The Rhetoric of Imagism in the 
Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau and 
Abbās Kīyārustamī: A Comparative 
Study
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri
Allameh Tabataba’i University, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Corner of West 
Haqtalab St., South Allameh St., Pol-e Modiriyat, Tehran, 19979-67556 Iran
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3012-7056, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1835-6780
sm_mosavat@atu.ac.ir, faezeh_mohajeri@atu.ac.ir
This article examines the shared Imagistic principles of two poet-filmmakers in 
the experimental genre of cinepoetry. On the one hand, Jean Cocteau, the French 
poet-turned-filmmaker, epitomizes the Imagistic experimentations of a French 
filmmaker with the narrative framework of poetry to create a “page-based” movie. 
On the other hand, Abbās Kīyārustamī, the Iranian filmmaker-turned-poet, 
typifies the cinematic aesthetic of modern Persian poetry to offer visual images that 
rely entirely on the creative engagement of the reader. The rhetoric of Imagism, 
that short-lived modernist movement of the early twentieth century, is what these 
poet-filmmakers similarly employ in their cinepoetic study cases, namely Tempest 
of Stars (1997) by Cocteau and A Wolf Lying in Wait (2005) by Kīyārustamī. 
Following a comparative approach to their common Imagistic foundations such 
as economical wording and phrasing, cinematic adaptation of visual imagery, 
rigor and clarity of vision, the poetic prerogative of subject matter, the avoidance 
of vague and ambiguous descriptions, and the writerly approach to the rhetoric 
of the poem, this article proves that Cocteau and Kīyārustamī are respectively the 
epitomes of Imagistic cinepoetry in French and Persian literature.
Keywords: literature and film / intermediality / French poetry / Persian poetry / Cocteau, 
Jean / Kīarostāmī, Abbās / cinepoetry / imagism
167
Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 45.2 (2022)
Introduction
Comparative literature, whether cross-medial or inter-literary, relies on 
language to indicate the correlation between the similar techniques or 
resources of two works of art. The intermediary role of language lies in 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
168
developing a synthetic writing practice reflecting the correlation be-
tween two different signifying systems. One example of such writing 
practice is when the audiovisual techniques of cinema are employed 
in the narrative framework of poetry. The practitioners of this cross-
medial language require a receptive reader who can grasp two means 
of communication, the interconnection of which results in presenting 
concrete and visual images of the objects taking metaphorical expres-
sion in the linguistic domain of poetry. The roots of this interconnec-
tion go back to the cinematic transformation of visual imagery in many 
pre-cinematographic works of art, from Virgil’s Aeneid to Cubist paint-
ings. As Christophe Wall-Romana explains, the inheritance of these 
works for the synthetic language of poetry and cinema is “an invalu-
able understanding of how audiovisual spaces organize experience into 
meaning” (Wall-Romana 8). What these audiovisual spaces present is 
the double nature of a writing practice depending on the visual ecol-
ogy of poetry to create a page-based movie. Although such critics as 
Ying Kong believe this double nature devalues the privileged logos of 
poetry by adopting “cinematic techniques such as montage, flashbacks, 
fragments, juxtaposition, and snapshots to make poetry as both visual 
and audio arts,” in the experimental genre of cinepoetry the thematic 
and technical presence of cinema give place to the figurative usage of 
the filmmaker’s camera at the poem’s service (Kong 29). In cinepoetry, 
“[t]he screen becomes the page, a close-up turns into a metaphor, or 
conversely, [and] the irregular spacing of words on the page is meant 
to evoke the movement of images on screen” (Wall-Romana 3). The 
cinepoet employs these experimental techniques by juxtaposing the 
poem’s concrete images in series appealing to the reader’s cinematic 
perception. As Kong argues, this perception stems from the cinematic 
techniques that, before cinepoets, such Imagists as e. e. cummings, 
Ezra Pound, W. C. Williams, and Wallace Stevens employed in their 
poems. Kong believes these poets have developed Imagistic verse “into 
a little movie, in its visual and audio form, to challenge the older mode 
of perception based on sound” (Kong 31); that is why their visual im-
ages can be read as multiple shots of a page-based movie. Beneath this 
cross-medial layer that, Kong argues, modernism’s cinematic mode has 
added to Imagism’s reception, one can, however, search for the rhetori-
cal contribution of Imagism to the experimental genre of cinepoetry. 
This rhetorical contribution is the point of departure for this article 
to compare the shared Imagistic techniques of two famous poet-film-
makers, namely Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) and Abbās Kīyārustamī 
(1940–2016), whose Imagistic poems are respectively the epitome of 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
169
cinepoetry in their homelands. By screening the multiple shots of their 
page-based movies, this comparative article gives an Imagistic analysis 
of their selected cinepoems in the light of their relevant experiences on 
poetry and cinema.
Jean Cocteau: The French poet-turned-filmmaker
It is argued that the origin of cinepoetry lies in both the cinematic 
techniques of Imagist poems and the poetic conventions of avant-garde 
movies, but Wall-Romana believes cinepoetry has transcended the the-
matic and technical interconnection of these poems and movies. He 
contends this transcendence is formed “on the common basis of a cre-
ative spectatorship taking the imaginary resonances of cinema as fodder 
for a new kind of writing” (Wall-Romana 4). One example of such cre-
ative spectatorship can be traced in the cinepoems of Jean Cocteau, the 
French poet and avant-garde filmmaker, in the early twentieth century. 
