Neo-imagism

Neo-Imagism is a little-known literary movement, concerned purely with poetry. It arose in the early 1990s and its influence, among some writers, is still discernible today.
The movement came about partly through a growing interest in minimalist forms, such as haiku.
The phrase, Neo-Imagism, and a related phrase, Haikuesque, can both be safely attributed to Kevin Bailey, the editor of the UK's first magazine devoted to haiku, "The Haiku Quarterly".
Bailey identified tendencies in the work of some poets that interested him, and in this respect, Neo-Imagism may be said to be more of an intelligent observation than a cogent movement.
The writers he celebrated were often inspired by Ezra Pound and the Imagists of the early 20th century, as well as by Japanese and Chinese achievements in verse, and individual European writers including Lorca, Cavafy, Paul Celan and Yannis Ritsos.
This quotation, from an article by Bailey in the Haiku Quarterly, published in the Winter 1991 issue, is revealing of his approach at the time:

"I have singled out two young poets in particular, Paul Holman and Gary Bills, as being innovative enough - by nature and intellect - to realise the concept of Neo-Imagism into a progressive system: one that will act as a revitalizing force within British poetry. They are not alone - in America, Bob Arnold and Vincent Tripi are treading their individual but complementary paths...Ikuyo Yoshimura in Japan..Edward Mezit and Michael Krasinsky in Russia - each in their way are developing a Romantic imagist poetry that, one can only hope, will freshen the World poetry of the 21st century."

Few, if any, of the poets named would now agree to a defining Neo-Imagist label. (Holman never counted himself as such in the first place, and disliked the term.) But several of the poets have indeed gone on to publish work, in full collections where the image, in individual lines and passages, may be seen to be of paramount importance and vitality.

Furthermore, Neo-Imagist thought was evident in Kevin Bailey's introduction to the first truly comprehensive anthology of modern haiku and haikuesque verse to be published in the English Language, The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku (Acorn book company, 2000), a book he co-edited with Lucien Stryk.

Bailey wrote: "Western European poets seem to be trying to effect a fusion of their own Symbolist and Imagist traditions..with the idea of haiku. At worst, this results in a colonisation of the form, but at best..there is a unique cultural blending, creating a Post-Symbolist clarity of vision and ideas."

In this sense, Neo-Imagism deserves further recognition as a serious literary movement. It is, perhaps, the only new movement of significance in English Language poetry, - in the years following Craig Raine's "Martian Landings", up to the present day.

Some critics, while reviewing The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku in particular, have recognised the presence of new thought and a new direction in minimalist writing.

Reviewing for the Lynx Literary Journal in February 2001, Jane and Werner Reichold said of the anthology put together by Bailey and Stryk: "The Book..seems to ask the readers some pressing questions..As one strolls slowly along with all of the 140 poets from 25 countries presented here, are not many of the short lines in this anthology clearly pointing in a new direction, leaving much of the dependency to the former term "haiku" behind them?"

Neo-Imagism remains an obscure and avant-garde movement, but one that perhaps deserves respect as a fresh artistic movement with serious intentions, not least because it incorporates new concepts from other cultures into English Literature.
Furthermore, it could be argued, fairly, that the arrival of the haiku or haikuesque spirit on the English poetry scene is the only significant foreign influence on English language verse since the introduction of the sonnet in the sixteenth century.

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