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

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Modernist poetry is often associated with long poems Such as T. S. Eliot's The Waste land  and Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, but modernism was also when poetry went small, thanks in no small part to Imagism, spearheaded by Pound himself. Here are 10 works of modernist poetry which couldn’t be accused of out staying their welcome – none is longer than twelve lines.

• When more known about mordernist poetry, that time we brief known what is modernism?

Modernism is both a  philosophical movement and an art movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial world, including features such as urbanization, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it new!" was the touchstone of the movement's approach.

★Identify metaphors in these 10 poems:

1)The Embankment 

BY T. E. HULME

(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night.)

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,

In the 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

In this poem many metaphor are used Like first on Landon's Embankment van area well-known for homeless people sleeping rough, a fallen Gentleman' reflects on his past and how he found pleasure in worldly social activities or beautiful women-probably courtesans or prostitutes. Then end of the pera heartfelt entreaty to the heavens with the poem's speaker beseeching God to make a blanket of the starry sky so that the speaker's wish for warmth might be granted.

2) Darkness.

Darkness.

I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –

A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.

I look at it, and pass on.

  The title itself reflects the dark shade. Darkness gives us an image of downfall.       'Star' is a symbol of prosperity and brightness means that there was some goodness in civilization but now it's all dark.

 If look alomost  the stars, he or she will sit and admire the beauty of the night, but here post just looks at it and passes on. This reflects the disinterestedness prevalent in modern times.  How modernists were not interested in the so-called brightness of the Victorian age can be seen here. The decayed condition of the civilization is presented.

3)Edward Storer, ‘Image’.

Forsaken lovers,

Burning to a chaste white moon,

Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

 

The meaning of “forsaken” is “to give up” so here “forsaken lovers” represents the fall. Here is a phrase “forsaken lovers burning” so here we can say that they are burning in lost as T.S Eliot discussed this in the third part “the fire sermon” in this part he discussed about the people who are burning and lost in spiritual degradation.

4) In a station of the metro by Ezra pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

This poem's structure against the Victorian poems, Victorian used to write very lengthy poem but here poet use very short poem like the metro speed. Here, poet used very good metaphor "Petals on wet black bought". This poem suggest the busy life of city people they have not time to face each other like city life is lifeless. we can say that this poem is about the loneliness in crowd.

5) The Pool by H . G

Are you alive?

I touch you.

You quiver like a sea-fish.

I cover you with my net.

what are you—banded one?

We know the setting of the poem is a pool, probably a rock-pool given the fact that the speaker of the poem is carrying a net. The speaker spots something in the pool, wonders if it is alive, touches it, making the thing quiver like a fish; she then covers the thing with a net.

6) Richard Aldington, 'Insouciance'  

In and out of the dreary trenches,

Trudging cheerily under the stars, 

I make for myself little poems

Delicate as a flock of doves.

They fly away like white-winged doves.

In his short poem “Insouciance,” written a year after World War I ended, Aldington composed this odd little poem. In it, Aldington describes life in the trenches and how poetry kept him alive and happy. It is oddly light-hearted when compared with modern ideals of war poetry. The personification of poems as “white winged doves” that fly away is liberating and helps understand his perspective on the arts and why they kept him alive and happy during trying times.

7)T. S. Eliot, ‘Morning at the Window‘

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

Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me

Twisted faces from the bottom of the,

street

And tear from a passer-by with muddy

Skirts

An aimless smile that hovers in the air

And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

In this poem there are many words like “rattling”, “damp souls”, “despondently”, “fog”, “twisted faces”, “fear”, “aimless”. Here we can find negativity I each line which represents the darker side. In this poem we can find images of “dullness” and “dead spirit”.Here wecan say the first part “the burial of dead” described by T.S.Eliot.

8)William  Carlos William, ‘The Red Wheelbarrow'

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed  with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

The speaker tells the reader that the wheelbarrow is "glazed with rain, water, beside the white /chickens" which indicates that the wheelbarrow is outside. It could also be argued that, through the presence of the wheelbarrow and the chickens, the poem takes place on a farm, or is at least in a rural area.

9)Wallace Stevens, ‘Anecdote of the Jar'

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 gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

We might also interpret ‘Anecdote of the Jar’, more widely, as a poem about man’s conquest over nature. Note how the placing of the jar on top of the hill means that the wilderness – the natural world – has to grow around the jar, and that, in the end, nature loses its wildness. The jar seems to infect everything around it, and removes the very wildness that makes the natural world what it is.

10) E. E. Cummings, ‘l(a‘

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

In this poem use of the word 'loneliness' this is an exists outside of the parenthesis. The phrase of 'A leaf falls' can be found inside of the parenthesis, it is not with other leaves. The image of a leaf falling also implies death. Then functions visually. It is quality of the text allow the reader to experience not only the imagery created by the description of the leaf falling to the ground in loneliness but also to experience the imagery created by the words.

Thank you..