According to Neal Oxenhandler, the significance of Cocteau’s cine-
poems lies in “narrow[ing] the gap between the profound intellectual 
concerns of literature and the filmy world of the screen” (Oxenhandler 
19–20). In fact, Cocteau narrows this gap by creating his spectator-
ship based on his prior experiences with poetry and cinema. Some crit-
ics believe these experiences help him pursue a subversive approach 
to the privileged logos of poetry. Pei-lin Wu, for example, detecting 
the Surrealist technique of the automatic writing method in Cocteau’s 
movies, contends “[f]or Cocteau, the mouth should not produce words 
by way of the brain but directly through the hands” (Wu 200). This au-
tomatism Wu perceives in Cocteau’s cinematic productions, in Arthur 
Evans’s opinion, however, falls under Cocteau’s broader definition of 
poetry. Refuting the above-mentioned claim about Cocteau’s subver-
sive approach to poetry, Evans asserts poetry for Cocteau “stands for an 
‘artistic creation,’ regardless of genre of form” (Evans 163).
Similarly having accepted Cocteau’s broader definition of poetry, 
Oxenhandler states that Cocteau “insists in his poetry on purely ver-
bal and syntactical manipulations” (Oxenhandler 14). According to 
Oxenhandler, Cocteau pursues these manipulations on the assumption 
of his poetic license as an avant-garde artist who “prides himself on his 
lack of allegiance or ‘engagement’ to any school, cause, or principle” (14–
15). Nevertheless, Cocteau’s pride in the originality of his poems can be 
proved wrong in reference to his subsequent experiences with cinema. 
This biographical suggestion is helpful to not only construe the visual 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
170
images of Cocteau’s cinepoetry but also trace its evolution in the light of 
his filmmaking experiences. For a poet like Cocteau who, according to 
Oxenhandler, “thinks in images more directly than in words,” the expe-
rience of filmmaking offers “an ideal medium” to add a visual appeal to 
the narrative of poetry (15). This visual appeal is enhanced with the aid 
of the camera serving as a supplement to the cinepoet’s eyes to snap the 
shots of his page-based movie. In Cocteau’s cinepoetry, the camera’s role 
is expanded to not only snap but also arrange and juxtapose the series of 
his shots in front of the moviegoer reader of his poem. Desmond Stewart 
in his analysis of Cocteau’s Léone (1945) gives an interesting description 
of the way Cocteau juxtaposes his camera’s shots.
According to Stewart, in Cocteau’s cinepoetry “there is a connecting 
theme,” a “dream” in Stewart’s opinion, that displays Cocteau’s juxta-
posed shots like “a thin thread on which plump beads are strung” (qtd. 
in Neame 146). Alan Neame, in response to Stewart, argues what is more 
important than the connecting theme between Cocteau’s images is the 
way Cocteau as an Imagist follows the thread to string them. According 
to Neame, it is “the actual choice of bead-images made by” Cocteau 
that indicates his directing role to weave the thread of his shots, serving 
each as an image apiece in his cinepoem (Neame 146). Neame further 
argues that the “indefinite length” of Cocteau’s cinepoetry, unlike the 
short haiku-like poems of Imagists, is part of his “exercise in free asso-
ciation” (146). By free association, Neame confirms Wu’s claim about 
Cocteau’s automatic writing method, which is hypothesized based on 
Cocteau’s restless poetic spirit. Although this restless poetic spirit makes 
it hard to prove Cocteau’s association with any modes of poetic diction, 
the basic tenets of Imagism he shares in his cinepoems are the corner-
stone of such studies as this article and that of Stewart to offer Imagistic 
reading of Cocteau’s poems. In the continuation of Stewart’s attempt to 
introduce Cocteau’s Léone as an Imagistic piece, this article investigates 
the rhetoric of Imagism in another poetry book of Cocteau, Tempest 
of Stars (1997), to classify him as an Imagistic poet, yet in comparison 
with his Iranian counterpart, Abbās Kīyārustamī.
Abbās Kīyārustamī: The Iranian filmmaker-turned-poet
Unlike Cocteau who started his career with poetry, Kīyārustamī en-
tered the realm of art first as a painter and later on as a photogra-
pher and filmmaker. The prior experiences of Kīyārustamī, however, 
never distracted his artistic attention from the source of his cinematic 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
171
inspiration, that is, poetry. His interest in poetry, according to Godfrey 
Cheshire, goes back to his university years during the 1960s when 
“the Iranian version of modernist poetry reached a peak of iconoclasm 
and influence […] among the young, educated, and cosmopolitan” 
(Cheshire 11). Influenced by the innovative approach of this icono-
clasm, Kīyārustamī takes advantage of the flexible framework of the 
imported medium of cinema to promote his own stylistic innovation of 
Persian poetry. Concerning Kīyārustamī’s stylistic innovation, H 
˘
  ātereh
Šeybānī refers to “his aesthetics of simplicity” that, she thinks, results 
from his “tendency to look at the world with his specific gaze” (Šeybānī 
518). Indeed, Kīyārustamī, like all cinematographers, directs his spe-
cific gaze at the world with his camera’s help, but to show his simplistic 
aesthetics he needs to treat cinema as a text, thereby suggesting a poetic 
language for the medium of cinema to make its voice heard. According 
to Sārā Salğūqī, since “the history of Iranian cinema is deeply impli-
cated with literature and poetry,” Kīyārustamī’s intertextual approach 
to the poetic language of cinema can be innovative only if he “performs 
a remediation of the two media” of poetry and cinema (Salğūqī 521). 
By remediation, Salğūqī means how the medium of poetry functions 
within that of cinema, in which Kīyārustamī has been successful, from 
Šeybānī’s viewpoint, due to the expanded role of the camera in his 
poetic cinema.
