American writer
John Gould Fletcher
(January 3, 1886 ? May 10, 1950) was an
Imagist
poet (the first Southern poet to win the
Pulitzer Prize
), author and authority on modern painting.
[1]
He was born in
Little Rock, Arkansas
, to a socially prominent family. After attending
Phillips Academy, Andover
, Fletcher went on to
Harvard University
from 1903 to 1907, but dropped out shortly after his father's death.
Background
[
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]
Fletcher lived in
England
for a large portion of his life. While in
Europe
he associated with
Amy Lowell
,
Ezra Pound
, and other Imagist poets; he was one of the six Imagists who adopted the name and stuck to it until their aims were achieved.
[2]
Fletcher resumed a liaison with Florence Emily "Daisy" Arbuthnot (nee Goold) at her house in Kent. She had been married to
Malcolm Arbuthnot
and Fletcher's adultery with her was the grounds for the divorce. The couple married on July 5, 1916. The marriage produced no children, but Arbuthnot's son and daughter from her previous marriage lived with the couple, who later divorced.
On January 18, 1936, Fletcher married a noted author of children's books, Charlie May Simon. The two of them built "
Johnswood
", a residence on the bluffs of the
Arkansas River
, then outside Little Rock. They traveled frequently to New York for the intellectual stimulation, and to the American West and South for the climate, after Fletcher developed chronic
arthritis
.
Fletcher suffered from depression, and on May 10, 1950, died by suicide
[3]
by drowning himself in a pond near his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fletcher is buried at historic
Mount Holly Cemetery
in Little Rock. A branch of the
Central Arkansas Library System
is named in his honor.
[4]
Poetry
[
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]
In 1913
Ezra Pound
in his
New Freewoman
review commended Fletcher for the individuality of rhythm in his first volume of poems.
[5]
Those early works include
Irradiations: Sand and Spray
(1915), and
Goblins and Pagodas
(1916).
Amy Lowell
said of him, "No one is more absolute master of the rhythm of
verse libre
".
[6]
Fletcher invented the term 'polyphonic prose' to describe some poetic experiments of Amy Lowell,
[7]
a form he experimented with in
Goblins & Pagodas
.
[8]
In later poetic works Fletcher returned to more traditional forms. These include
The Black Rock
(1928),
Selected Poems
(1938), for which he won the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
in
1939
, "South Star" published by Macmillan (1941), and
The Burning Mountain
(1946). Fletcher later moved back to Arkansas to reconnect with his roots. The subject of his works turned increasingly towards
Southern
issues and traditionalism.
In the late 1920s and 1930s Fletcher was active with a group of Southern writers and poets known as the
Southern Agrarians
. This group published the classic
Agrarian
manifesto
I'll Take My Stand
, a collection of essays rejecting
Modernity
and
Industrialism
. In 1937 he wrote his autobiography,
Life is My Song
, and in 1947 he published
Arkansas
, a history of his home state.
Johnswood
, his Little Rock home, is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
.
Writings
[
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]
- Irradiations Sand and Spray, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915
- Goblins and Pagodas, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916
- Japanese Prints, Four Seas, 1918, LC 18017484
- The Tree of Life, London, Chattus Windus, 1918
- Breakers and Granite, New York, MacMillan Co., 1921
- Paul Gauguin
, His Life and Art, N. L. Brown, 1921, LC 20114210
- Preludes and Symphonies, Macmillan, 1930
ISBN
978-1-4255-0347-5
- XXIV Elegies, Writers' Editions, Santa Fe, 1935
- Life Is My Song: The Autobiography Of John Gould Fletcher, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937
ISBN
978-0-404-17098-1
- South Star, New York, MacMillan Co., 1941
References
[
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]
- ^
Hughes, Glenn,
Imagism and the Imagists
, Stanford University Press, New York 1931.
- ^
Glenn Hughes,
Imagism and the Imagists
, Stanford University Press, New York, 1931
- ^
Jamison, Kay R. (1994).
"This Net Throwne Upon the Heavens"
.
Touched with fire: manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament
. Simon and Schuster. p. 249.
ISBN
978-0-684-83183-1
. Retrieved
15 June
2009
.
- ^
"Central Arkansas Library System"
.
Central Arkansas Library System
. Retrieved
2019-08-07
.
- ^
Imagist Poetry, (ed. Peter Jone s) Penguin Books Ltd, London 1972
ISBN
0-14-042147-5
- ^
Lowell Amy,
Tendencies of Modern American Poetry
, Macmillan, New York, 1917
- ^
Miss Lowell's Discovery: Polyphonic Prose
Poetry, Chicago 1915
- ^
Imagist Poetry
, (ed. Peter Jones) Penguin Books Ltd, London 1972
ISBN
0-14-042147-5
Further reading
[
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]
- John Gould Fletcher and Imagism
, Edmund S. de Chasca, University of Missouri Press, 1978
- Fierce Solitude, A Life of John Gould Fletcher
, Ben Johnson III, University of Arkansas Press, 1994
External links
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