I like to recommend things to my readers when I write. Think for yourself. Especially, I recommend movies and last night sat down and FINALLY watched Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson. I do recommend a watch, not just for its take on poetry but also for being an alternative to all the low-brow, cliched stuff about poets, out there (though I do have my qualms with the film - you will too).
It’s about a bus driver, regular Joe, not regular Joe in Paterson, New Jersey. I love that it stays true to its subject, “imagism”, a poetry approach and movement, most often associated with William Carlos Williams, from the city of Paterson. But really an attempt to repurpose Chinese and Japanese poetry into an English palate - helped by Pound, Hulme and a number of others early last century.
Imagism is really what the word suggests, to present images to the reader and to let the reader tie them together to form their own poem, meaning, sense. It doesn’t impose meaning but works with the reader.
See the video above, one of my own many turns at remixing the classic Williams poem, “This Is Just To Say”. Also, see this one - a darker version, but from the depths of my own self.
I love that the film brings back to its proper place, poetry that is set in real, regular life. Williams himself was a doctor. Poetry is from life, existence, the world around us. It isn’t as currently controlled, from the dry wasteland of academia - a formulaic, mirror and “look at me be so obscure” ism. I also wish I had a wife like the protagonist, supportive and loving of poetry. Should we all be so lucky!
I hope you take a watch. It’s well worth it, and it will challenge you to engage with its slow pace, the pace of real life - what I call “livin’ it”. Jarmusch has never disappointed me and here, despite the stereotypes he etches, he doesn’t let me down. See his Cigarettes and Coffee for example. He focuses on the real. He respects the viewers intelligence. Just like imagism does. Wow! Imagine that!
Imagism