Since I sat in Miss Eckman’s 7th Grade English classroom, I’ve been fascinated with the imagists and one-sentence poems.
The imagists were American and British writers in the 20th Century who advocated free verse, common use of language, and concrete images in their writing. Their poems are like snapshots – photographs of a scene. Among my favorite imagists is William Carlos Williams, a medical doctor and poet. Probably his most famous one-sentence poem is “The Red Wheelbarrow.”
The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Another leader in the imagist movement is Ezra Pound. One of his well-known, one-sentence poems is “In a Station of the Metro.”
In a Station of the Metro
by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
It’s even possible to write a one-sentence poem that has multiple stanzas. Linda Pastan did that in her poem “The New Dog.”
The New Dog
by Linda Pastan
Into the gravity of my life,
the serious ceremonies
of polish and paper
and pen, has come
this manic animal
whose innocent disruptions
make nonsense
of my old simplicities—
as if I needed him
to prove again that after
all the careful planning,
anything can happen.
Learning to write a one-sentence poem with a strong pictorial images teaches the writer to make every word count, to be selective about the words that are included, and to tighten the language to the bare minimum.
Do you have a favorite one-sentence poem? Have you thought about writing one-sentence poems?
Works Cited
Pastan, Linda. “The New Dog.” The Cortland Review. 1999. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.
Pound, Ezra. “In a Station of the Metro.” Poetry Foundation. 2013. Web. 4. Aug. 2013.
Williams, William Carlos. “Red Wheelbarrow.” Poetry Foundation. 2013. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.
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