According to Šeybānī, Kīyārustamī’s “camera functions as reveal-
ing fresh eyes clear and cleansed enough to grasp the reality that the 
audiences’ eyes failed to see before” (Šeybānī 512). Šeybānī’s com-
ment on the novel approach of Kīyārustamī’s camera corresponds 
to Oxenhandler’s inference about the differing outlook of Cocteau’s 
camera. As Oxenhandler argues, Cocteau’s camera “finds the unex-
pected angle” and becomes “part of the intimate life of the actors” who 
“Cocteau encourages […] to be the phantasms of the unconscious” 
(Oxenhandler 17). Indeed, the way Cocteau asks his actors to rely on 
their unconscious to play their parts is similar to Kīyārustamī’s method 
to impart his dialogues to his amateur actors. Kīyārustamī believes in 
“[o]n-the-spot creation of dialogue,” that is, to give the actors a few 
visual clues about the scene to help them improvise their dialogues 
(Kīyārustamī, “Taste”). The advantage of this method is engaging in a 
constructive dialogue with the actors, quite like the way in his cinepo-
ems he asks his reader to juxtapose the shots of his page-based movie. 
The reader’s role in creating Kīyārustamī’s visual imagery is what 
Michael Beard, his translator, certifies when he claims Kīyārustamī’s 
cinepoems “invite” the reader “to distinguish between photography 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
172
and the images of poetry” (see Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 10). Beard’s delib-
erate choice of the verb “invite” signifies Kīyārustamī’s cyclical strategy 
to engage in dialogue with his reader in the meaning-making process 
of his poem’s visual imagery. Involving the reader’s memory to keep in 
mind the cut-off shots of his imagery, Kīyārustamī offers his reader a 
make-believe adventure to not only recall his visual images while read-
ing but also organize them in the form of a well-plotted movie.
The expanded role of the reader is what Kīyārustamī perceives as the 
“untapped” potentials of Persian poetry, according to Ah.   mad Karīmī‐
H.   akkāk (Karīmī‐H.   akkāk 58). As a cinepoet, Kīyārustamī demonstrates 
the cinematic potentials of poetry by asking his moviegoer reader to 
grasp his final metaphor, which, as Karīmī‐H.   akkāk argues, implies 
“that of a poem as a single film frame and the book as a movie” (58). 
This metaphor indicates what Kīyārustamī employs while drafting his 
poems, that is, to treat each poem or image apiece as the single shot or 
the frame of his page-based movie. Although Karīmī‐H.   akkāk admits 
that Kīyārustamī “conceptualises poetry and film as ontologically one 
and the same,” he does not take pains to prove Kīyārustamī’s short 
poems as the epitome of Persian cinepoetry (58). Further, despite argu-
ing about Kīyārustamī’s association with Imagism, Karīmī‐H.   akkāk 
does not elaborate on the applicable tenets of Imagism in Kīyārustamī’s 
poems. His inference about Kīyārustamī’s Imagistic and cinematic 
perspective is, however, the cornerstone of this article to analyze 
Kīyārustamī’s selected cinepoems in comparison to those of his French 
counterpart, Cocteau, investigating what they have in common in the 
experimental genre of cinepoetry.
The rhetoric of Imagism in Cocteau’s selected cinepoems
Tempest of Stars (1997) is a collection of Cocteau’s cinepoems, selected 
and translated by Jeremy Reed whose “choice of the poems,” as he 
admits, is “idiosyncratic” (see Cocteau 5). Idiosyncrasy, Reed argues, 
is an inseparable part of Cocteau’s cinepoetry, inherited from “the 
splinter language, sense dissociations and syntactical disjunctions that 
characterise his early poetry” (5). To give a comprehensive account of 
the essential characteristics of Cocteau’s cinepoetry, Reed has economi-
cally—in an Imagistic way—selected those poems in which Cocteau 
adds a cinematic perspective to the rhetoric of Imagism. This cinematic 
adaption of Imagism serves to categorize Cocteau as an Imagistic cine-
poet, based on the principles of this modernist movement. For example, 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
173
one of these principles is the use of vernacular language along with the 
“[d]irect treatment of the ‘thing,’ whether subjective or objective” (Flint 
199). Considering this principle, since Cocteau uses plain, simple, and 
colloquial speech, his cinepoetry is an Imagistic exemplar of the com-
mon language verse. Moreover, the next Imagistic principle, illustrated 
in Cocteau’s cinepoetry, is the avoidance of “word[s] that [do] not con-
tribute to the presentation” of the poem’s imagery (Flint 199); this 
avoidance, in 1915 Imagist anthology’s preface, includes “vague gener-
alities” as well (Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology vii). Indeed, Cocteau, 
quite in favor of the direct treatment of imagery, is a non-descriptive 
poet who employs imposing language with eclectic and artistic clarity. 
In his practical application of Imagism’s principles, Cocteau elicits the 
comprehensive and ubiquitous concept of Symbolism, and, like other 
Imagistic poets, seeks refuge in the figurative meanings of his visual 
metaphors. The close reading of his metaphors calls to mind Pound’s 
statement that “an ‘Image’ is that which presents an intellectual and 
emotional complex in an instant of time” (Pound, “A Few” 200). 
Having this statement in mind while poring over Cocteau’s cinepoems, 
the reader realizes that each metaphor is equal to an image portraying a 
clear and direct perception of analogy. The following cinepoem crystal-
lizes this analogy in the reader’s mind:
The tracery of dog roses
is a truly mischievous ghost,
your boots are swallows
announcing thunder. (Cocteau 53)
In these lines, Cocteau refers to the correspondence of a feeling aroused 
by the instant glimpse of the etched windows of a derelict hut with a 
decorative interlacing of “dog roses.” He, in fact, portrays a spooky 
scene dating back to Gothic architecture in Paris. According to Amy 
Lowell, one characteristic of Imagistic poems is “[s]uggestion”; by sug-
gestion, Lowell means “the implying of something rather than the stat-
ing of it, implying it perhaps under a metaphor, perhaps in an even less 
obvious way” (Lowell 247). Regarding Lowell’s suggestion, in the ante-
rior poem, the image of “your boots are swallows” describes a sensation 
by possible implication, in which “swallow” is metaphorically adopted 
as the symbol for a departed soul (Cocteau 53). Beneath the surface 
layer of this metaphorical symbol, Cocteau is suggesting that the sound 
of the wanderer’s boot on the ground represents a ghost strolling and 
soaring around the abandoned shanty like a “swallow.” Likewise, by 
underscoring the emblem of thunder, a frightening occurrence beyond 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
174
human control, Cocteau suggests that death is an inseparable part of 
the natural order of the poem’s persona.
