During school, it felt like poetry was the more rushed lesson, the more brushed past lesson, the more dreaded lesson. It felt as though less effort was put into teaching the real art and beauty of poetry. I know my classmates found a lot of the lessons boring but perhaps if it was taught with more enthusiasm and more hands-on activities, they'd have enjoyed it. I was always so disappointed in the lack of terminology presented that was already taught the years before, and because of that, I took it upon myself to create a poetry workshop. [You may have seen my earlier lesson and prompt.] I want to give poetry lovers the teachings they deserve, to learn more than annotations (though good) and rhyme schemes. The art of poetry is so complex that it can't all be condensed in my workshop, but I believe I've done my best. If you would like to preview my lesson, learn a new term, or try out the prompt for yourself, I greatly encourage you.

Poetry Workshop Lessons and Prompts:

Imagism is more or less the opposite of abstraction. Typically short and free verse, these poems use concrete details that could be further invented with figurative language. Hulme, the English philosopher and poet who first introduced the term, once considered the pieces as showing the "hard, dry image" using only words that would paint the exact picture. 

Ezra Pound, one of the founders of imagism, simplified the writing within three rules: 

1. Direct treatment of the subject. [No fancy words and be specific. Stick directly to what's being mentioned.]

2. Use no word that does not contribute to the presentation. [Try not to use so many words, keep the essentials. Remember, these are typically short pieces.]

3. Compose in the rhythm of the musical phrase, not in the rhythm of the metronome. [Make something new rhythm wise. Imagism came during the Modernist movement when writers were parting with traditional ways of poetry.]

Here is an example by Hilda Doolittle: (often signed her work as H.D.)

Storm

"You crash over the trees,

you crack the live branch—

the branch is white,

the green crushed,

each leaf is rent like split wood.

You burden the trees

with black drops,

you swirl and crash—

you have broken off a weighted leaf

in the wind,

it is hurled out,

whirls up and sinks,

a green stone."

The poem is very concrete and focuses on one image or theme: the waves crashing. Another more simple and straightforward example is The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams, and within his imagist poem, he keeps a kind of rhythm.

"so much depends 

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water 

beside the white

chickens"

The prompt for this lesson is writing your very own imagist poem. You can use the above-mentioned examples to guide you, or you may look up other examples as you wish. Try to focus on an object. Describe its color, its shape, and keep your words simple and short in length. Good luck!