In a recent assessment of American modernism Cary Nelson Claims that Imagism represents ‘a founding movement in modern American poetry that is richer and more diverse than we have been inclined to think’. This book has also stressed the diverse nature of the Imagist movement, drawing attention to figures considered less frequently in conventional literary histories of the group and foregrounding the complex group dynamics and their relation to the wider cultural field of Anglo- American modernism. To conclude, this chapter considers briefly the afterlife of Imagism, assessing its impact upon subsequent modern poetry, after considering the post-Imagist work of some of the key figures in the movement.

The careers of those poets published in the Imagist anthologies of 1914-17 show that the Imagist aesthetic had a profound and enduring effect. Though Pound publicly rejected Imagism after his arguments with Lowell, he continued to employ the method of direct presentation throughout his later poetry, writing in 1927 that the second principle of ‘As for Imagisme’ ('To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation’) was the key to Imagist verse. Even in the majestic sprawl that is The Cantos there are many moments that exemplify this Imagist dictum. One such occurs in the first of the Pisan Cantos, LXXIV, composed in 1945 when Pound was imprisoned in a steel cage near Pisa in Italy, on a charge of treason for radio broadcasts made from Rome during World War II. Pondering his fate and remembering many past events, Pound also writes of what he experiences immediately around him:

The objective presentation of these sights and smells recalls the clarity of images found in ‘Ts'ai Chi'h’ from Des Imagistes, discussed in chapter 4. Here, still, is a direct presentation, with no authorial or subjective comment intervening, and a syntax and vocabulary that remains close to speech.