populist prose: origins in Imagism

Having established the what’s (defining characteristics) of insta-poetry, the next logical step is to examine its how’s (the history). As with most digital phenomena, the genre’s origin story is complex and multifaceted, leading across – and beyond – the internet. I will begin this quest, appropriately, with a poem:

When asked to estimate when this precise, yet emotive verse was authored, most readers would mark it as post-millennial. Its borderline-tropey girls-as-flowers motif evokes a ‘fake deep’ dude-bro, perhaps trying to woo an object of his affection through grasps at metaphor. This assumption could not be further from the truth. “Alba” was authored by Ezra Pound, a pioneer of Imagist poetry.

An early strand of modernism, the early 20th-century literary movement employed accurate presentation of subjects, sans verbiage.

Professor Langdon Hammer delivers a lecture on Imagist writers and their work

Imagists aimed to replace Romanticist abstractions, providing concrete details that were expounded on through wordplay and figuration. Inspired by ancient Greek bards and Japanese haiku, Pound and his colleagues (Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, and James Joyce, to name a few) exchanged iambic devotion for free verse musings. An improvisational, conversational form, most Imagist prose nonetheless shares some key characteristics. Writer F. S. Flint, quoting Pound, defined the tenets of the genre:

I. Direct treatment of the “thing," whether subjective or objective. II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.

l - Pound; r - Poindexter

Ultimately, the Imagists sought to restore emotion, vigor, and clarity to what they saw as a flat, over-sentimental genre. This notion was summarized by English thinker T. E. Hulme. The modernist philosopher wrote that the language of poetry is an “illustrative, concrete one…images in verse are not mere decoration, but the very essence.” Though made one-hundred twenty ago, this case for verbal and visual simplicity as the ultimate sophistication mirrors the insta-poet ethos. Like the Imagists, post-millennial authors insist that their minimal verse is not indicative of slapdash shallowness, but unflinching authenticity. For proof, we need only contrast Alba with an untitled work by insta-poet and fedora-clad modern beatnik Christopher Poindexter.

It is not clear if insta-poets are consciously drawing from Imagist predecessors. But regardless of their literary knowledge, the millennial wordsmiths are appealing to our human drive to the elucidate our thoughts in a concise, but appealing manner. In performing this remediation - a re-purposing of 'old' media through a digital channel - insta-poets are proving the ecclesiastical cliche true: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc.1:9, NIV).