D.H. Lawrence, H.D., and Ezra Pound each seek to instill literary values in their work by creating a clear and forceful image that can become a symbol of something more than itself. Clarity of communication is important, and the sharpness and accessibility of the image selected is part of this process. H.D. is the most successful of these poets at achieving that clarity of image, while Lawrence is the least successful of the three and Pound is often offers images that are too dense to fulfill the requirements.
Doolittle tends to utilize a single image and examine it closely in the course of a poem. "Sea Rose" is an example, and nearly every word is directed at describing and characterizing the appearance of this rose, as if it were right before us as we read:
Yet as we read we find that the poet is speaking not to us but directly to the rose, thus giving the object even more presence and strength. The drifting rose is tossed onto the sand, and the image of the object of the rose becomes a metaphor for human life, also tossed on the sea of life and cast onto the sand.
In "Helen," the face of Helen of Troy is evoked, and the hatred of Greece for that face brings to mind the story of Troy and by extension the story of all war. Death is personified and characterized in "Fragment Sixty-eight" as the poet addresses one who is dying:
The one addresses is a lover, and love, life, and death are intertwined in this poem in a complex fashion that is aided by the imagery of the poet speaking to a loved one about death.
The imagery offered by Lawrence also develops poems around singular images, often embodied in his titles, such as "Piano," "Snake," and "The Bride." "Piano" can serve as an example of how this solid image is n
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