As illustrated above, Cocteau never employs “superfluous word […] 
which does not reveal something” (Pound, “A Few” 201), but imple-
ments the “exact words” that, he thinks, will carry his impression to 
his readers (206). When Cocteau presents such images as the “boots 
are swallows” and “[t]he tracery of dog roses,” there is no descriptive 
view in his presentation (Cocteau 53); in fact, drawing on Pound’s 
Imagistic prescription, Cocteau never wants his reader to “expect to be 
acclaimed […] until he [the reader] has discovered something” (Pound, 
“A Few” 204). Cocteau facilitates the reader’s process of discovery by 
shunning abstraction in his visual imagery, despite his economical word-
ing that insists on the direct and tangible presentation of images with 
the description as few as possible; for instance, he concretizes his image 
of an “abandoned hut” for his reader as part of his Imagistic strategy 
to avoid abstract images (Cocteau 53). Another example of such suc-
cinct description in the abovementioned cinepoem is the way Cocteau 
avoids presenting his Gothic deserted house with a horrific scene; he, 
instead, makes use of such visual images as “tracery of dog roses,” swal-
low-like “boots,” and the “thunder” to convey his horrific impression 
(53). In presenting his visual images, Cocteau seems to follow Richard 
Aldington’s hint about the “language of common speech,” by which 
he means “the exact word, not nearly exact, nor the merely decorative 
word” (Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology vi). The below-mentioned lines 
confirm Aldington’s hints on Cocteau’s common language:
Here, the red earth is antlered with vines
like a young roe-deer. The hung linen
breezily signals, welcomes the day. (Cocteau 15)
In this cinepoem, Cocteau intends to convey his subjective impression 
about the relationship between youth and love, so he cuts the whole 
idea down to the bone and condenses unnecessary words. Following 
Pound’s advice, he avoids “adjective, which does not reveal something” 
(Pound, “A Few” 201); however, such adjectives as “red” and “young,” 
he has selectively used, help visualize his authorial impression. Further, 
another principle mentioned in the 1916 Imagist anthology’s preface 
is that “[i]magists deal but little with similes, although much of their 
poetry is metaphorical” (Some Imagist Poets: An Annual Anthology vi). 
The logic behind this preferential treatment is that “while acknowledg-
ing the figure to be an integral part of all poetry, they [Imagists] feel that 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
175
the constant imposing of one figure upon another in the same poem 
blurs the central effect” (vi). Indeed, this Imagistic strategy is evident in 
Cocteau’s cinepoetic lines mentioned above where he is not merely jux-
taposing but superimposing the image of passionate love to a vineyard 
ornamented by red grapes. Carrying both emotional and intellectual 
forces in his cinepoem through associating the “red earth” and “young 
roe-dear,” Cocteau portrays the intensification of his love, energy, vigor, 
and excitement for his reader (Cocteau 15). In addition, one of the con-
tractual rights of Imagistic poet, according to 1915 anthology’s preface, 
is “absolute freedom in the choice of subject” (Some Imagist Poets: An 
Anthology vii). This freedom is exercised in Cocteau’s cinepoetry by, for 
example, visualizing the abstract image of love in light of the concrete 
image of roe-deer. This free choice of subject is under the influence 
of another Imagistic principle, that is, presenting concrete imagery to 
“produce poetry that is hard and clear” (vii). The hardness and clarity of 
Cocteau’s Imagistic cinepoetry can be traced in this stanza:
Tree, bird-bowl, Bengal light
between the islands.
The sun makes the city’s tramways sing.
The sky’s a sailor perched on the rooftops. (Cocteau 57)
In this single stanza, different Imagistic manifestos are crisply and cun-
ningly crammed. As Cocteau believes in concise and economical use 
of exact wording, he feels content with such visual images as “[t]ree,” 
“bird-bowl,” and “[b]engal light” to describe the setting of his short 
cinepoem. He presents his ideas without using marginal and super-
fluous words; his Imagistic strategy aims at conveying pure and un-
ambiguous impression to his reader by making the image of a new 
morning with a blue and cloudless sky in a hotel off the coast of an 
island in Paris. Cocteau’s imagery brings about an additional insight 
into his reader’s mood, thereby stimulating his writerly sensation. As 
a poet-filmmaker, he snaps spectacular shots from his surrounding 
world, based on his own sensation and impression, injecting them to 
his reader in the form of visual imagery. For example, in the anterior 
cinepoem, the reader sees the blue sky as a “sailor” sitting on the “roof-
tops”; the “sailor” represents an amorous lover and “rooftops” stand for 
peaceful life (57). These similes and metaphors reveal that Cocteau’s 
poetic world is admittedly a subjective one; his images are sharp, di-
rect, and to-the-point, never originated from an obsolete inspiration. 
Furthermore, his inspiration is never obsolete, for he follows Pound’s 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
176
advice to “keep the language efficient […] accurate, […] [and] clear” 
(Pound, ABC 32). The following stanza is the finest instance of such 
accuracy and clarity without the sanction of ambiguity:
Narcissus, drowned within himself,
doesn’t like the winter ice.
