
I would bet my right arm that no duck that has ever existed aside from maybe Donald, Daffy or Howard the duck has ever contemplated in any way the profundity of walking on water.
What good is an arm to me? Amputated, packaged and mailed, Iâd have a disposal problem, and the garbageman might ask questions. Nevertheless, I can produce a duck as you describe and will do so upon receipt of the arm. BTW, is it a hairy arm?
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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?