ricks:
Preface: Anybody who seriously reads EP (seriously) is my ally. Please
don't take my BS personally.
Body:
In my stupor, I guess what I meant/mean was/is that Imagism (big "I") is
to me merely a bit of promotion. Pound's (forgive me for not
remembering exactly -- I'm still at work about to go home and don't have
the texts at hand) "programme" for Imagism (can't believe I can't
remember the time/paper/name: oops!) was his first major public
critical volley in his war on fustian, but not, to me (a guy who was in
the last Vietnam draft lottery), a particularly defining moment for
poetry "as such" (lol, the "ding an sich" thing?). By then, (I mean,
"at that time, i.e. 1970 or so) there was so much pseudo-haiku and fake
Imagism one would prefer to go out and look at a dead fish every day for
some number of days than read it -- or even to read Tennyson, Spenser,
or Milton (not an attack on them).
Okay, this exegesis is a mess.
Your earlier comment
hunting "The Cantos" for Imagist sub-poems is very rewarding
is excellent within the context of particularly preferring a certain type of poetry, which one could, to concede the point, be called "Imagism".
Okay, so now it would seem (as a result of my intellectual suicide above), that I believe in "Imagism". But I still don't find it (id est Imagism) particularly interesting per se. E.g.:
the army vocabulary contains almost 48 words
one verb and participle one substantive "hylay" [dj transliteration, inventive but not good]
one adjective and one phrase sexless that is
used as a sort of pronoun
from a watchman's club to a vamp or fair lady
(Canto LXXVII)
(Not a random selection, but the closest to random that I could manufacture tonight.)
I don't think you'd describe this as Imagism.... Or would you?
I'm not saying that it's the BEST example of an approach of EP I love, but it IS an example... Shall we call it "Browningism"?
ricks wrote:
>Dirk
>
>There is a difference between imagism (little i)and Imagism (big I) You
>said you didn't believe in imagism (little i). How about Imagism (big I)?
>
>I am not trying to be cute about the difference. Amygism was all about
>imagism with a small i.
>
>Rick Seddon
>McIntosh, NM.
>
>
>
--
D irk Johnson
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