Beyond the Verse - Imagism in America with William Carlos Williams (Imagist Mini-Series)

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe bring their three-part exploration of the Imagist poets to a close with a discussion of the distinctive voice of William Carlos Williams.Beginning with Williams’s life and background, the hosts explore how his experience differed from many of the other Imagist poets. While figures like Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle were closely connected to European literary circles, Williams remained firmly rooted in the United States. They consider how this American perspective shaped his poetic philosophy, especially his commitment to simplicity, everyday language, and the belief that poetry should emerge from ordinary life rather than classical tradition.The conversation begins with Williams’s famously brief poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’. Maiya and Joe unpack how a poem of only sixteen words can carry surprising depth. They discuss the importance of line breaks, the power of visual structure on the page, and the quiet mystery created by the opening line “so much depends.” The hosts reflect on how Williams’s focus on simple objects, colors, and stillness captures the Imagist aim of presenting a clear image while leaving interpretation open to the reader.From there, the episode turns to ‘This Is Just to Say’, perhaps one of Williams’s most recognizable poems. What appears to be a simple apology note about eating someone else’s plums becomes, in the hosts’ discussion, a meditation on everyday life, temptation, and intimacy. Maiya and Joe explore the playful tone of the poem, its subtle emotional honesty, and the way Williams transforms an ordinary domestic moment into something quietly meaningful.The final poem of the episode, ‘The Young Housewife’, introduces a different perspective on Williams’s work. Here the hosts consider questions of observation, perception, and gender. They discuss how the speaker’s passing glance at the woman outside her home raises deeper questions about power, freedom, and the way lives can be shaped by how others imagine them.The episode concludes with a reflection on the legacy of Imagism itself. Maiya and Joe look back at the poets featured across the series and consider how the movement reshaped modern poetry through its emphasis on clarity, precision, and free verse. Even though Imagism lasted only a short time, its influence continues to shape the way poetry is written and read today.Featured Poets PDFs:William Carlos Williams Ezra Pound Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)Send a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at Permanalysis.com and poetry plus. I'm Joe and I'm here with my co-host Maya and today we're finishing our three-part mini-series on the imagist poets. Episode one we discussed Ezra Pound. Last week we talked about Hilda Zoolittle and today we are closing off with William Carlos Williams. I can't wait to have this conversation when we're covering a range of topics including Williams's commitment to simplicity, transatlantic imagism and his focus on the everyday. But before we get into the poetry itself, Maya, can you tell you? a little bit more about who William Carlos Williams was and his life.

Absolutely. Well, thanks, Joe, for that intro. So William Carlos Williams is actually a little bit of a departure from the other images poets we've talked about on the last two episodes. I think he occupies a really different space, primarily because unlike the other poets who spent most of their time in Europe, primarily England, France, Italy, etc. Instead, he was firmly rooted in America. Now, that's not to say that he didn't have a vast array of experience in Europe, which of course probably helped to frame much of the conversations with the other images poets. But to give you a brief breakdown of his early life, he was born in 1883 in New Jersey. He died in 1963, so again, a relatively long life. His mother was Puerto Rican, his father was

English, but was raised in the Dominican Republic. So actually, his first language was Spanish, and he didn't really come to English as, you know, his primary language until his teen years. He was highly educated. He was educated in Geneva, in Paris, and then came back to the year. US to study at the University of Pennsylvania to be a doctor, which is where he met Ezra Pound. Now, alongside his medical studies, he was writing poetry as well. So his relationship with Ezra Pound was very much one that boosted the other. He published his first collection, Poems in 1909, and his second collection, The Tempers, in 2013.

Now, Ezra Pound didn't help with that kind of first publication, but he was involved in the tempers. So this was a relationship that was mutually beneficial. They absolutely had conversations about what imagism looks like, how they were going to frame this. So, you know, there was a real relationship there. However, it is really important to focus on the fact that instead of bringing in the more European sentiment, he was, as I mentioned earlier, very firmly rooted in America. He wanted to create an American imagism.

