"Images" [RR]

James Galvan
English 306
Steve Pett

Read: Poet’s Companion: “Images,” p. 85 [RR]

1. What, exactly is an image? For most people, “image” carries the
meaning of a visual picture, and it’s true that many images are visual. Put
simply, though, an image in poetry is language that calls up a physical
sensation, appealing to us at the level of any of our five senses.
2. Poets need to keep all five senses – and possibly a few more – on
continual alert, ready to translate the world through their bodies, to
reinvent it in language.
3. Images are seductive in themselves, but they’re not merely scenery, or
shouldn’t be.
4. The poet enlivens his images with the use of color: “gold
whirlpool,” “gold sea,” “full of the gold that took him.”
5. Artists have used this trick: adding a bit of red to green to make the
green appear brighter.