Dirk

Perhaps;  much depends( as it does with red wheelbarrows) on whether you
want to understand the difference between what Pound called "Amygism" and
what Pound called "Imagism".  Both are legitimate descriptive terms for very
different but still legitimate types of poetry.

Many are perfectly happy to co-mingle Amygism and Imagism and to primarily
use a definition that best  fits Amygism.  Glenn Hughes comes to mind.  I
think that those who do this miss out on the beauty that Imagism's (big I)
process can bring to some, not all, poetry.

Flint was quoted as saying that none of them, the early Imagists, really
understood what Pound meant by the Image (big I). (I can supply source if
required)  Ford said much the same thing.

I have tried to emphasize that there is a big difference, and always was,
between Imagism (big I) and Amygism.  Amygism was that form that was
concerned with the image (little i).   Imagism (big I) was concerned with a
process.  Amygism was concerned with the thing, the image (little i).

Much of what I think you understand as Pound's development of the early
concept was actually Pound's, sometimes exasperated, attempts to steer
Imagism back to the process of Imagism.

Don't get me wrong.  Amygism is not inferior poetry to Imagism.  It is just
different.  Some very beautiful poetry is Amygist.  It is just not Imagism.

Pound separated Amygism from Imagism and if we are to understand Imagism we
must be aware of what it was not.  Imagism, although it used the image
(little i) was not about the image (little i).  It was about emotion.  It
was about the intuition, the leap by the mind of the reader to something not
explicitly stated by the poet.

When you read Oread by H.D. the image (little i) is that of ocean surf and
trees.  The Image (big I) comes when the reader suddenly realizes that H. D.
is writing about death.

Imagism is maybe more akin to Eliot's "objective correlative" than it is to
Amygism.

Please read Chapter 2 of Witemeyer's, "The Poetry of Ezra Pound: Forms and
Renewal, 1908-1920.  I previously recommended a portion of this chapter as a
way to understand Vorticism.  It is only 20 pages long.

Rick Seddon
McIntosh, NM