So what's really interesting, actually, for William Carlos Williams, is that many of his awards came in later life, even though I would say the poems were going to talk about today, the Red Wheelbarrow, this is just to say, are those that kind of do the rounds, even on Instagram now, I would say, they're very, very famous. It wasn't until his later work in 1950, 1952. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1963, and he died later that year. So a lot of his work was awarded at that very late stage in his life. I think what would be really interesting, Joe, and I'm sure we already have plans for this, is just to discuss really their lives after Imogism, because we've said a couple of times throughout the last two episodes that Imagesm itself was relatively short-lived.

as far as movements go. It didn't span hundreds and hundreds of years. It didn't even span tens and twenties of years, really. It was a real moment in time. That's an overview of William Carlos Williams. I think, if anything, the best way to really explore his work is to jump straight into it. So would you like to start with the Red Wheelbarrager? I think it's the most famous poem that we could talk about today. I'd love to. And listeners don't go anywhere because this won't last long. So this is the Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. So much depends upon a red wheel Barrow, glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. And that is it. It's an incredibly condensed poem, 16 words written really interestingly, and I would always advise listeners to go and actually

read the poem because the way it's structured, the line breaks, the stanza lengths are really, really interesting. Maybe we'll talk about that in a moment. But a little bit about the publication of the poem before I throw back to Meyer for her, usual, wonderful analysis. The poem was published in 1923 in the kind of experimental collection that William Carlos Williams published called Spring and All, which is a hybrid collection of free verse with some prose. Now, I think the date here is really, really crucial. 1923, based on keen listeners in the last two episodes,

is actually after the peak of Imogism. This is, you know, really when we're talking about the imagist movement, we're probably talking about between about 1912 and sort of the end of the First World War, 1917, 1918. This is already five or six years after that. So I think that tells us quite a lot about William Carlos' William's character and also about the way that literary movements work. I mean, you don't get to close up.

up the shop and stop people from writing images, poems, just because the movement itself has fragmented. William Carlos Williams had his own version, his own vision of what Imagesim looked like and he was going to plow on, regardless of what Ezra Pound thought or what Hilda Doolis or thought, or Amy Lowell, or any of the other people who had been battling for the soul of Imagism in Europe. I think one of the things that hopefully will come out of this episode is that Carlos Williams does things in his own way and in his own time. He's very, very unsuade by the work of Ezra Pound, although he admires him as a fellow poet, and he'll do little as well. He's not somebody that is going to change course for them. So that's the first

thing I would say about the publication in 1923. The second, and I think this is really, really important. And Williams himself was keenly aware of the importance of this date is that it was just one year after the publication of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, this defining modernist poem that Ezra Pound had been very, very closely involved in the editing of. So as Maya mentioned, sort of a decade previously, Ezra Pound had been helping with the publication of William Carlos Williams's collection. A decade later, of Pound is working with T.S. Eliot on the publication of the wasteland, which is this defining modernist poem and yet is so distinct from what Carlos Williams' philosophy on poetry is. Carlos Williams is all about simplicity, as the reading of that poem will have shown. He's all

about stripping back. He's all about removing complicated references that require university degrees. He's about colloquial language, ordinary lives, ordinary objects, and very kind of American images and ideas about poetry. And the reason that's important, I think, is because so many of other imagists are Europhiles. They're people who are looking to go back into Europe's past. They're looking to retell Greek myths. They're looking to imbue their work with classical references. William Carlos Williams is caught between the urge to make it new, this modernist maxim, we've talked about a few times in this series, and the idea that the fellow images wanted to go back to the past so much, to go back to the old country, and I'm using that in inverted

commerce, to go back to European history. America to Carlos Williams is where the future is. It's where industry is, it's where the world is changing the fastest. And he thinks that if we're going to base a new poetry, a poetry that is radical, a poetry that separates itself from the past, we might as well do it with an American outlook and American stories with American landscapes. And that's one of the key tensions that defines his relationship with his fellow imagists. But that's a little bit about Williams and also the significance of that 1923 day, but let's talk about the poem itself. And Maya, there's not loads of places to jump in. It's a very short poem, but where would you like take us first. I actually want to go back to one of the things you mentioned earlier, Joe, which is

