The
Importance of Imagery and How it Helped me Appreciate Poetry
This semester I have taken two poetry classes – Modern
Poetry and a Poetry Workshop – which have both opened my eyes to the world of
poetry and how it functions. I was one of those students who came into this
semester only writing fiction, with an idea in my head that because of this,
I’d never understand poetry and poetry was something I could respect but not necessarily
“get.” I saw poetry as something pretentious and something that was taken too
seriously. I think this came from the idea that it wasn’t personal, that it was
to show off. However, after this semester I was proven wrong and I have
drastically changed. Not only have I changed as a person, but I’ve changed as a
writer. I’ve learned poetry isn’t about this at all. It IS personal and it is
honest. It achieves this through using formal techniques, such as detailed
imagery.
My
writing has developed overall and I have even began to write some prose poetry,
which has allowed me to understand imagery more. Poetry, overall, relies on
imagery and specificity in what is on the page – whether that is the words, the
techniques, or the structure of the poem – and everything that is put into a poem
must be done so with thought. This is just simply different from fiction.
Fiction uses words as a way to describe, sure, but not every word has to have meaning
or weight to it. Some are used for clarity, some to set up an image or
dialogue, some for tone or style. Realizing this helped me appreciate imagery
and poetry more. A poem can be a quick, succinct piece of art that is
incredibly vivid and impactful. Isn’t that kind of cool? In my fiction, I have
started to analyze what I have written more. What are the choices I am putting
in here? Am I being specific and honest? Are my images strong? I began to pull images
from what I know and this made my writing more personal. This personal feeling is
in poetry often and so are images. Images need to be specific, detailed, and
the poem needs to be honest in order for it to be successful and personal for
the reader. In this post, I will give some of my favorite examples of imagery
in poems I’ve read this semester. The poets I mention are not the only ones who
use imagery successfully, but they are just some of my favorites.
To
start, I want to look at William Carlos Williams. He was one poet I learned
about in some of my intro classes back in freshman year but have learned more
about and grown to appreciate. His poems pushed the boundaries during the time
he was writing. Like other Modern poets, he took what was traditional and
flipped it on its head. Many of his poems had unique structures and forms. All
of them, however, had a close attention to detail and vivid imagery. To start,
let’s look at “The Red Wheelbarrow”, which is one of his most popular poems and
good one to get whoever is reading this to understand when I mean imagery is
powerful. The poem is only four stanzas, each being a couplet (or two lines
that work off one another). Overall, the poem is only sixteen words but these
sixteen words create a vivid scene for whoever reads it, almost like looking at
a painting. The lines, “a red wheel/ barrow// glazed with rain/water” are excellent
examples of how imagery is used in this piece. Can’t you see this in your head?
The wheel barrow is given a color and given the detail of being glazed with
rain water. For me, this painted such a clear image in my head. The first line
read, “So much depends/ upon” and the reader, because of these images, can
start to question just how much actually depends upon this red wheel barrow.
The
next poet I want to discuss is Robert Frost. He wrote a lot of nature poems
with imagery that was complex, but also felt organic as he drew from the world around
him. Many of his poems put the reader in the middle of the scene, whether that
is walking through the woods or in a cabin in the winter. His descriptive imagery
and focus on word choice allow for his poems to feel like stories. The reader
is put in the middle of these stories, surrounded by the descriptive scenery around
them. His attention to detail and nature allow these poems to breathe on the
page. Where they are long, they are also engaging and some of my personal
favorites.
One
poem I want to focus on in particular is “Desert Places.” This isn’t one he is
widely known for, but it is one of my favorites. The poem starts with the line,
“Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast.” This line pulls the reader into
the scene. He is specific and abstract with this image at the time. Specific
because he explains that both snow and night are falling and they are falling
fast. But he is also abstract, because what does night falling look like? A
picture in my head is formed from this because I know what snow falling look
like, so I mix that with my idea of what night falling may look like. Because
the first line is so beautifully rendered and gets the reader to use their
imagination from the beginning, the whole poem feels in the zone and vivid. These images work together to produce a melancholy
tone, one of feeling alone. Without the specific and detailed imagery in this
piece, this tone would not have been achieved.
Overall,
I have learned a great deal about poetry by focusing on the image. Imagery is
in both fiction and poetry heavily and is important because it is also in the
world around us. When we look outside, we see specific things. We see a red
barn, not just a barn, or a sparrow, not just a bird. When we write we must
transfer this specificity and attention to detail. The world around us is vivid
and all it takes to put that on paper is to pay attention to the details. To
put importance in what is on the page. This is why poetry is special and I will
continue to put this attention to detail and images in all my work, even my fiction.
I feel that my creative writing has improved greatly and I am really glad I
took these two poetry classes. For anyone wondering if they should look into
poetry more…yes! You should. It will help the world around you be a little more
vivid.
