John Gould Fletcher

John Gould Fletcher (1886-1950) was a Pulitzer Prize winning Imagist poet and author.

John Gould Fletcher was born on 3 January 1886 at Little Rock, Arkansas. Educated at Harvard University from 1903 to 1907.

He lived in England for a large portion of his life. While in Europe he associated with Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and other Imagist poets, enjoying the vibrant social scene.

His works include Irradiations: Sand and Spray (1915), Goblins and Pagodas (1916).

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 in 1939, and The Burning Mountain (1946).

Fletcher returned to his home in Arkansas and reconnected with his roots. The subject of his works turned increasingly towards Southern issues and Traditionalism.

In the late 1920s and 1930s he was active with a group of 11 other 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 Modernism and Industrialism.

On 18 January 1936 he married noted children's author Charlie May Simon.

In 1937 he wrote his autobiography, Life is My Song.

In 1947 Fletcher published Arkansas, a beautifully written history of his home state.

Fletcher suffered from depression and on 20 May 1950 committed suicide by drowning in a pond near his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fletcher is buried at historic Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock.