Amy Lowell’s Patterns embodies the very essence of Imagist writing. Her language remains simple, descriptive and straight forward through the poem as she paints sullen images of a woman confined and mourning the loss of her fiance.

 

Amy Lowell is a canonical figure of modern American poetry. Her work spans decades, setting the standard for proto-feminist texts and Imagism. Over the years, she has published 650 poems, written a 1300-page biography on John Keats, edited an anthology on Imagist writers of the period, and translated a few East Asian haikus. Her non-metrical writing style, also known as free verse, encapsulates the natural rhythms of speech. Furthermore, her profession as an editor, lecturer, poet, performer, and mentor to Imagist poets such as Carl Sandburg landed her opportunities to contribute to her cause of enlightening American readers about trends in modern poetry. Born to an affluent New England family, she was exposed to education at a young age. She excelled in school during a time where women were prohibited from continuing their education once reaching a certain age. As a teenager, she began educating herself, and by 17, she had published her first poem in the Atlantic. From there, she embarked on her literary career, creating a collection of poems titled A Dome of Many Colored Glass, based on a volume by John Keats. In fact, John Keats heavily influenced her work. Later on, she would befriend Imagist poet Ezra Pound and become acquainted with novelist Henry James. Lowell left behind a legacy of work that remains as the hallmark for feminist text. 

 

 In the first stanza, the speaker is “walk[ing] down the patterned garden paths” gazing at the daffodils and “bright blue squills”, which blows freely in the wind. Then the scene switches to her walking down the garden paths restricted by the gown she wears, her “stiff, brocaded gown.” It seems that Lowell attempts to depict a dichotomy between freedom and restriction. Nature thus represents the unrestraint the speaker alludes to while her finely patterned gown, “jeweled fan and powdered hair” represents restriction. 

 

It is not uncanny that Lowell references fashion throughout this poem. Patterns was published in 1915, and during this time, the Great War was just beginning. From the 1890s until 1914, fashion trends in America harkened back to the Edwardian period in England where the elite flaunted s-curved corsets and extravagantly patterned gowns that accentuated their silhouette. Body ideals and new interests in emulating looks of the ruling class created a new type of woman. It also created a more self-aware, politically attuned and outspoken woman, one who spoke unapologetically about pervading issues in society during that time. Fashion, in a nutshell, reflected not only what appeared popular according to the ruling class but also the social norms and limitations placed on women. 

 

Essentially, Lowell beautifully captures, in the second stanza, how uncomfortable the speaker feels in these luxurious garments. A concept quite bizarre considering women strived to dress finely.  Her “tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned heels” in her “plate of current fashion” appears as though the speaker shows great disdain for having to wear such clothing and that she has little knowledge about how to properly walk in heels. She is restricted from expressing her  “softness” because her garments literally and figuratively prohibit her from doing so. The speaker watches as the daffodils and squills “flutter in the breeze,” expressing themselves with such freedom which, again, juxtaposes the speaker’s feeling of confinement. It saddens her because not only is she thinking about her own position, but she is also mourning the loss of her lover. I would also contend that she is also mourning the loss of her selfhood. She expresses a deep disconnect from herself, and her garments thus represent the force creating that distance. She views the natural world as a world free to act authentically, in its own authorized pattern. 

 

By the fourth stanza, the speaker has become “the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,” which I would argue contrasts the idea of a woman’s femininity lying in what she wears, that her garments determine her softness and not her selfhood, her authenticity, her literal body. Unlike the third stanza, where she describes herself as not having “softness anywhere about me”, this softness that she alludes to, which I interpreted as flirtatiousness and playfulness, comes when she is naked. It is this nakedness that authorizes her fully immerse into her being while being in the presence of her fiance. He admires her raw beauty, unclothed and exposed rather than the clothes she wears. 

 

Towards the sixth stanza, the speaker receives a letter about her fiance who dies during combat. Her tone reflects melancholy as she “walked into the garden paths / in my stiff, correct brocade.” I found it interesting that she uses stiff and correct to describe her gown. To me, the words she chooses to represent an idea that society pressures women to act like modest, decent ladies. 

 

By the end of the poem, the stiffness returns. Her sullenness and mourning appear synonymous with rigidity and conform. In fact, the speaker makes a conscious effort to conform, to “go/ up and down / in my gown / . . . guarded from embrace.” She raises inevitable questions about the cycle of life. Why must people die? How must life go on without the warm embrace of a lover? Lowell thus leaves us pondering our own questions about what life teaches us and the inescapable cycle of life and death each human being must experience. 

Gertrude Stein

Stein’s language in her abstract poem Susie Asado reflects such musicality that the reader can actually hear the tapping of Susie’s shoes as she dances the flamenco. Stein’s writing resembles the fluidity and randomness of memory and the subconscious, which shows distinctly in this poem. 

Gertrude Stein is noted as a vanguard to modernism. Her obsession with psychology and how the inner workings of characters created attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions propelled her into a world of alternative art and poetry. Many may know her for throwing routine salons at her apartment on 27 rue de Fleurus or for inspiring writers such as Ernest Hemingway. However, Stein’s familial background adds to the depth she carries as a poet, author, and significant literary figure. 

 

Born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, her family settled in Oakland, CA where she attended Radcliffe College. She became fascinated with psychology, particularly William James, whom she worked under. While attending Radcliff, she along with another student conducted research on the limitations of the conscious mind and the repetition of memory. She was also mentored by psychologist Hugo Munsterburg who described her as “the model of what a young scholar should be (Hoffman, 128).” She enrolled in John Hopkins Medical School but soon quit after failing a few courses. From there, she moved to Paris in 1930. Being in Paris, the epicenter of intellectual freedom inspired her to fully immerse herself in the literary scene. She became fully acquainted with a group of American and English expatriates who moved to Paris. Dubbed as the Lost Generation, these poets sought to tell their experience by toying with a cutting-edge, experimental style of writing. 

 

Cubist artists majorly influenced Stein’s writing. She rejected the conventional linear form of storytelling from the 19th century and decided to flirt with the idea of creating objects from a spatial, process-oriented approach. Susie Asado is her attempt at doing this. Stein invites the reader in calmly with alliteration, the repeating of the s sound in the first few lines creates an image of water slowly dripping from a full cup of tea, slowly and with such fluidity. It also creates movements similar to dance. 

 

Towards the second stanza, the speaker continues to play with sounds, using a “told tray sure” to echo the tapping of Susie Asado’s heels as she moves, swiftly and smoothly. 
I found it interesting that the poem lacks a conventional structure. It was typical of Stein to leave out a plot or dialogue in her poems. With Susie Asado, she forces readers to follow her storytelling method and think outside their style of thinking.