Poet Amy Lowell (1874–1925) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. She is one of the poets most associated with the Imagist movement, along with H.D., Richard Aldington, and Ezra Pound. Imagism was a reactionary movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision, economy of language, and the use of sharp, concrete images. It stood in opposition to the “flabby,” sentimental, and wordy style of Victorian and Romantic verse.

I have always resonated with Imagism (much more so than with Modernism). It is, I think, the kind of poetry I am always trying to write myself. Over the years, I have found myself returning again and again to Amy Lowell and H.D. These two women poets, in particular, seem to have the ability to “center” me in beauty and in the truly spiritual. And that, I believe, is the role of art in this world.

Here is Amy Lowell’s poem “Interlude.”

Enjoy!

INTERLUDE
  by Amy Lowell

When I have baked white cakes
And grated green almonds to spread upon them;
When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberries
And piled them, cone-pointed, in a blue and yellow platter;
When I have smoothed the seam of the linen I have been working;
What then?
To-morrow it will be the same:
Cakes and strawberries,
And needles in and out of cloth.
If the sun is beautiful on bricks and pewter,
How much more beautiful is the moon,
Slanting down the gauffered branches of a plum-tree;
The moon,
Wavering across a bed of tulips;
The moon,
Still,
Upon your face.
You shine, Beloved,
You and the moon.
But which is the reflection?
The clock is striking eleven.
I think, when we have shut and barred the door,
The night will be dark
Outside.

LISTENING WITH MY PENCIL AND MY EAR

What a wonderful poem. The movement from the everydayness of the speaker’s mundane life to the transcendent power of Nature and the profound, transformative power of Love is deceptively simple. That is what compression in language and expression can do in the hands of a great poet, and Lowell is a great poet.

If it has been a while since you have read Amy Lowell, or if you have never spent much time with her or H.D., please do yourself a favor and pick up their work.