Modernist poems activity

Hello friends

This blog activity based on 20th century modern poetry.
There are three main phase of the modernist poetry movement.

-the school of imagism, French symbolism and war poetry.
- all these initial manifestation of modernism combined to find a full nature expression in the poetry.
- largely the decade of the 30s which is marked by marxed poets.
 'The Embankment'- T.E.Hulme

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
 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 is  reflection of of poor people’s condition. Poet show the real situation of poor people. based on reality of poor people and homelessness.

Metaphor : finesse of fiddles , blanket of star -eaten blanket



2.  Darkness
                Joseph Campbell
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

Joseph Campbell was a Irish poet. According to my point of view  poet described darkness. I can imagine how see the sky without star. It is like a earth is sky and we are like star we are passed away but earth is still present. So darkness use as a positive way.
Metaphor : boghole and  silver ribbon.

3. Image
                 - Edward Storer
"Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon
upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought".

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

4.   "In a station of the metro"
                             - Ezra Pound
  The apparition of these faces in a crowd,
petals in wet, black bough

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


5. 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 the ask question herself. Are you alive? Poet say 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 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 argument with them.

6. "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 dovesin
Thy fly away like white-winged Doves


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


7. "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 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 core part of the poem. It morning with negative   things. Poor people show out of the window. And think about them situation. Poor people observed out of window. Poet show the difference between poor and rich people condition. Poor people’s morning start with stress and rich people’s morning with happiness.

 8.  "The Red wheelbarrow

                          - William carols William

'so much depends
upon
barrow
a red wheel
water
glazed with rain
chickensrai
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 colors Red and White   symbolised 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. Red wheel Barrow , white sheepes and Rain that metaphor.

9 .  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 gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush, 
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

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

10.   I (A- E.E.Cummings


"A leaf  falls with loneliness"

This poem have less line but with powerful moral. Leaf is symbol of loneliness. Leaf falls means a symbol of death. isolation is the main theme and image of this one line poem.

Thank you..