reading this poem on the page, because the form of this poem and how this poem is laid out can really change the meaning. So of course, as you read it earlier, it flows very nicely. You get the impression that the red wheelbarrow is the centre of this address. But I really want to laser focus in on the first few lines, because the opening line of this poem is so much depends. There is then a line break upon another line break, a red wheelbarrow. And you can very easily take this as a complete clause. You can take this as so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow. However, you can also explore this poem as more of a mediation of the individual who is just simply thinking about things that are greater than what he is witnessing in front of him. So much depends is the opening

line. So you can really take that as a line in itself. The red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain water beside the white chickens, these are all observational. But so much depends is a thought process. It isn't a physical concrete observation. And I love the idea that this is, again, coming off the back of a time of great upheaval and you have these static images, even the chickens. They're not really imbued with movement. You have the rain that has settled on the red wheelbarrow. You have the fact that it is next to these chickens. But there is a sense of of stillness in this poem. And I think that sense of stillness really allows the speaker and Carlos Williams as a poet to expand the horizons of the address point of this poem. So much depends,

I think is such a strong opener to a poem because what does it depend on? What is the so much? What is the thought process here? Is he reflecting on the state of the world? Is he reflecting on a personal problem? Is he reflecting on specifically the wheelbarrow and the tasks that he has to do? You do get a sense of this being an American farmland, as it were. I always read this poem as that sort of idyllic ranch where you have these really beautiful images of what typical rural America looks like. But again, there is this emotional weighting that's set against these really physical items. And I think, Joe, I'm going to throw you a question here. There is definitely something about the colour of the wheelbarrow being important. And I think now you've got the emotional weight of this

consideration. What are we considering here? Red, as it relates to, to America, American poetry. What do you think the significance of that is? Well, it's a really good question. I think with so much of Carlos Williams' poetry, you have this sense that if he were in the room, he'd roll his eyes. And I kind of like that. That's not me saying we shouldn't draw out meaning.

It's just a reminder that William Carlos Williams was fairly dismissive of too much reading into his poems. And he would say things like, there is no meaning but the image. Or if the image doesn't contain meaning, then we shouldn't try to project. upon it, but I think you're so right that this poem exists in an American pastoral canon, even if that canon is something Williams is trying to challenge. The idyllic nature of the American farm, the ranch, as you've alluded to, is there when you read the poem, whether or not it's within the poem is another question.

I think the evocation of the red wheelbarrow juxtapose against the white of the chickens and the poem's conclusion were kind of two-thirds of the way to the colours of the American flag. And with that colour red alongside the white of the chickens, but kind of two thirds of the way to the colours of the American flag, the red, white and blue. The reference to water, actually, we might even view the associations with that blue colour of water

as being kind of the three colours of the American flag. And again, I have that image in my mind of William Carlos Williams saying, it's red because it's red. And it was a red wheelbarrow and the image is all there is. But we don't have to listen to William Carlos Williams. The great thing about reading poetry and analysing poetry is the poets aren't in the room with us, usually, so we don't have to apologize to them for reading into work that they published. I think the simplicity of the colour is something I'm interested in.

These are block colours. There's no depth to this. There's no eggshell white. There's no fiery red. There is a kind of block simplicity to the adjectives he uses, which I think A is typical of images, and this notion that you don't need to over-explain and over-describe. But also, it creates a sense that this is something quite fundamental. This is something kind of foundational.

These colours are primary colours. They're not derivatives of anything else. And that focus on simplicity of something foundational, I think is pivotal to what William Carls Williams is trying to do in his poetry more generally. He is pursuing something in its basis and its purest form. And that might sound like he's trying to elevate something, but I think he would regard something in its basest and purest form

to be the way it appears rather than any projection onto an object. And this brings me back around to Myers' interest in that first line, which I also share, because that so much depends. Not only do we not know what the stakes are, what is dependent on this, but we also have no idea who is depending on this wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow seems motionless. So we don't know, is it the chickens that are depending on it for their food? Is it the absent farmer who is depending on it for his livelihood?

