A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste, Ezra Pound

"An "Image" is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex on an instant of time."

"It is the presentation of such a "complex" instantaneously which gives that sense if sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art."

"Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. Consider the discrepancies between the actual writing of the Greek poets and dramatists, and the theories of the Graeco-Roman grammarian, concocted to explain their metres."

LANGUAGE

"Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something."

"Don't use such an expression as "dim lands of peace." It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realizing that the natural object is always the adequate symbol."

"Go in fear if abstractions. Don't retell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose."

"Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency either to acknowledge the debt outright, or to try to conceal it."

"Don't allow "influence" to mean merely that you mop up the particular decorative vocabulary of some one or two poets whom you happen to admire."

"Use either no ornament or good ornament."

RHYTHM AND RHYME

"Let the candidate fill his mind with the finest cadences he can discover, preferably in a foreign language so that the meaning of the words may be less likely ti divert his attention from the movement."

"Let the neophyte know assonance and alliteration, rhyme immediate and delayed, simple and polyphonic."

"Don't imagine that a thing will "go" in verse just because it's too dull to go in prose."

"Don't be "viewy"-leave that ti the writers of pretty little philosophical essays. Don't be descriptive."

"Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap."

"Don't chop your stuff into separate iambs. Don't make each line stop dead at the end, and then begin every next line with a heave. Let the beginning of the next line catch the rise of the rhythm wave, unless you want a definite longish pause."

"Naturally, your rhythmic structure should not destroy the shape of your words, or their natural sound, or their meaning."

"A rhyme must have in it some slight element of surprise if it is to give pleasure; it need not be bizarre or curious, but it must be well used if used at all."