Ezra Pound Page 648 2007 COS –1a: 2 2010 COS – RL.11-12.4; RL.11-12.9; RL.11-12.10; L.11-12.4; L.11-12.5 AHSGE – R.III.3; R.IV.2

Ezra Pound Pound became a self-appointed spokesperson for the new poetic movement known as imagism Imagists believed imagery alone could carry a poem’s emotion and message

Literary Terms Imagery (p. 649) – language that creates vivid sense impressions and suggests emotional states. Simile – A comparison using like, as, than, or resembles.

Quickwrite To which five people might you write a letter? Why?

“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (p. 650) The author uses flashback in the poem. What age is the speaker in the first stanza? What event occurs to the speaker in the second stanza? What change occurs to the speaker in the third stanza?

“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (p. 650) What event occurs in the fourth stanza? What does the line “the monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead” tell you about the speaker? What does line 19 tell you?

“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (p. 650) Why are the paired butterflies painful to the speaker? Why do you think the river-merchant left? Is the river-merchant coming home? Explain.

“The Garden” (p. 652) To what is the woman compared in the first stanza? What does the author mean when he says in lines 3 & 4 “she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia”? According to the second stanza, who shall inherit the earth? Of what is the woman afraid in the poem? Describe the scene created in the poem.

Activity P. 654 questions 1-5 & 1-7 P. 654 Writing – Imagine It Write a very brief poem making use of Pound’s “A Few Don’t by an Imagiste” (p. 653). 1. Select a topic you feel strongly about. 2. Think of a single concrete image that suggests the situation and how you feel about it. 3. Describe the image as specifically as you can. Use Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (p. 647) as a model.