The English write verse
compact as the growth of their lawns;
often their swimming blazes like dragonflies
between two waters and two sheets;
and the swan that sleeps with its chin on its arm
is whiter than Swiss snow. (Cocteau 57)
To Cocteau, the flower of “[n]arcissus” not only portends the resurgence 
of spring but also personifies the human being whose face is “drowned 
within himself.” The resurgence of spring, according to Cocteau, occurs 
when the distorted roots of daffodils in winter recover in the spring, sig-
nifying revival and hope in the audience’s eyes. In this stanza, Cocteau, 
by presenting such images as “[n]arcissus, drowned within himself,” 
“their swimming blazes like dragonflies,” and “swan that sleeps with its 
chin on its arm,” portrays the momentary situations in which the reader 
is captivated and forced to stand still, observe, and ruminate (57). To 
gain a full exactitude, Cocteau formulates the style of precision, meta-
phor, and the economy of word. For instance, in such images as “the 
swan that sleeps with its chin on its arm / is whiter than Swiss snow” 
and “their swimming blazes like dragonflies / between two waters and 
two sheets,” (57) Cocteau exerts imagery amplifying the concreteness of 
his poetry. Another Imagistic viewpoint in this cinepoem is included in 
the selection of a proper image through which he directly goes to the 
point and the impression he proposes to the reader, that is, highly intel-
lectual. His purpose by doing so is to shun the ambiguity and vagueness 
of the sentimental enterprises; similarly, the strictness and aridity of his 
visual images are quite noticeable in the following stanza:
Flame, little goldfish of the Chinese lantern.
The orchestra’s below, and a wind off the islands
catches fire, bringing out redoubtable Lions
hidden in that fragile bowl. (57)
In these lines, Cocteau tries to pictorialize such images as “[f]lame,” 
“goldfish,” “Chinese lantern,” “a wind off the islands,” and “redoubt-
able Lions” for his reader without any explanation or description, for, 
he believes, images can express more than the language. What Cocteau 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
177
means is expressing by displaying because he believes the images can 
only carry what language cannot present. For example, by intersect-
ing the different senses of hearing in “orchestra’s below,” smell in 
“[f]lame,” and sight in “a wind […] [that] catches fire,” Cocteau sends 
multiple images to the reader’s mind to visualize his authorial impres-
sion. To reach that goal, Cocteau uses the language of the common 
speech in such a way that his reader surrenders his visual world to the 
world of Cocteau’s.
The rhetoric of Imagism in Kīyārustamī’s selected cinepoems
A Wolf Lying in Wait (2005) includes the haiku-like cinepoems of 
Kīyārustamī in response to the Imagistic trend of Persian poetry in 
translating words into visual images. Kīyārustamī’s success in the con-
tinuation of this trend is to the extent that, as Beard claims, while leaf-
ing through his cinepoems, the reader is “likely to forget altogether it is 
words rather than visual images” (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 11). The read-
er’s drowning in Kīyārustamī’s visual imagery indicates the power of 
“image” that the rhetoric of Imagism grants him. According to Pound, 
the image can give the reader a “sense of sudden liberation […] from 
time limits and space limits” (Pound, “A Few” 200). Such liberation 
in grasping the poet’s imagery is celebrated by the readers of all Iranian 
Imagistic poets; however, what distinguishes Kīyārustamī’s reader from 
that of those disciples of Imagism in Persian poetry is a cinematic aes-
thetic. This cinematic aesthetic helps the reader to visualize the blurred 
link between the distinctive and variant images of Kīyārustamī’s cinepo-
etry. With the aid of this aesthetic, the reader realizes that Kīyārustamī’s 
visual images do not share any thematic clue, and their out-of-order 
exhibition is part of the poet’s Imagistic strategy. In fact, Kīyārustamī 
is engaged in the pursuit of the Imagistic strategy Pound proposes for 
his followers to work like a scientist; Pound believes, an Imagistic poet, 
quite like a scientist, should first begin “by learning what has been 
discovered already” and then go “from that point onward” (Pound, 
“A Few” 204). Indeed, Kīyārustamī introduces the visual discoveries 
of his cinepoetry in an out-of-order exhibition so that the reader, in-
stead of looking for any thematic coherence between the images, takes 
time to discover Kīyārustamī’s poetic rhetoric. Kīyārustamī’s rhetoric, 
quite agreeable to the point of view of Imagism, categorizes him as an 
Imagistic poet, for, as Amy Lowell argues, “any one who writes poetry 
from the same point of view might be said to write Imagistic verse, 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
178
to be an Imagist” (Lowell 235). To prove Kīyārustamī’s cinepoetry as 
Imagistic verse, it is necessary to pore over the diction of his cinepoems 
according to the principles of Imagism.
