between World Wars

The powerful war poetry of 1914–1918 rather submerged Imagism, but following the war it re-emerged as a force in ideas put forward by the American poet, William Carlos Williams:


  • ‘no ideas but in things’
  • ‘the invisibility of the poet’
  • use of the ‘montage effect’

 
 
 
 

These ideas are illustrated in one of his best known poems.

The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)          
so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens
William Carlos Williams

In Britain, Basil Bunting stressed that even the sparest poetic statements need to have music in them.

 
⟨  previous  •  home  •  next  ⟩