Rick,

"...to formulate more clearly my own thoughts as to the nature of some
mystery or equation."
"Intense emotion causes pattern to arise in the mind.... By pattern-unit
or vorticist picture I mean the single jet.  The difference between the
pattern-unit and the picture is one of complexity."
"The vorticist position, or at least my position at the moment, is this:
"Energy, or emotion, expresses itself in form.  When an energy or
emotion 'presents an image', this may find adequate expression in
words.... The verbal expression of the image may be reinforced by a
suitable or cognate rhythm-form and by timbre-form..."

from EP, Affirmations: As for Imagisme, 1915

In GK, the section "Vorticist", he says, "our vortex is will and
consciousness".

The definition of the image you quote, and which I accept in the context
of EP, does not indicate an image in the usual sense of the word, id est
as a presented physical object.  This is why, in GK, he speaks of his
various sections in the book as forming an ideogram.  An ideogram is
composed of images, i.e., in the sense you presented,  but this isn't
the same as the 5 images you designate in the passage "ply over ply...."
(a lovely passage).  Nobody would call any section of GK an image in the
usual sense of the word.  I'm not saying that the previously noted
passage doesn't employ the same method, but that the method isn't
limited to that sort of  "concrete" image.  The Adams, Malatesta, and
Kung Cantos are also Imagist poems in this sense, but I don't think
anybody will want to call them that.

Pound moved from the concrete image to the pattern of energy.  In 1915,
he redefined imagisme in terms of vorticism. It was a process.  His
earlier examination stripped things down to the barest essentials
(Imagisme).  As he continued thinking and working, he developed his
thinking about Imagisme in terms of vorticism, but the word imagisme had
already been taken away from him and used to refer to concrete images.
Only vorticism makes sense in reference to the Cantos.

Pound is a vorticist poet.  I haven't read Witemeyer in more than 25
years (and you'll probably send me back to him, I mean, now I'll
probably read him again), but in the meantime, I'll take EP's word for it.

Richard Seddon wrote:

>Dirk
>
>No, on the contrary.
>
>Imagism is a descriptive term.  If you chose not to attach it to Pound that
>is your choice.  The reasons you have given are adequate to justify your
>choice.
>
>In fact, Pound is not often called an Imagist poet.  He is usually referred
>to as a poet who wrote Imagism.  This emphasis would appear to be the same
>as yours.
>
>Most of the verse Pound wrote was not Imagist.  He would have been the first
>to maintain that true Imagism is difficult to come by.
>
>BTW:  Vorticism is not generally thought of as a further development of
>Imagism.  The confusion probably comes because it is a development in
>Pound's thinking.  Vorticism is the extension of Imagism to the other arts.
>The Vortex for poetry is still the Image.  The Vortex for sculpture is
>expressed in the relation of angles and planes.  The essential
>characteristic of the Vortex is the same as the Image; "An 'Image' is that
>which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time".
>(for an excellent discussion of Vorticism see page 36 of  Hugh Witemeyer's
>"The Poetry of Ezra Pound: Forms and Renewal, 1908-1920")
>
>A question then; What is the Vortex for prose?
>
>Rick Seddon
>McIntosh, NM
>
>
>

--

Dirk Johnson
676 Geary #407
San Francisco, CA 94102

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