This document discusses the literary movement of Imagism. It began in the early 1900s as a reaction against traditional "genteel" poetry. Imagist poems aimed to freeze a single moment in time through precise imagery and concise language, capturing the essence and emotions of that moment without explanation. Famous Imagist poets like Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot employed Imagist techniques in their works by using vivid, concrete descriptions to establish atmospheric scenes and moods. Students are taught to analyze Imagist poems by identifying the moment portrayed, listing the imagery, imagining a backstory, and determining the associated emotions.

1. IMAGISM

2. The Great Rapsby

3. Six Word Short Story

4. Six Word Short Story
THINK-PAIR-SHARE:
1.What is the back
story?
2.What emotions do you
associate with your
back story?

5. Clarity Through Brevity
The six word short story
emphasizes the concepts
of:
1. precise word choice
2. conciseness

6. (Some of) Your Examples:
 Go for gold, not for silver.
 Ran home. Never came out again.
 Gave what I wished I had.
 I was wearing camo snuggie.
 Words in my mind, but unspoken.
 Rocketing through the sky toward earth.
 Scheduled weekdays, but free on weekends.
 Doc said, “She’s not the same.”
 Three people make one human centipede.
 My music tells my life story.
 Bottled wooden ship, longing for waves.
 Music loud, shut off from Earth.
 It is not easy being cheesy.
 My thoughts consume me like flames.
 Escaped my reality, discovered my mind.

7. Do Now:
 Write a six word
short story or
memoir on a scratch
piece of paper with
your name.
 It needs to…
1. Utilize complete
sentences.
2. Apply precise
word choice.
3. Be concise.
 For more, search
Image credit: advertisingelyse via flickr
Mine?
FOLLOWE
D MY
HEART, N

8. POSTMODERNISM
1940s - TODAY
Puritanism
1472 - 1750
Rationalism
1750 - 1800
Romanticism
1820 - 1860

Transcendentalism
1830 - 1860
Realism

Naturalism

Regionalism
1860 - 1920
Imagism
1912 - 1927
The Harlem
Renaissance
1920 - 1935
The Lost
Generation
1920 - 1930
MODERNISM
1900-1940s
American Literary Movements

9. What is Imagism Not?
 Poetry before imagism was
called “genteel.”
 It was very well-behaved and
non-threatening, avoiding
controversial and realistic
subject matter.
 Imagism is a reaction against
genteel poetry.

10. What is Imagism?
 Imagism is a literary
movement founded in
the early 1900s by Ezra
Pound and other poets.
 During the Modern
era, writers broke from
tradition by coming up with
experimental writing
techniques like imagism.

11. What is Imagism?
 Through a clean presentation of an
image, imagists hoped to freeze a
single moment in time and to
capture the emotions of that
moment.
 Imagist poems express the essence
of a person, incident, or object
without providing explanations.
 These writers were heavily
influenced by Japanese poetry.

12. The First Imagist Poem
The apparition of these
faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black

13. The First Imagist Poem
THINK-PAIR-SHARE:
1. In the poem, what specific moment is
frozen in time?
2. Underline the words/phrases that help
establish the moment concretely.
(This is imagery.)
3. Imagine a backstory for this specific
moment. What is it?
4. What emotions are associated with
the moment? (This is the mood.)

14. Fitzgerald and Imagism
 “Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I
had no girl whose disembodied face
floated along the dark cornices and
blinding signs, and so I drew up the
girl beside me, tightening my arms”
(80).
 “A new world, material without being
real, where poor ghosts, breathing
dreams like air, drifted fortuitously
about…like that ashen, fantastic
figure gliding toward him through the
F. Scott Fitzgerald used imagism throughout The Great
Gatsby.

15. Eliot and Imagism
 “And I have known the arms already, known them
all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
“
 “I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
 “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
T.S. Eliot used imagism throughout “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

16. Do Now:
 Read through the rest of the imagist poems on
your handout.
 Pick two poems that you’d like to work with
further.
 On the back side of the handout, answer the
following questions in complete sentences:
1. In the poem, what specific moment is frozen in
time?
2. Make a list of words and phrases that help
establish the moment concretely. (This is imagery.)
3. Imagine a backstory for this specific moment and
write it out in a few sentences.
4. What emotions are associated with the moment?

17. Extra Credit Opportunity (25 points)
 Instructions: take a favorite line of poetry and
create a photographic image like the ones below.
E-mail me your picture at guymon.katie@wgmail.org.
Make sure you include the poem title and author.
 Deadline: the day of your final exam
 Requirements: thoughtfulness, creativity, polished
effort