Or is it the wheelbarrow's existence itself, the fact that the wheelbarrow has no place in the world, if not to be pushed and carry? None of those questions are answered. And the reluctance to over-explain, the reluctance to offer easy interpretations is something that William Carlos Williams's poetry is constantly doing. It is a really reluctant partner when it comes to the relationship between reader and poem. It doesn't play ball. It doesn't give you easy out and easy wins.

And I think that's something I really admire about it. I completely agree. I think it actually takes us on really swiftly to the second poem we're going to talk about today, which is this is just to say. Again, this poem is so fundamentally focused. on simplicity and the very basic nature of the thing. So I'll read it now for listeners' benefit. I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold. Now, Joe, where do you want to start with this poem? I think I'd like to start with a tone, because it begins with kind of statements of fact. I have done this, and then it shifts from fact to supposition. I imagine that you are probably going to eat this, but it's still fairly clinical in its tone. There's no real sense of engagement here.

There's then ostensibly an apology, and I use that word ostensibly, because I think this is an incredibly unapologetic tone throughout the poem, despite the phrase, forgive me. And it ends with the sensory. And I think that's crucial, because if we look at this poem, short as it is, as an evolution from the rational through to the sensory, I think we get a really interesting insight to what William Carlos Williams is doing here. Because ultimately the poem ends on experience. It ends with an embodied voice, the voice of someone that tastes, the voice of someone that savors. And that shift, subtle as it may be, from the beginning of the poem to the end of the poem, I think is a statement of intent for the artist. The artist must be embodied. The artist must feel.

The artist must taste. The artist must savour. And the truest expression of art is to capture the feeling of that embodied state. And I love how subtle that transformation is. I mean, I love the simplicity of the poem. There's a wonderful Alexander Polk poem that I love, which is epigram engraved on the collar of a dog, which actually could be engraved.

It's short enough to be engraved on the collar of a dog. This poem could actually be an apology note. It is short enough. It is simple enough. It is direct enough. It is honest enough. There's an honesty to the poem, which I think is exactly what William Carls Williams is going for.

It's not to suggest that Ezra Pound is a dishonest poet, but when someone like Ezra Pound or Hilda Zoolittle is playing with layers of meaning, when they are subverting expectations, when they are alluding to classical mythology, the poem gets further and further away from ever being considered a truly sort of physical object. William Carlos Williams is all about coming back to first principles. The poem is ostensibly a note of apology, so it should resemble a note of apology in almost every way. And I love that directness and that commitment to the every day. There is nothing elevated about the events of this poem whatsoever. it is incredibly benign. There's every chance that this imagined recipient or indeed real recipient would have no idea that the plums are even missing.

And even if they did, they would have forgotten it in what a week, two weeks? There's nothing elevated about the subject matter. But William Carles is William's ideology with poetry is that we should turn the poetic lens to things traditionally not elevated. We should celebrate the every day and again without wishing to kind of delve too much into his life. My mentioned he was a doctor and he worked as a doctor. It wasn't just something he studied. He was surrounded by ordinary people.

I mean, hospitals are a great level or a great equalizer across the world because everybody gets sick and everybody dies and everybody falls over and breaks their arms. William Carlos Williams is commitment to everyday people, everyday voices, everyday activities. It's not caviar that he's eaten. It's simply a box full of plums and everyday food stuff. And for me, the tone of the poem, the way in which it playfully offers an apology while justifying the thing it's apologizing for because how delicious the plums were. the way in which it's distinct from the images poems we've discussed in the previous two episodes, I love it. I mean, at Carton Table, I think it's a wonderful poem, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, mine. Do you know what? Just as you were speaking then, I actually had a slightly different take on it.

