Modernist poetry in English started in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional formalism and ornate diction.

1. T. E. Hulme  : " The Embankment " 

 T.E. Hulme was an influential poet and thinker in the first few years of the twentieth century.

 Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie

 The Embankment in many ways Hulme ' s masterpiece. A short paraphrase on London 's Embankment , an area of homeless people . Though this poem we find that they don't want any social pleasure but only warmth, what is really matters. That's why a speaker beseeching God to make a blanket of the starry sky , so that the homeless people have warmth of it.

 Starry sky :  Blanket for homeless people
Finesse of fiddles : luxury , musical gathering
Flash of gold heels :  luxury like beautiful women or courtesans .
Star eaten : new life - warmth to lifeless.

 2. Joseph Campbell : " Darkness " 

 Campbell was an Irish poet writing a similar kind of poetry to Hulme at same time.

 I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

 This poem is very short , modern style of poetry that rejects gushing excesses of the Victorian verse.here he said there is shining star , when he stopped to watch ,it passed ultimately . There is no Beauty in stars . There is only a Darkness at all . Nothing new which we find like hope , happiness and lovely.

 3. Edward storer " Image " 

 Storer was writing at around the same time as other modernist . He was clearly influenced by Japanese forms such as the Haiku.

 Forsaken lovers 
Burning to a chaste white moon 
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

 In this poem we find that the lovers who departed by fate . When they were with each other they find moon become witness of their love for each other. But now they are departed , that's why moon makes them remember that time , they become sad again and feels loneliness. Metaphor : Forsaken lovers 

 4. Ezra pound : " In a station of the metro " 

 The apparition of these faces in the crowd 
Petals on a wet , black bough.

 Ezra pound is probably the most famous modernist poet working in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. 
In this poem pound describes vivid and original image from metro station. He watching faces means busy . It suggesting the dark subway platform . The people look like flower petals stuck on a tree branch after a rainy night.

 He uses living metaphor like Human beings on a metro moving, growing and changing. Rain come and go. Faces as crowd.

 5 . Hlida Doolittle , H.D : " The Pool " 

 H.D was one of the main practitioners of Imagism , the short lived poetic movement which pound founded in 1912. 

 Are you alive ? 
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea - fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you banded - one ?

 This poem is one of the most famous and widely discussed imagist poems. It about face to face with her reflection in the water of a rock pool. The speaker spots something in the pool , wonders it is alive , touches it . It like a sea - fish , then covers with a net . She wondering what this thing is .
Are you alive ?  :  self - discover , reflection which is banded one .

 6 . Richard Aldington : " Insouciance "

In and out of the drearrs trenches
Trudging cheerily under the stars.
I make for myself littly poems
Delicate as a flock of doves.
They fly away like white - whinged doves.


This poem writing in the trenches ,  the horror of world war 1 . The trauma of modern trench warfare affected him deeply . Addington ' s pessimism and negativity  about life in trenches and how poverty kept him live and happy.

Personification :  White whinged doves  means fly away

 7 . T. S. Eliot : " Morning at the window "
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens.
And along the trampled edges of the Street.
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids.
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me

Twisted faces from the bottom of the Street
And tear from a passer - by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

This poem was written in London after the outbreak of ww1 . It presents dark , oppressive image of everyday life. The picture of poverty that of a slum , where people lead miserable lives. The speaker at the window and scene which connects ideas of poor people and sympathy for them. Their are villagers with no identity and no basic necessities .it is general picture of poor people 's plight .

 Twisted faces , the aimless smile , the muddy skirts , damp poor servant girl, rattling breakfast this all metaphor shows poverty , depression and misery in city slum and poor live .

 8 . William Carlos Williams : " The Red Wheelbarrow " 

So much depends upon
A red wheel barrow
Glazed with rain water
Beside the white chickens.

Here white color used to contrast the red color . Wheel Barrow immediately after the rain . When the bright sun has created the wheel Barrow 's shiny surface and has made the chicken white. It glaze like rainbow means normality or restoration again.

 Rain water , white chickens ,this shows spring , sadness and regeneration. Also showed the memorable picture of this process.

 9. Wallace Stevens : " Anecdotes of the Jar " 
I placed a jar in Tennessee,   
And round it was, upon a hill.   
It made the slovenly wilderness   
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.   
The jar was round upon the ground   
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.   
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,   
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

One of the Steven's best known short poems. About jar placed in Tennessee , which makes the wilderness surrounded the hill. It dominion everywhere like nothing else there. It is an everyday object , placed on a top of a hill affect hillside. 

 Changing placed of jar shows the senses and imagination which rise ups , wilderness and looses it , it questions ???

 10. E. E. Cummings, 'I-a
l(a le af fa ll s) one l

 It is very short poem, the first line
suggests the leaf as a metaphor of lonelines when departure from tree .