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Images in poetry evoke a gut-level response and convey a complete human experience using figurative language. Imagery can appeal to any of the five senses and be literal, perceptual, or conceptual. The Imagist movement emphasized clear and direct images in poetry.
Images in poetry generally function as the backbone or grounding rod of the poem because images are used to evoke the reader’s gut-level response. Image and imagery have many different connotations and meanings, but for the poet they convey a complete human experience in very few words. Not necessarily always a mental image, imagery in poetry can speak to any of the five senses and is typically conveyed by figurative language.
The study of any poem often begins with its images. In general, imagery is the use of language to represent actions, feelings, and other sensory and extrasensory experiences. Poet Tony Hoagland describes poetry as works of many levels. The rhetorical level embraces the purely intellectual material, while the diction is where the poet’s voice emerges. For Hoagland, the image is the concrete, or visceral, part of the poem that seems most real to the reader.
American poet and critic Ezra Pound once described a poetic image as something that captures an emotional and intellectual complex in an instant of time. The imaginary puts into words what human beings experience emotionally, intellectually and concretely at any given moment. The moment freezes in the words, allowing the reader to linger and relive it each time he reads the poem.
The words used to freeze an image are not a mere substitute for an object; they communicate a complete human experience on an intellectual, sensual and emotional level. Capturing a moment of time is what makes the imagery poignant in poetry, and the possibility of losing the experience gives power to the image. The poet must freeze the image as completely as possible so that something fleeting in reality, like eating candy or seeing a shooting star, becomes a lasting experience that the reader can relive again and again.
Once an image has been captured in writing, it can be viewed as literal, perceptual, or conceptual. Literal imagery in poetry tends to set the scene, like looking at a photograph, and is concrete and representational. A perceptual image appeals to one of the five senses and is formulated in a poetic device such as a metaphor or symbol, for example by describing a blackberry as a sweet meat. A conceptual image like God’s castle is difficult to visualize, but the reader can get an idea of what it is.
Poets typically convey imagery in their work using figurative language and poetic devices such as metaphors, symbols, and metonymy. An image can appeal to the eye, taste and touch. Images can also be abstract, appealing to the intellect of the reader, and kinesthetic, or related to bodily movement. In many cases, the images overlap and combine; therefore a kinesthetic image can also be visual or tactile.
Just before World War I, a group of poets who came to be known as the Imagists rose to prominence. Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and Hilda Doolittle were prominent members. The Imagists used everyday language rather than relying on figurative language and believed that an accessible, clear and direct image was crucial to poetic verse. This movement influenced imagery in poetry throughout the 20th century and can be seen in Objectivist and Beat poetry, among others.
