Mary Barnard, American ImagistPerhaps best known for her outstanding translation of Sappho, poet Mary Barnard (1909–2001) has until recently received little attention for her own work. In this book, Sarah Barnsley examines Barnard's poetry and poetics in the light of her plentiful correspondence with Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and others. Presenting Barnard as a "late Imagist," Barnsley links Barnard's search for a poetry grounded in native speech to efforts within American modernism for new forms in the American grain. Barnsley finds that where Pound and Williams began the campaign for a modern poetry liberated from the "heave" of the iambic pentameter, Barnard completed it through a "spare but musical" aesthetic derived from her studies of Greek metric and American speech rhythms, channeled through materials drawn direct from the American local. The first book on Barnard, and the first to draw on the Barnard archives at Yale's Beinecke Library, Mary Barnard, American Imagist unearths a fascinating and previously untold chapter of twentieth-century American poetry. |
Contents
Spare but Musical The Poetry of Mary Barnard | 1 |
Late Imagism | 23 |
A WouldBe Sappho | 59 |
A New Way of Measuring Verse | 93 |
A Bright Particular Excellence The Achievement of Mary Barnard | 127 |
The Mary Barnard Papers A Note | 141 |
Notes | 143 |
| 161 | |
| 167 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Aldington American Literature American poet Assault on Mount Babette Deutsch balanced line Barnard to Ezra Barnard’s fragment number Barnard’s poems Barnard’s poetry beach Bell cadences classical Collected Poems Collection of American color Columbia River Columbia River Gorge Cool Country Courtesy of Elizabeth Deutsch to Mary Don’ts early emotional essay Ezra Pound Ezra Pound Papers free verse grains Ibid imagery Imagist italics James Laughlin kind landscape letter literary Long Beach Peninsula Lowell lyric Marianne Moore Mary Barnard Papers metaphor modern modernist Mount Helicon nard North Window Northwest northwestern Ocean Park ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ perhaps poem’s poet’s poetic Pound to Mary Poundian provided by Elizabeth published Reed College rhythm sand Sapphics Sappho Sappho’s fragments sawmill Sea Garden Shoreline space spare but musical speaker speech stanza thing tion told Barnard translation trestle Vancouver voice Washington weighted syllables William Carlos Williams Williams to Mary Williams’s words writing Yale Collection York