Imagism was a major movement in early-twentieth-century poetry. Spearheaded by figures like William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, H.D., and Amy Lowell, Imagism was framed as a reaction against the ornamentation and indulgence of Romantic and Victorian poetry. These poets were focused on the use of clear and concise language to directly convey images.
H.D. was an American poet whose unique style made her one of the leading lights of the Imagism movement. She sought to encapsulate many fragments of post-World War II culture and in doing so crafted a crystalline and elegiac voice. For example, here is the first stanza of her poem "Evening," excerpted below:
The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower—
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint—
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.
The focus of the poem is a methodical drawing of an image. H.D. describes the way daylight falls upon hepatica flowers with a microscopic eye for detail. She then shifts to describing them in moonlight in the final two lines. Notably, the focus here is entirely on the image. She spends no time trying to give a metaphorical charge to these scenes. In the same way, for all the natural beauty in these lines, there is no additional commentary beyond physical observation.
Ezra Pound was an American poet who was widely considered to be one of the driving forces behind the Imagism movement, both in terms of his prodigious output and theoretical rigor. While he explored many different styles throughout his career, he was always preoccupied with effectively communicating imagery. In his poem "The Garden," the reader finds exactly this sort of exacting language:
Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anaemia.
The reader can see that Pound has carefully calibrated his choice of words. The woman walking "by the railing of a path by Kensington Gardens" is like "loose silk." In the first two lines, Pound has economically set up a portrait of this figure, so he can properly note her "dying piece-meal." While Pound can be more decadent than some of the other Imagists, he still demonstrates the same level of commitment to directness.
Amy Lowell was an American poet based in Massachusetts. She was focused on the same ideas as were H.D. and Pound, but she framed it as a stylistic return to classical values. As shown in her poem "Autumn," Lowell engaged in a similar manner of forthrightness in her work:
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
Much like H.D., Lowell draws attention to small details with a measured tone. Each moment draws something from the scene, as the poem moves its lens slowly from the leaves to the water to the moonlight.
Williams was a natural fit in this company. He sought a similar sort of clarity in his work but also shared a fascination and adoration for nature. The Imagists sought to realize a style that would put them in direct communication with the reader, free of the distractions of clever artifice. "The Red Wheelbarrow" distinctly resembles all of these excerpts in its commitment to that major tenet of the Imagist movement.