It's interesting that your perception was that the individual whose plums they were could have forgotten them. They don't seem important. To me, I've always read domesticity in this poem. You know, I think of that existence of being in a relationship. I think of all of the small, things that you let slide because in the grand scheme of things they aren't important. And I find a lot of faith in this poem in the simple fact that I think forgiveness is inbuilt into this poem. As you mentioned, the apology note isn't really sorry. It ends on this idea that the plums was so sweet, so delicious, that it almost forgives the temptation. I get the impression that the result of this note would be the other person, the implied partner, turning around and going,

well, of course it's okay. There's no sense of animosity or anger here and the factual way in which it's laid out. And as you mentioned, the fact that this could be a physical apology note, I find so refreshing. And I think it really speaks to Carlos Williams' commitment to that every day. Because not only is he reducing the stakes, instead of in the red wheelbarrow where the stakes are uncertain, the stakes in this poem are really slim to none. There is simply enjoyment. There is simply temptation and that temptation is gratified and explained. And there's a through line with this poem where I don't think at any point as a reader as a listener, you feel disgust towards this person. Of course, naturally what he is doing is stealing someone else's items that they have taken care of.

They've gone to the effort of putting them into the icebox to preserve them. And that indicates that middle sanza where he says, you know, I imagine that you are probably saving these. Even though this is a moment of betrayal, even though this is technically him stealing, there's a real softness to it. And I think that focus on domesticity is something that's always stood out to me with this poem because it is so gentle in the way it handles conflict. And that really sets apart Carlos Williams' work from Hilda Doolittle, from Ezra Pound. There is a really different focus. And I'm not sure I can always pinpoint it. And I do wonder whether that is partially down to the Americana of it, the focus on American life, American domestic life, American pastoral life,

and the fact that those kind of European sentiments of war felt a little bit further away. There is a slight distance there allows a quicker return to peace and sobriety and calm. And I find that the way this poem is handled is just so kind, I think, is the word I'd use. I love that and you're so right about everything you've just said, but particularly that notion that the apology reads as so honest and so genuine. And again, when we talk about honesty in art, we're not saying that this happened. It doesn't mean that it is possible for arts to be emotionally honest, even if it is factually dishonest. William Carlos Williams didn't need to steal anyone's fruit in order to write this poem.

And the fact that he didn't steal fruit or he might not have stolen fruit doesn't mean that this poem isn't honest. What I mean about that apology being honest is the way he undercuts that forgiving, me. He doesn't actually use the word but, but, but, but, we could have a but after that, because he then goes on to say, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold. There's something about those lines, which implies a depth of relationship between the speaker and the recipient of this note that makes the poem feel emotionally resonant. You wouldn't say that to a stranger. You wouldn't say, forgive me, but, or forgive me, and here I'm now about to suggest I actually didn't do anything wrong because anybody would have done the same thing in my shoes because the fruit was so delicious.

only works for me if there is a fundamental sense of goodwill and affection and love between the recipient and the writer of this note. Because what the speaker is really doing here is reminding the other person what they already know about them. I couldn't resist the temptation of this delicious fruit, but of course you know that about me. There is a kind of tenderness to those lines which I adore and I think it feels so real and I think that honesty, that emotional honesty, is the thing that gives these poems, the weight, despite their brevity, despite their simple language, despite their lack of elevated themes, there is an emotional core to his work

that I think is the reason it stands the test of time. And the last thing I'd like to focus on this poem, and I'm sure Maya will be happy to hear this, because like me, she's very interested in titles, is the way the title functions in this poem, and it's completely different from Oriad, the poem we talked about in our last episode in Hill to Do This, or.

We talked about how that title, which was added late after the poem was written, serves to elevate the subject matter, because prior to that, we didn't know that this speaker was a classical figure or a nymph. And when Hilda Zoolittle added that title, we then read the poem as something more elevated, more rooted in existing stories and myth.

