An image can be conveyed by a word or a series of words and suggests any sensory experience. For example, it could refer to either visual(sight), auditory (sound), tactile (touch), gustatory(taste) or olfactory(smell) experiences.
Poetry is especially appealing when it sows pictures, sounds or smells in our minds, and makes us feel the sensations of the poet. Very often this is achieved with very few words.
The most effective are those that use noun, compound nouns, simple verbs and few adjectives. A good introduction to visual imagery is Ezra Pound’s minimalist poem In a Station of the Metro (1916).
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Vocabulary
Bough: (n), a large branch of a tree
Exercise
Use you imagination and reasoning powers to answer the following questions about Pound’s poem. Before you start make sure you understand every word, if you don’t you will get a false image. For most English speakers the imagery is very clear. If you are able to see in your mind’s eye what your teacher sees, then you truly understand.
1) What are the people in the poem probably wearing? Explain your answer.
2) What color are their faces? Explain your answer.
3) What season is it? Explain your answer.
4) What is the weather like? Explain your answer.
Haikus
Haiku is a Japanese poem of 17 syllables arranged in 3 verses. There is no rhyme. The first verse has 5 syllables, the second has 7, and the last has 5 (Kennedy, 1994). Naturally, once they are translated into English they may no longer respect these rules.
Haiku translates beginning verse. It was created in the 16th century as a game. Players were given a haiku and were asked to extend it into a longer poem. A haiku contains two images taken usually from nature. Often haikus are about seasons. Here an image of a blossom suggests spring, a crow on a branch implies autumn, snow refers to winter and a cricket indicates summer (Kennedy, 1994).
The recurring theme in these short poems is to show that there is dialectic (inter-penertrating) relationship between the poet and Nature. But above all to show us that Nature can be both immense and fragile.
Exercises
Read the following haikus and describe what you hear and see in your mind’s eye. All have been translated by X.J.Kennedy. You should be able to answer the following questions:
What is the season?
What is the time of day?
What is the location?
What can the poet hear?
What is the poet doing?
What is the theme of this haiku?
On the one-ton temple bell
A moon moth folded into sleep
Sits still
Taniguchi Buson (1716 – 1783)
Cricket! Be,
Careful! I’m rolling
over.
Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1783)
In the old stone pool
a frogjump:
Splisshhh!
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Answers
Student Haikus
Students at the Grenoble School of Architecture were asked to compose a haiku for homework, here is a selection.
The sun gets up,The fog goes away,
And I fall asleep.
Jeannie Roumanet, March 2008, France
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On a frozen lake
I saw a careless rabbit
Crac, plouf!
Lorene Blampey, March 2008, France
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Childhood house.
All is more small,
Except the memory.
Camille Ortis, March 2008, France
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References
Kennedy, X.J & Gioia, D (1994) Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry and drama. Seventh Edition. Longman, New York.
Wilson, E.O. (1998) Consilience - The Unity of Knowledge. Abacus. London.
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