At the top of the list Aldington creates as Imagism’s credo in the 
preface of Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology (1915), “the language of 
common speech” is introduced as the first principle (vi); such language, 
according to Lowell, “excludes inversions, and the clichés of the old 
poetic jargon” (Lowell 241). Inversion is what Kīyārustamī avoids in 
the structure of his cinepoems; for example, “I want a larger share / of 
my solitude / from you,” (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 36) and “I divine / the 
taste of heavenly fruits / from the dusty cucumbers of / the neighbour-
ing field” (43) are two haiku-like cinepoems in which Kīyārustamī has 
deliberately kept the word order of a declarative sentence. In the lat-
ter example, the comparison he makes between “heavenly fruits” and 
“dusty cucumbers” reveals his simplistic aesthetic in preferring a rural, 
corporeal pleasure over a utopian, spiritual one. He expresses this pref-
erence by employing “the exact word” which, “determined by the con-
tent,” as Lowell argues, is able to convey his visual “impression to the 
reader” (Lowell 242). Exactness, according to Lowell, can be assessed 
as the extent to which the poet’s chosen word “appears in relation to 
the whole” (242; emphasis added). This “whole” in Kīyārustamī’s cine-
poetry often refers to the long shot that he depicts for his reader via 
the visual imagery of his poem. Accordingly, the reader requires a pan-
oramic view of Kīyārustamī’s imagery to ascertain, for example, why he 
has chosen the color “golden” for the eyes of his fictional eagle:
Sunrise
reflected in the golden eyes
of an old eagle
perched on the carcass
of a white colt. (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 49)
In this cinepoem, the subtle point is that the golden color of the 
eagle’s eyes matches that of the sun, visualizing the same impression 
Kīyārustamī has received in watching that specific sunrise for his reader 
as well. Another example of Kīyārustamī’s exactness in choosing words 
quite visual in his reader’s mind is: “A blue mountain / a white poplar / 
jolts one awake / at the crack of dawn.” (53) Kīyārustamī’s reference to 
a specific species of poplar, “white poplar,” and, a mountainous region 
in Australia, Blue Mountains, is to visualize the shot of a spectacular 
dawn in winter. The panoramic view of this image, furthermore, is 
devoid of any clichés that, according to Lowell, are “so worn by use as 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
179
to convey no very distinct impression to the reader” (241). Indeed, the 
worn-out clichés of traditional poetry are scarce to find in the natu-
ral and original language of Kīyārustamī’s cinepoetry, for he pointedly 
avoids visual metaphors incomprehensible for his reader. His reliance 
on comprehensible metaphors asserts T. E. Hulme’s claim that “[v]
isual meanings can only be transferred by the new bowl of metaphor” 
(qtd. in Crisp 83). To transfer his visual meanings to the reader suc-
cessfully, Kīyārustamī attempts to be sufficiently persuasive in not only 
the diction but also the figurative language of his cinepoetry. Figurative 
language, due to the rhetorical emphasis of Imagism on “persua-
sion […] [as] an issue of comprehension,” needs to be comprehensible 
and plausible for the reader (Hamilton 474). Such comprehensibility 
and plausibility in Kīyārustamī’s cinepoetry are evident in the implicit 
comparisons he draws between his abstract and concrete images. For 
instance, the abstract image of “[a] mysterious dread brewing / inside 
an adobe hut” is accompanied by the concrete image of “[w]ild rue 
seeds in the fire” (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 63). The plausibility of this anal-
ogy between “dread” and “rue seeds” is up to the reader to grasp after 
linking the crackling of fire to the inner emotion of the poem’s perso-
na. As Pound asserts in his essay “Vorticism,” “every emotion and every 
phrase of emotion has some toneless phrase […] to express it” (463), 
so the reader, if desperate to hear the hushed tone of Kīyārustamī’s 
abstract image, must trace the concrete image coming in parallel with 
the abstract one. Another example of such parallel in Kīyārustamī’s 
imagery is the following cinepoem in which the concrete image helps 
the reader to visualize the abstract one:
The glow-worm:
the longest night of the year
The early morning exhaustion. (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 115)
In this poem, the reader, to conjure the abstract image of “exhaustion,” 
needs to visualize the concrete image of the presence of a “glow-worm” 
in “the longest night of the year.” Kīyārustamī’s Imagistic concise-
ness makes the reader identify the exhausted persona with the wakeful 
“glow-worm” avoiding sleep to grasp the beauty of a long night. This 
conciseness makes Kīyārustamī selective and, more importantly, “cre-
ative” in his choice of concrete images; being “creative” is what Pound 
suggests in writing Imagistic poems (Pound, “Vorticism” 464). Pound 
contends that the Imagistic poet “must use his image because he sees it 
or feels it, not because he thinks he can use it to back up some creed or 
some system of ethics or economics” (464). Indeed, Kīyārustamī’s selec-
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
180
tive choice of image is not because of his blind adherence to Imagism’s 
creeds but because of his insistence on depicting the concrete images 
that, he thinks, will facilitate the reader’s comprehension of the abstract 
ones. Yet, what hinders this comprehension is the “creative” role he as-
signs for his reader, drawing on Pound’s ideas, to explore the relations 
of the poem’s images. As Pound argues, “[a]ll poetic language is the 
language of exploration” (466); however, in Imagistic poetry, this ex-
ploration is not carried out for the meanings of an image. For, accord-
ing to Pound, “[t]he image is itself the speech,” self-contained enough 
to convey its meanings and independent of the reader’s exploration 
for finding its underlying meanings (466). Similarly, in Kīyārustamī’s 
cinepoetry, this self-containedness and independence of images are im-
plicitly acknowledged in the rhetorical questions the reader is asked to 
visualize the aesthetic of the poet’s imagery. For instance, Kīyārustamī 
asks his reader, “[w]hat is the meaning of / the seashore / next to the 
fear of the waves” (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 127); the addressed reader, 
after visualizing this image of “seashore” besides “waves,” realizes the 
futility of Kīyārustamī’s question. Reminding his reader that there 
could be no meaning outside his poem’s imagery, Kīyārustamī asserts 
Pound’s claim that “[t]he image is the word beyond formulated lan-
guage” (Pound, “Vorticism” 466). Another example of Kīyārustamī’s 
rhetorical questions is the following cinepoem:
Who can guess
the taste of a cherry
which is half yellow
and half red? (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 138)
In this Imagistic piece, Kīyārustamī displays not only the independence 
of his imagery from the reader’s perception but also the necessity of 
such perception in agreement with that of the poem’s persona. Such 
agreement between the perception of persona and reader is reached in 
the pursuit of Pound’s advice not to “mess up the perception of one 
sense by trying to define it in terms of another” (Pound, “A Few” 206). 