Carl's Williams is doing the complete opposite here, because the poem could be read without the title and simply begin, I have eaten the plums. Or it can be read with the title, and the title functions almost as a new opening line to the poem. This is just to say, I have eaten the plums. And that word just in the title does the exact opposite of what Oriad did. Oriad was about elevating, was about taking the existing poem and encouraging us to look at it more

seriously. This is asking us to look at the poem less seriously because it's something that is just to say. The word just undercuts everything that follows deliberately because William Carlos Williams is not interested in arbitrary sincerity to the poem. He is doing the exact opposite and that's what makes it feel more real. You don't have to read this poem as something serious because it's not. It's something innocent. It's something playful. It's something every day. And ultimately, that's why more people read William Carls of Williams' work than Ezra Pound or even Hilda Doolittle's, because it does speak to everyday experiences. And everyday experiences are rarely massively sincere or massively elevated. I also think the poem takes such a departure from the expectations of readers when we talk about temptation.

You know, we're talking about being tempted by a fruit. This could not be more evidently a kind of offshoot from the traditional Christian story of Eve being tempted. by the apple, but instead of there being this inordinate focus on guilt and shame and, you know, the weight of the world as you know are ending, instead it is just a simple fact. And I really find, you know, I mentioned before the word kind. I think that kindness is so crystal clear in the way that, you know, Joe, I know you use the word undercut a few times and I think it undercuts that symbolism too. we have these kind of preconceived notions of what we expect from a poem. Because you have a history of reading classics and stories and myths.

And instead of approaching this kind of moment of betrayal as something world ending, it's just a moment. And the rest of the life that is constructed around this poem, he's kind of left to function independently. And I think that's just such a lovely way to leave this poem. So let's move on now to the final poem we're discussing in this episode. and indeed this mini-series before we sum up a little bit about how these poets all fit together. The last poem we're going to be looking at today is William Carlos Williams is The Young Housewife.

Now, Maya, would you like to read? Absolutely. So this is the Young Housewife. At 10 a.m., the Young Housewife moves about in Neglige behind the wooden walls of her husband's house. I pass solitary in my car. Then again, she comes to the curb, it's called the Iceman, Fishman, and stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in. straight ends of hair, and I compare her to a fallen leaf. The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. Now this poem, I think,

is a huge departure from what imagist poets were really exploring. This poem is more than anything focused on an individual, their inner life, their inner working. But it also reflects on the speaker, the poet's, interpretation of the woman. And I find that that offers a really unique lens to explore who the housewife is, how she is oppressed, but also how she is oppressed by the thoughts of others. I find that Carlos Williams' narrative in this poem, whether the speaker is unnamed, but could be anyone. And the recognition of the comparison to a fallen leaf as a result of the car driving over

what is implied to be autumn crunchy leaves is so fascinating to me because it addresses where you pull inspiration from. It addresses what context means when you're writing a poem. Because as we come to understand, this young housewife has pretty much an in-house life. She exists within the walls of her husband's house. The furthest she can go is to the curb. And yet she has interactions. She calls to the Iceman the Fishman.

She has this sense of conversation. It is stilted by the fact that walls and fences are implied. She is still caged in. And I love this impression of being watched by the speaker by the poet because you get a really different understanding of what this woman means to this individual who may in this instance pass by this house every morning he has created a world for her he has created an inner understanding of what her day to day life looks like we don't know anything about this woman and i find that even the description of her suggests that she is

unknowable because instead of being a primped and preened housewife who is you know very put together all she does is stay at home she fulfills this very traditional right role. She is undone to a certain point. You know, she tucks her loose hair behind her ear. She is in a negligee, which is, you know, a nightgown. There is an impression that there is something not quite formalised here. And I'd love to know your thoughts on this, Joe, because I find that that sense of interaction between certainty and uncertainty plays a massive role in this poem. I'm glad you pointed out this notion of the repeated action of observing this person, because what I really enjoy about it is the kind of tension between this being a moment in time.

