John Gould Fletcher (January 3, 1886 – May 10, 1950) was anImagist poet (the first Southern poet to win thePulitzer Prize), author and authority on modern painting.[1] He was born inLittle Rock, Arkansas, to a socially prominent family. After attendingPhillips Academy, Andover, Fletcher went on toHarvard University from 1903 to 1907, but dropped out shortly after his father's death.
Fletcher lived inEngland for a large portion of his life. While inEurope he associated withAmy Lowell,Ezra Pound, and other Imagist poets; he was one of the six Imagists who adopted the name and stuck to it until their aims were achieved.[2] Fletcher resumed a liaison with Florence Emily "Daisy" Arbuthnot (née Goold) at her house in Kent. She had been married toMalcolm Arbuthnot and Fletcher's adultery with her was the grounds for the divorce. The couple married on July 5, 1916. The marriage produced no children, but Arbuthnot's son and daughter from her previous marriage lived with the couple, who later divorced.
On January 18, 1936, Fletcher married a noted author of children's books, Charlie May Simon. The two of them built "Johnswood", a residence on the bluffs of theArkansas River, then outside Little Rock. They traveled frequently to New York for the intellectual stimulation, and to the American West and South for the climate, after Fletcher developed chronicarthritis.
Fletcher suffered from depression, and on May 10, 1950, died by suicide[3] by drowning himself in a pond near his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fletcher is buried at historicMount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock. A branch of theCentral Arkansas Library System is named in his honor.[4]
In 1913Ezra Pound in hisNew Freewoman review commended Fletcher for the individuality of rhythm in his first volume of poems.[5] Those early works includeIrradiations: Sand and Spray (1915), andGoblins and Pagodas (1916).Amy Lowell said of him, "No one is more absolute master of the rhythm ofverse libre".[6] Fletcher invented the term 'polyphonic prose' to describe some poetic experiments of Amy Lowell,[7] a form he experimented with inGoblins & Pagodas.[8] In later poetic works Fletcher returned to more traditional forms. These includeThe Black Rock (1928),Selected Poems (1938), for which he won thePulitzer Prize for Poetry in1939, "South Star" published by Macmillan (1941), andThe Burning Mountain (1946). Fletcher later moved back to Arkansas to reconnect with his roots. The subject of his works turned increasingly towardsSouthern issues and traditionalism.
In the late 1920s and 1930s Fletcher was active with a group of Southern writers and poets known as theSouthern Agrarians. This group published the classicAgrarian manifestoI'll Take My Stand, a collection of essays rejectingModernity andIndustrialism. In 1937 he wrote his autobiography,Life is My Song, and in 1947 he publishedArkansas, a history of his home state.
Johnswood, his Little Rock home, is listed on theNational Register of Historic Places.
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| 1922–1950 |
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| 1951–1975 |
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| 1976–2000 |
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| 2001–2025 |
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