Modernist poems

Modernist Poems: Activity - Identify modernist metaphors in these short poems

This activity based on the 20th century in modernist poetry and identify "Modernist" symbols, imagery and metaphors. There are three main levels of the modernist poetry movement.

-› the school of imagism, French symbolism and war poetry.
-› all these initial manifestations of modernism combined to find a full nature expression in the poetry.
-› largely the decade of the 30s which is marked by mixed poets.


♠ T. E. Hulme: ‘The Embankment‘

Once, in the finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
 a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

The embankment poem is about the homeless. This poem reflects the poor people’s condition. Poet shows the real situation of poor people based on the reality of poor people and homelessness.
Metaphor: finesse of fiddles, a blanket of the star-eaten blanket

♠ Darkness: Joseph Campbell

I stop to watch a star shine in a big hole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it and pass on

Joseph Campbell was an Irish poet. According to my point of the poet described darkness. I can imagine seeing the star. It is like the earth is the sky and we are passed away the but earth is still present. So darkness in as a positive way.
Metaphor: big hole and silver ribbon.

♠ Image: Edward Storer

"Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon
upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought".

This poem tells about forsaken lovers. Means a sacrifice for love. Love is a theme of the poem. Poet used moon different context sets. Mostly moon used a symbol of some positive things but here used opposite contexts it burns lover. They can not survive without each other. So that condition like the death of them.
 Symbol: moon and pyres it means a part of the funeral ceremony.

♠ "In a station of the Metro: Ezra Pound

  The apparition of these faces in a crowd,
petals in the wet, black bough

This poem is very short. The title is 'in a station of metro'. The station is with full of crowd. It’s like a ghost. I think that the poem tells about the city life. On the states see, so many people but they all are for each other. It’s like loneliness in the crowd. They are sitting together but feel lonely.
Petals in wet black bough it is the alike effect of after a rain. Bough is the main branch of a tree.


♠ The pool: Hilda Dolittle

"Are you alive?
I touched you
you quiver trembling like a sea fish
I cover you with my net
What are you banded one?

This poem started to ask the question herself. Are you alive? Poet says about what is woman’s situation in this society. And convince herself she says you are not only one banded but all woman are suffering that condition. Sea is a symbol of society and fish are a woman. Society control and cover the woman with there rules. Net is a symbol of rules. They create a border of the woman’s life. And also ask questions if you argue with them.

♠ "Insouciance": Richard Aldington

"In and out of the dreary trenches
Trudging cheerily under the stars
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves
Thy fly away like white-winged Doves

This poem was written a year after world war 1 ended. In this poem, the poet described life in the trenches and how poetry kept him alive and happy. It is oddly light-hearted when it compared with modern ideals of war poetry.


♠ "Morning at the Window": T.S.Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,

And along the trampled edges of the street

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids

The brown waves of fog toss up to me     

Sprouting despondently at area gates.

And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts

Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
An aimless smile that hovers in the air

And vanishes along with the level of the roofs.

The poem title is ' morning at the window'. Every morning come with new ideas and new hope. But in this poem poverty is a core part of the poem. It morning with negative things. Poor people show out of the window. And think about the situation. Poor people observed out of the window. Poet shows the difference between poor and rich people condition. Poor people’s morning start with stress and rich people’s morning with happiness.

♠ "The Red wheelbarrow: William carols Williams

'so much depends
upon
barrow
a red wheel
water
glazed with rain
chickens ran
beside the white

The poem was originally published without a title. It is one of Williams' most frequently anthologized poems and is considered a prime example of early twentieth-century Imagism. Red wheelbarrow and white sheep. Both colours Red and White symbolised the different theme. White symbolised as purity and innocence and Red symbolised as power and passion. This poem is also about agriculture that dependent upon rain. The red wheelbarrow, white sheep and Rain that metaphor.

♠ Anecdote of the Jar: Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was grey and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

An anecdote of the Jar is an imaginative poem.  Also a nature poem. Tennessee is the name of the Jar. It reminding one of the Grecian Urns by Keats. The contrast became more difficult as the poem develops. ' Anecdote of Jar ' is the example of that express acceptance of limits of imagination. It can't be reproduced or recycle. Nature is more superior then art.

°•° Thank you..!!