and we're told at 10 a.m., the young housewife, which implies, on the one hand, a singular occurrence at 10 a.m. But also, as the poem goes on, we come to learn actually this is about a repeated pattern, a habitual movement at 10 a.m. For me, the poem works, because on the one hand, it is one thing happening one time, and the voice of the poet projecting these other versions, these variations onto the woman. On the other hand, it is a person who passes by every day at 10 a.m. observing these slight variations in the routine. You know, who's she calling to? One day it's the fish man. One day it's somebody else. Because I think fundamentally the perm is about perception. The perm is about the power the perception affords us. Remember that she is

behind wooden walls for her husband's house. She is enclosed. We are told that the speaker of this perm is in his car, this great symbol of American mobility. You can go anywhere on the highway. He is a male figure. She is a female one. He is empowered. He is free. He is liberated. He can go anywhere she appears trapped between the walls of her husband's home and the curb. And even when she gets to the curb, the people she calls out to a men. So it's only men that enable her to move between these two very close together realms of her existence, the inside of her house and the outside. So we have a massive power imbalance with regard to the facts of their lives. But the power imbalance I'm more interested in is the imagined nature of their life. Because

how on earth does this person who only drives by at 10 a.m. know anything about her life? How does he know that she's married? How does he know that she only comes out to call fishmen? How does he know who owns the house? He doesn't know any of these things, but the power lies because he is the one telling the story on her behalf. She is voiceless. His perception of her becomes who she really is. And this for me works so brilliantly with the poem Helen that we were talking about in our last episode in Hildes do little,

this notion of a woman's life being defined by what men perceive her to be rather than who they regard themselves to be. rather than their own definition of their existences. And I think that William Carlos Williams is playing very deliberately with this notion. And I think that the evidence for this comes in Stanza 3 when he says explicitly, and I compare her to a fallen leaf. He could have made that comparison without stating that he was making a comparison. The fact I think that he uses the word compare and I compare is an acknowledgement of the imbalance that's played out in this poem between the male speaker and the female figure

who was only ever described externally, who was only ever viewed. who was only ever viewed and defined through the lens of the male gaze from the window of this car. And I think William Carlos Williams is deconstructing the power of the viewer while showing us what that power yields. And I think that tension is so clever in such a short poem. This brings us to the end of our episode on William Carlos Williams, but of course it's also the end of our miniseries on The Imogist Poets. And this is really different to the last miniseries we did on the First World War poets, where of course the end of the war signifies the end.

of that kind of moment in history that brought these poets thematically and in some cases physically together. Imagism is very different. The breakdown of this movement in the late 19-teens is the result of personality clashes, the result of differing interests. The First World War, of course, plays a part, physical displacement, etc. But all three of the perks we've discussed have very, very long careers after they leave, either formally or informally the Images movement. And I wonder, Maya, whether we could spend a few minutes sort of reflecting on this. this movement, its legacy, its impact, and whether or not it lived up to its principles. But where would you like to begin?

I mean, I do think it's fascinating, and I know that this is something we touched on before even recording today, is that so many of these poets then went on to deliver poems that were exceptionally longer by comparison. And not to say that they broke away entirely from the tenets of Imagism, I think what could be said is that Imagism was a real moment in time that took. taught these poets how to frame things differently. I think it taught these poets how to rebel in a way that was effective. I think it taught them how to construct a new type of language. And it showed the impact of that language as well. So I love the idea that many of these poets who continued to write

and were incredibly successful in their later years, as William Carlos Williams absolutely was. I think there's really something to be said about how imagism has created the backbone, the foundation of their later work. It's taught them how to laser focus in on the individual. And then also, by extension, I don't doubt, how to extrapolate that. Because of course, you were taught in the romantic length how to write a certain way. Certain metaphors had to be used. Certain ideas had to be adhered to. But Imagesm really broke away from the mould. I think the fact that all of these poets had significantly longer careers following the breakdown of Imagism really does a service to the fact that that Imagism was so successful, the fact that there was no longer a need for it, and even so,

