美国有正在衰退的欧洲文明所缺乏的东西，“一种必要的抵抗，那就是根本性的给和取，对艺术至关重要”。无疑，约翰·古尔德·弗莱彻（John Gould Fletcher，1886—1950）已达到这一点，他的《诗选》赢得1939年普利策奖。他跟T.S.艾略特和埃兹拉·庞德一起，曾属于一个移居国外者的实验小组，他们感觉到欧洲比美国更适宜于艺术家。他居留国外二十年以上，在那里写作大量实验性的自由诗。但自从1933年起，他生活在美国。
弗莱彻先生在阿肯色州度过童年时代。他的父亲，一个邦联老兵，来自苏格兰拓荒者的一个家族。诗人在家里跟着他妈妈学习，妈妈是一个有学问有才华、有德国和丹麦血统的妇女。他讨厌数学，喜爱历史，“觉得他父亲的房子里战前南方的存在深深地影响他”，读斯科特、坦尼森、柯勒律治、莎士比亚和《圣经》。在安多弗和哈佛的中学和大学时代，他开始写诗。他在毕业之前离校了。他以为他想成为一个考古学家；但当他出国花费了五年时间跟他的文学朋友一起，阅读法国象征主义，写下很多他从来没有出版的诗，以及虽然出版了而他自己从不喜欢的一本诗集。这个时候他开始赋予他的诗歌以自由形式，“按照感觉的情形和他的材料的条件”，他开始写关于“一个人能听见的、看见的、嗅到的和尝到的东西”。艾米·洛威尔发现他的这种诗歌，说服他在她著名的、广为探讨的选集《意象派诗人》里露脸。从那时以来，他不但写了很多诗歌和文学评论，而且写了他的自传。1933年他从阿肯色大学获得法学博士学位，1939年他的《诗选》获得普利策奖。
John Gould Fletcher (January 3, 1886 – May 10, 1950) was an Imagist poet (the first Southern poet to win the Pulitzer Prize), author and authority on modern painting. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to a socially prominent family. After attending Phillips Academy, Andover, Fletcher went on to Harvard University from 1903 to 1907, but dropped out shortly after his father's death.
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.