Imagists

I’ve been revisiting the Imagists lately. HD is from where I’m from and is buried over at Nisky Hill Cemetery. (Stephen Vincent Benet, though not an Imagist, is also from here).

I wrote a poem today in response to a lot of this reading. It’s about finches and thistles and fox-gloves and rain vales. It’s looking for a good home. And maybe also a title. Right now, it’s called Imagistes, which is just the plural of HD’s early pen name (given to her by Ezra Pound, who also called her – insufferably and predictably – Dryad).

We read “Oread” in high school. Our teacher subscribed to what seemed, to me at 15, a rather subversive take. But yes, “Oread” is about exactly what you think it’s about (and also other things). At least I think so.

I really like almost all of “Hermes of the Ways.” Here again, Pound had to interlope, changing “await” to “awaiteth,” because of course he did.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here talking to trees.