you know, when I write, if you go on any kind of creative textbook, they will tell you to practice something in the style of the imagists. It's a way of creating completely different type of work that will get the creative juices flowing. It teaches you to be different. And I think difference is something that then dominates the centuries following. Difference is celebrated and valued. And I think modernism absolutely speaks to that as well. We say, such a huge departure. And I love the idea that even though this movement was in the grand scheme of it short-lived, it had such an impact. But that's my opinion. What about you, Joe? I think first and foremost, the legacy of any artistic or literary movement is the arts that comes

out of it. And as we've discussed over the course of these episodes, there are some phenomenal poems. I mean, the three that really stand out, I think probably one of each of the poets we've talked about, I think, in the Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound, Oriad, by Hilda Doolittle, and the Red Will Barrow by William Carlos Williams are three major, major forces when it comes to the literature of the early 20th century and even if that was the only legacy of the movement, I think it's an impressive one.

I guess subsequent to that, you have to look at the impact it had upon, the style and the output that followed it. And of course, one of the things that we perhaps could have discussed even more over the course of these episodes is that the vast, vast majority of the work of the images was written in Freeverse. And Freeverse becomes the predominant mode

of the modernist poets that follow, and of course has been the dominant way in which poetry has been written in the time since the Images in the last sort of 110, 110, 115 years. So stylistically, it has a long afterlife, even if some of those reverse poems are much longer and are not necessarily following every tenet of Imagism. The form that the Images chose becomes the form that we associate with modern poetry. So that's clearly very significant. But I think even if we look beyond the work itself, the influence on the form, one of the reasons that I was so interested in doing this mini-series in images, because I think so many of the minutia and the contradictions that are innate with literary movements are contained within them.

Because when you have a literary movement, you have a group of artists who have some shared ideas, but you have great tension, and you have stylistic tension, and you have personal tensions. Ezra Pound was a difficult man, he had personal tensions with other members of the movement. That there is kind of creative energy there, but there is also a lifespan, and the more difficult personality you have, the short of that lifespan probably is. But you also have the tension between a movement that is, on the one hand, incredibly narrow and prescriptive. I mean, we read some of those tenets in the first episode, and, you know, they are quite restrictive to what poets are allowed to do to be considered imagist. And yet you also have such variation in the poetry itself.

And we talked about how there are no verbs in Station of the Metro, but Oriad is full of verbs. We talked about how, I thought of do little as very incident in classical retellings with William Carlos Williams is all about the immediate and the contemporary. And yet they can all exist under the same banner. We talked about how in the past with literary movements, it's all about physical space and being in the same room and sharing ideas around the same table. And yet in this movement, we have a poet William Carlos Williams, who is separated from the others in many cases by the entire Atlantic Ocean and yet is embodying many of the same principles.

So I hope listeners have got a sense of, A, the richness of Imogism, but also how to consider other literary movements. If you're thinking about confessional poets, the romantic poets, futurists, the Dadaists. Remember that movements are fluid things. They evolve year by year. Different personalities come and go. Different poets project what they want the movement to mean onto the movement, whereas other poets pull it in another direction. We have a tendency when we give something a name to assume that it means something consistent and coherent. And the imagists are very rarely consistent or coherent. And I think that richness is where the fascination

lies. Absolutely. And Joe, I have had the best time talking with you about this Imogist miniseries, and I can't wait for our next miniseries. So if any listeners have a suggestion for us, we would absolutely love to hear it. If you are tuning in for the first time to this episode, I urge you to go back and listen to our other two episodes on Pound and Do Little, because they are so rich and worthy of your attention. They are beautiful poems in their own right. And I think for anyone just diving into poetry for the first time or anyone who loves poetry, it's a great place to start. Now unfortunately, that is the end of our episode and our mini-series for today, but we have a very exciting one lined up for next time, which is what makes a poet laureate,

and we will be basing this episode primarily around the work of Simon Armitage. I for one can't wait for that, but for now it's goodbye from me. And goodbye from me and the whole team at Permanousas.com and poetry plus. See you next time.