Academy of American Poets: Imagery Guide
Academy of American Poets
A short glossary entry defining imagery as language representing visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and gustatory experience, illustrated with readings of Wordsworth, Van Doren, Helene Johnson and Lucille Clifton. Useful orientation before tackling longer critical treatments of the term.
More resources on Imagery & Symbolism
Poetry Off the Shelf
Producer Helena de Groot talks to poets about language, dreams, love and loss, identity, connection, anger, discomfort, the creative process, the state of the world and the world of the soul. Hard conversations are welcomed—laughter is, too.
Modern & Contemporary American Poetry
ModPo is a FREE (no fee, no charge) fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! ModPo is open all year, so you can enroll now, or any time, and join us. Each year we host a lively, interactive 10-week session, in which we move together through the ten-week syllabus. The next live 10-week session of ModPo will begin on August 31, 2025, and will conclude on November 10, 2025. Al Filreis will be in touch with you by email before the September 1 start of the course with all the information you'll need to participate. If you have questions, you can email the ModPo team any time at modpo@writing.upenn.edu. Much more information about ModPo can be found at modpo.org. During the 10 weeks of the course, you will be guided through poems, video discussions of each poem, and community discussions of each poem. And (unique among open online courses) we offer weekly, interactive live webcasts. Our famed TAs also offer office hours throughout the week. We help arrange meet-ups and in-site study groups. If you are curious about the ModPo team, type "ModPo YouTube introduction" into Google or your favorite search engine, and watch the 20-minute introductory video. You will get an overview of the course and will meet the brilliant TAs, who will be encountering the poems with you all the way to the end. If you use Facebook, join the always-thriving ModPo group: from inside Facebook, search for "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" and then request to be added as a member. If you have any questions about ModPo, you can post a question to the FB group and you'll receive an almost instant reply. Much more information about ModPo can be found at modpo.org . ModPo is hosted by—and is housed at—the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA. All ModPo'ers are welcome to visit the Writers House when they are in our area. Our discussions are filmed there. Our live webcasts take place in the famed "Arts Cafe" of the House. To find out what's going on at the Writers House any time, just dial 215-746-POEM.
poets.org
Poets.org is the official site of the Academy of American Poets. It features a large collection of poems and poet bios, plus audio readings, essays, and classroom resources for readers and educators.
Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry
The most readable serious writing on what an image actually does to a reader, by a working poet rather than a pedagogue. It fills the gap between Pound's terse rules and Kinzie's technical apparatus, and it demonstrates the sensibility a learner is trying to build. Essays by a former US Poet Laureate. The closing piece, 'Images', traces how images act on a reader across haiku, Rilke and contemporary American poetry. Practising criticism rather than instruction, and free to borrow online.
Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us
The 1935 study that invented systematic image-pattern analysis, charting recurring image clusters across Shakespeare's plays and what they reveal about theme, character and authorship. The method transfers to any text; free to borrow at the Internet Archive.
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
Frye's 1957 systematic poetics. Its second essay, 'Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols', sorts symbols into literal, descriptive, formal, mythical and anagogic phases, giving a precise vocabulary for arguing about what a symbol does in a text. Demanding but genuinely structural.