Indeed, in the above-mentioned cinepoem, Kīyārustamī insists that the 
gustatory imagery of the cherry cannot be grasped by the reader who 
has never tasted one. Never taking pains to depict a mental picture 
for his reader to visualize such gustatory imagery, Kīyārustamī accepts 
Pound’s restriction on being “viewy” and “descriptive” (Pound, “A 
Few” 203); by this restriction, Pound means that the comprehension 
of the visual aesthetic of the poet’s imagery ought to be left to the 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
181
reader. This delegation of responsibility in visualizing the link between 
the poem’s concrete images emblematizes another characteristic of 
Imagistic poetry that, according to Peter Crisp, “tending toward statis” 
(Crisp 82). Such tendency, Crisp argues, is due to the poem’s lack of 
“action inducing a change in a person or object” (82). Crisp’s hypoth-
esis about the static display of visual images ignores the reader’s cre-
ative role in animating and advancing the poem’s imagery. However, 
in Kīyārustamī’s cinepoetry, the reader’s role in exploring the relation 
between the poem’s static images is of great significance. This cinepoem 
shows this well:
A hungry wolf
in the snow
the sheep
sleeping in the pen,
a sheep dog
guarding the door. (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 171)
Three static images of a “hungry wolf,” a sleeping “sheep,” and a guard 
“dog” need to be animated by the reader to construct the simple plot 
of the poem’s imagery. Confirming Crisp’s hypothesis, this cinepoem 
snaps three individual shots, the exploration of their relationship is, 
however, left to the reader. Kīyārustamī’s dependence on his reader’s 
exploration affirms Lowell’s belief that Imagism “refers more to the 
manner of presentation than to the thing presented” (Lowell 244). This 
manner of presentation, Lowell argues, requires the reader’s active role 
to accompany the Imagistic poet in conveying the overall mood of his 
poem. According to Lowell, this overall mood should not be ruined by 
“high-sounding, artificial generalities which convey no exact impres-
sion” (245). Similarly, in Kīyārustamī’s cinepoetry, generality is often 
rejected in favor of the particularity of the focus of his camera. The fol-
lowing cinepoem illustrates how the eyes of Kīyārustamī’s persona give 
a close-up view of the poem’s image:
I dip my face
Into the cool spring water
Keeping my eyes open:
Ten little pebbles. (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 90)
In this poem, the persona’s eyes represent Kīyārustamī’s camera that, 
whether giving a panoramic or close-up view, requests the pleasure of 
the reader’s company. Such Imagistic poems, Flemming Olsen argues, 
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
182
“describe momentary situations, and their images capture the reader’s 
attention, forcing him to stop and reflect” (Olsen 15). One example 
of these momentary situations, in the anterior poem, is the brief pause 
of Kīyārustamī’s camera to display a close-up view of a few pebbles, 
thereby causing a moment of hesitation for the reader. Finding the 
poet’s camera an “unobtrusive recorder,” (14) the reader realizes that 
Kīyārustamī’s “choice of subject is nothing out of the ordinary” (Olsen 
17). Although Kīyārustamī has “absolute freedom in the choice of sub-
ject,” according to Imagism’s basic principles, he chooses the rural set-
ting of his homeland to reinforce his natural, inartificial language (Some 
Imagist Poets: An Anthology vii). This homeland, now that Kīyārustamī 
as an adult has returned to, has no longer the rural and simplistic aes-
thetic of his childhood. He, through the honest voice of his persona, 
admits “[w]hen I returned to my birthplace / the river had become 
a stream / and no children / were bathing in it”; he continues in the 
next poem that “I find [sic] my childhood playground / occupied / by 
iron girders and quicklime” (Kīyārustamī, A Wolf 93). Although the 
passage of time has detracted from the rustic beauty of his homeland, 
Kīyārustamī vividly remembers the rusticity manifested in the modest 
lifestyle and simplistic perspective of rural people. Fully aware of the 
timeless beauty of his homeland, he declares in a poem: “[i]n my iden-
tity card / there is a photo / that attests / to the passage of time” (138). 
Indeed, inside Kīyārustamī’s identity card his homeland has inscribed 
the “[s]implicity and directness of speech” that, according to Lowell, 
can be detected in all Imagistic poems (Lowell 246). Such simplicity 
that Kīyārustamī has definitely learned from the rural context of child-
hood, in his cinepoetry, as well as his poetic cinema, is also narrated 
from a child’s perspective.
Conclusion
According to Pound, “that part of [Imagistic] poetry which strikes 
upon the imaginative eye of the reader will lose nothing by translation 
into a foreign tongue” (Pound, “A Few” 205). Pound’s claim about 
the adaptability of Imagism’s principles among different languages 
refers to the import-export trade of world literatures relying on the 
intermediary role of translation. Central to the comparative analysis of 
this article is the affirmation of Pound’s claim about the adaptability of 
the tenets of Imagism across time and place in analyzing the cinepoetic 
experimentations of two poet-filmmakers, namely Jean Cocteau and 
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
183
Abbās Kīyārustamī, with the ideas of Imagism to prove them to be the 
epitomes of Imagistic cinepoetry in their national literatures, respec-
tively French and Persian. The step-by-step approach of these poet-
filmmakers to the experimental genre of cinepoetry reveals the two-
fold aesthetic of this genre that requires a cinema-goer reader quite fa-
miliar with the interconnections of cinema and poetry. With the aid of 
translation, the alien readers of these two cinepoets have two English 
page-based movies in front of them sharing many Imagistic strategies. 
Among the common Imagistic strategies of Cocteau and Kīyārustamī 
are economical wording and phrasing, cinematic adaptation of visual 
imagery, austerity and clarity of vision, the poetic prerogative of sub-
ject matter, avoidance of vague and ambiguous description, and writ-
erly approach to the poem’s rhetoric. For example, the economy of 
word is what Cocteau and Kīyārustamī adhere to while presenting the 
visual images of their cinepoems. In fact, the filmmaking profession 
of these poets makes them feel content with the original recordings 
of their camera; similarly, they make their readers dependent on the 
camera’s presence at the scene to give concise and precise descriptions 
of their imagery. Since one of the Imagistic strategies of these cine-
poets is designed to avoid abstract and contrived images, whenever 
the poet’s camera captures the persona obsessed with innermost and 
private feelings, there is a concrete metaphor for this abstract image 
to help the reader identify with the persona. The active and creative 
role of the reader is what Cocteau and Kīyārustamī emphasize to fill in 
the gap between their abstract and concrete images so that the reader 
will have a comprehensive view of the poem’s visual imagery, thereby 
receiving the authorial impression of the cinepoet. Both Cocteau and 
Kīyārustamī avoid using descriptive words and phrases, which hinder 
the direct treatment of the subject matter; for example, their careful 
selection of adjective and adverb clauses is part of their cinematic aes-
thetic to evoke a particular image in the reader’s mind. In promot-
ing the reader’s creative engagement, the rhetoric of Imagism helps 
these poet-filmmakers to pursue a writerly approach to the diction 
of their short cinepoems. Indeed, the dictions of both Cocteau and 
Kīyārustamī are persuasive enough to accompany the reader to reach 
this Imagistic conclusion that there is no meaning outside the visual 
imagery of the poem.
