John Gould Fletcher

John Gould Fletcher 1886-1950, American poet, b. Little Rock, Ark., educated (1903-7) at Harvard. After traveling throughout Europe, he became a leader of the imagists in England. His early collections of poetry are Irradiations: Sand and Spray (1915) and Goblins and Pagodas (1916). In later works Fletcher turned from free verse to more traditional forms. These include The Black Rock (1928), Selected Poems (1938, Pulitzer Prize), and The Burning Mountain (1946). Many of his poems reflect his youth in the Southwest.

Bibliography: See his autobiography, Life Is My Song (1937).

Fletcher, John Gould (1886–1950), Arkansas author, was influenced by Southern traditions, although from 1908 to 1933 he lived mainly in Europe. In England he was a leader of the Imagists, whose poetic theory is exemplified in Irradiations: Sands and Spray (1915) and Goblins and Pagodas (1916), and he experimented with polyphonic prose. His later work, beginning with Breakers and Granite (1921) and including Branches of Adam (1926), The Black Rock (1928), XXIV Elegies (1935), The Epic of Arkansas (1936), South Star (1941), and The Burning Mountain (1946), shows a return to the American scene, a more mystical tone, and a tendency toward classic forms. After his return to Arkansas he became a leader of the Agrarians. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his Selected Poems (1938). His prose works include Paul Gauguin (1921); John Smith—Also Pocahontas (1928); The Two Frontiers (1930), about Russia and the U.S.; Arkansas (1947), a social history; and his autobiography, Life Is My Song (1937).