The Imagist Poets

In the early 1900s a new movement in poetry began. With the new century came new thinking, a reaction to both romanticism and the more formal, structured poetry of the Victorian era. Here was poetry designed to be simple, clear and precise, rather than be adorned and encrusted with more from the lexicon than what was actually needed.

The original ideas sprang from T. E Hulme and from these Ezra Pound created the structure for its development. Akin to the Ancient Greek lyricists and the Japanese Haiku poets who went from fixed meters to free verse.

I. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.

II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.

III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.

Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) William Carlos Williams, Richard Aldington and James Joyce added their talents to an anthology edited by Pound, swiftly followed by Amy Lowell assuming leadership and adding both monies and 3 further anthology volumes. By the end of the Great War in 1918 the movement was being absorbed into the broader modernist movement. Its time may have passed but its indelible mark was made.