PKn, letnik 45, št. 2, Ljubljana, avgust 2022
184
WORKS CITED
Cheshire, Godfrey. “How to Read Kiarostami.” Cineaste 25.4 (2000): 8–15.
Cocteau, Jean. Tempest of Stars: selected poems. Trans. Jeremy Reed. London: 
Enitharmon Press, 1992.
Crisp, Peter. “Imagism’s Metaphors—a Test Case.” Language and Literature 5.2 
(1996): 79–92.
Evans, Arthur. Jean Cocteau and His Films of Orphic Identity. Philadelphia, PA: Art 
Alliance Press, 1977.
Flint, Frank Stewart. “Imagisme.” Poetry 1.6 (1913): 198–200.
Hamilton, Craig A. “Toward a Cognitive Rhetoric of Imagism.” Style 38.4 (2004): 
468–490.
KarīmīHakkāk, Ahmad. “Contemporary Trends in Persian Poetry.” Wasafiri 18.38 
(2003): 56–60.
Kīyārustamī, Abbās. “Taste of Kiarostami.” Interview by David Sterritt. Senses of 
Cinema 9 (2000). Web. <https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/abbas-kiar-
ostami-remembered/kiarostami-2/>.
Kīyārustamī, Abbās. A Wolf Lying in Wait. Trans. Karīm Emāmī and Michael Beard. 
Tehran: Sokan Publishers, 2005.
Kong, Ying. “Cinematic Techniques in Modernist Poetry.” Literature/Film Quarterly 
33.1 (2005): 28–40.
Lowell, Amy. Tendencies in Modern American Poetry. New York, NY: The Macmillan 
Company, 1920.
Neame, Alan. “From Léone to Bergotte.” French Studies 13.2 (1959): 146–153.
Olsen, Flemming. Between Positivism and T.S. Eliot: imagism and T.E. Hulme. 
Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2008.
Oxenhandler, Neal. “Poetry in Three Films of Jean Cocteau.” Yale French Studies 17 
(1956): 14–20.
Pound, Ezra. ABC of Reading. London: Faber & Faber, 1961.
Pound, Ezra. “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste.” Poetry 1.6 (1913): 200–206.
Pound, Ezra. “Vorticism.” Fortnightly 96.573 (1914): 461–471.
Salğūqī, Sārā. “Seeing, Iranian Style: women and collective vision in Abbas Kiarostami’s 
Shirin.” Iranian Studies 45.4 (2012): 519–535.
Šeybānī, Hātereh. “Kiarostami and the Aesthetics of Modern Persian Poetry.” Iranian 
studies 39.4 (2006): 509–537.
Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915.
Some Imagist Poets: An Annual Anthology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 
1916.
Wall-Romana, Christophe. Cinepoetry: Imaginary cinemas in French poetry. New York, 
NY: Fordham University Press, 2013.
Wu, Pei-lin. “Dying to Be Immortal: Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy.” Concentric: 
Literary and Cultural Studies 42.1 (2016): 193–208.
Mohamad Mosavat, Faezeh Mohajeri:     The Rhetoric of Imagism in the Cinepoetry of Jean Cocteau  …
185
Retorika imagizma v filmski poetiki Jeana Cocteauja 
in Abbāsa Kīyārustamīja: primerjalna študija
Ključne besede: literatura in film / intermedialnost / francoska poezija / perzijska 
poezija / Cocteau, Jean / Kiarostami, Abbas / filmska poetika / imagizem
Članek preučuje skupna imagistična načela dveh filmskih ustvarjalcev-pesni-
kov v eksperimentalnem žanru poetičnega filma. Po eni strani francoski pesnik, 
ki je postal filmski ustvarjalec, Jean Cocteau, uteleša imagistični eksperiment 
francoskega cineasta, ki preizkuša narativni okvir poezije, da bi ustvaril film 
“na podlagi strani.” Po drugi strani je iranski pesniško-filmski ustvarjalec, 
Abbās Kīyārustamī, s tem ko ustvarja vizualne podobe, močno odvisne od 
bralčevega ustvarjalnega angažmaja, tipičen primer filmske estetike v perzij-
ski moderni poeziji. Retorika imagizma, tega kratkotrajnega modernističnega 
gibanja z začetka dvajsetega stoletja, je tisto, kar oba filmska ustvarjalca-pesnika 
na podoben način vključujeta v svoje filmsko-poetične študijske primere, 
kot sta Tempest of Stars (1997) J. Cocteauja in A Wolf Lying in Wait (2005) 
A. Kīyārustamīja. Članek s primerjalnim pristopom k njunim skupnim imagi-
stičnim osnovam, kot so ekonomičnost besedila in fraziranja, kinematografska 
prilagoditev vizualnih podob, strogost in jasnost vizije, pesniška interpretacija 
vsebine, izogibanje nejasnim in dvoumnim opisom ter pisateljski pristop k 
retoriki pesmi, dokaže, da J. Cocteau in A. Kīyārustamī poosebljata imagi-
stično filmsko poezijo v francoski in perzijski literaturi.
1.01 Izvirni znanstveni članek / Original scientific article
UDK  82.02-1:791 
821.133.1.09-1Cocteau J. 
821.221.1.09-1Kiarostami A.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/pkn.v45.i2.10