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美國有正在衰退的歐洲文明所缺乏的東西，“一種必要的抵抗，那就是根本性的給和取，對藝術至關重要”。無疑，約翰·古爾德·弗萊徹（John Gould Fletcher，1886—1950）已達到這一點，他的《詩選》贏得1939年普利策奬。他跟T.S.艾略特和埃茲拉·龐德一起，曾屬於一個移居國外者的實驗小組，他們感覺到歐洲比美國更適宜於藝術傢。他居留國外二十年以上，在那裏寫作大量實驗性的自由詩。但自從1933年起，他生活在美國。
弗萊徹先生在阿肯色州度過童年時代。他的父親，一個邦聯老兵，來自蘇格蘭拓荒者的一個傢族。詩人在傢裏跟着他媽媽學習，媽媽是一個有學問有才華、有德國和丹麥血統的婦女。他討厭數學，喜愛歷史，“覺得他父親的房子裏戰前南方的存在深深地影響他”，讀斯科特、坦尼森、柯勒律治、莎士比亞和《聖經》。在安多弗和哈佛的中學和大學時代，他開始寫詩。他在畢業之前離校了。他以為他想成為一個考古學家；但當他出國花費了五年時間跟他的文學朋友一起，閱讀法國象徵主義，寫下很多他從來沒有出版的詩，以及雖然出版了而他自己從不喜歡的一本詩集。這個時候他開始賦予他的詩歌以自由形式，“按照感覺的情形和他的材料的條件”，他開始寫關於“一個人能聽見的、看見的、嗅到的和嘗到的東西”。艾米·洛威爾發現他的這種詩歌，說服他在她著名的、廣為探討的選集《意象派詩人》裏露臉。從那時以來，他不但寫了很多詩歌和文學評論，而且寫了他的自傳。1933年他從阿肯色大學獲得法學博士學位，1939年他的《詩選》獲得普利策奬。
他結婚兩次，後來生活在阿肯色州的羅蘭德。
他的作品有：《火與酒》（1913），《傻瓜的金子》（1913），《站統治地位的城市》（1913），《自然之書》（1913），《傍晚的異象》（1913），《輻照，沙子與噴霧》（1916），《小妖精與寶塔》（1916），《日本彩色木刻水印畫》（1918），《生命之樹》（1918），《碎浪與花崗岩》（1921），《保羅·高更，他的生活與藝術》（傳記，1921），《前奏麯與交響樂》（1922），《預言》（1925），《亞當的分枝》（1926），《約翰·史密斯——也是風中奇緣》（1928），《黑色的石頭》（1928），《兩個邊疆》（1930），《嘆息碑墻哀歌》（1935），《阿肯色史詩》（1936），《生活是我的歌》（自傳，1937），《詩選》（1938，獲普利策奬）。
許多學者認為約翰·古爾德·弗萊徹，這位阿肯色州詩人和散文傢，是二十世紀最有影響力的文學人物之一。1938年，他獲得普利策詩歌奬，並參與了塑造了20世紀文學的農業主義、意象主義、現代主義和浪漫主義的文學運動。（Character Collection UA LITTLE ROCK CENTER FOR ARKANSAS HISTORY AND CULTURE）
Background
Fletcher lived in England for a large portion of his life. While in Europe he associated with Amy 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. Fletcher resumed a liaison with Florence Emily "Daisy" Arbuthnot (née Goold) at her house in Kent. She had been married to Malcolm 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 the Arkansas 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 chronic arthritis.
Fletcher suffered from depression, and on May 10, 1950, died by suicide by drowning himself in a pond near his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fletcher is buried at historic Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock. A branch of the Central Arkansas Library System is named in his honor.
Poetry
In 1913 Ezra Pound in his New Freewoman review commended Fletcher for the individuality of rhythm in his first volume of poems. Those early works include Irradiations: Sand and Spray (1915), and Goblins and Pagodas (1916). Amy Lowell said of him, "No one is more absolute master of the rhythm of verse libre". Fletcher invented the term 'polyphonic prose' to describe some poetic experiments of Amy Lowell, a form he experimented with in Goblins & Pagodas. In later poetic works Fletcher returned to more traditional forms. These include The Black Rock (1928), Selected Poems (1938), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1939, "South Star" published by Macmillan (1941), and The Burning Mountain (1946). Fletcher later moved back to Arkansas to reconnect with his roots. The subject of his works turned increasingly towards Southern issues and traditionalism.
In the late 1920s and 1930s Fletcher was active with a group of Southern writers and poets known as the Southern Agrarians. This group published the classic Agrarian manifesto I'll Take My Stand, a collection of essays rejecting Modernity and Industrialism. In 1937 he wrote his autobiography, Life is My Song, and in 1947 he published Arkansas, a history of his home state.
Johnswood, his Little Rock home, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Writings
Irradiations Sand and Spray, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915
Goblins and Pagodas, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916
Japanese Prints, Four Seas, 1918, LC 18017484
The Tree of Life, London, Chattus Windus, 1918
Breakers and Granite, New York, MacMillan Co., 1921
Paul Gauguin, His Life and Art, N. L. Brown, 1921, LC 20114210
Preludes and Symphonies, Macmillan, 1930 ISBN 978-1-4255-0347-5
XXIV Elegies, Writers' Editions, Santa Fe, 1935
Life Is My Song: The Autobiography Of John Gould Fletcher, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937 ISBN 978-0-404-17098-1
South Star, New York, MacMillan Co., 1941
References
Hughes, Glenn, Imagism and the Imagists, Stanford University Press, New York 1931.
Glenn Hughes, Imagism and the Imagists, Stanford University Press, New York, 1931
Jamison, Kay R. (1994). "This Net Throwne Upon the Heavens". Touched with fire: manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament. Simon and Schuster. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-684-83183-1. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
"Central Arkansas Library System". Central Arkansas Library System. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
Imagist Poetry, (ed. Peter Jone s) Penguin Books Ltd, London 1972 ISBN 0-14-042147-5
Lowell Amy, Tendencies of Modern American Poetry, Macmillan, New York, 1917
Miss Lowell's Discovery: Polyphonic Prose Poetry, Chicago 1915
Imagist Poetry, (ed. Peter Jones) Penguin Books Ltd, London 1972 ISBN 0-14-042147-5
Further reading
John Gould Fletcher and Imagism, Edmund S. de Chasca, University of Missouri Press, 1978
Fierce Solitude, A Life of John Gould Fletcher, Ben Johnson III, University of Arkansas Press, 1994