Imagery

“Impression, soleil levant” by Claude Monet

What is imagery? Imagery is used in literature to refer to descriptive language that evokes a sensory experience. Such images can be created using a figure of speech such as similes, metaphors, personification, or assonance. Imagery can also invoke the use of onomatopoeias that trigger images in the reader's mind. From “The Widow's Lament in Springtime” “...masses of flowers load the cherry branches and color some bushes yellow and some red...”

Your assignment: In groups, read the poem aloud. You may need to read the poem aloud two or more times. After reading the poem aloud, find any images that jump out at you from the text. What lines and/or words in the poem make you 'see' this image? What mood do these images create? Why do you think the poet chose to include these images in the poem?

Dawn Ecstatic bird songs pound the hollow vastness of the sky with metallic clinkings-- beating color up into it at a far edge,--beating it, beating it with rising, triumphant ardor,-- stirring it into warmth, quickening in it a spreading change,-- bursting wildly against it as dividing the horizon, a heavy sun lifts himself--is lifted-- bit by bit above the edge of things,--runs free at last out into the open-- !lumbering glorified in full release upward-- songs cease. William Carlos Williams

The Tulip Bed The May sun--whom all things imitate-- that glues small leaves to the wooden trees shone from the sky through bluegauze clouds upon the ground. Under the leafy trees where the suburban streets lay crossed, with houses on each corner, tangled shadows had begun to join the roadway and the lawns. With excellent precision the tulip bed inside the iron fence upreared its gaudy yellow, white and red, rimmed round with grass, reposedly. William Carlos Williams

Spring and All By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of standing water the scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines -- Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches -- They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind -- Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined -- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance -- Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted they grip down and begin to awaken William Carlos Williams

Write a 8-12 line poem in any form in which you use visual imagery to create a specific mood. (You may write about anything as long as it is school appropriate and create any mood you would like for your poem.) Then, write a ½ page paragraph explaining what images you used, what mood you were trying to create, and why you chose those specific images to help create this mood for your readers. You will be sharing these poems and reflections in small groups on Monday.