The American poet Ezra Pound was introduced to the group in April 1909 and found that their ideas were close to his own . In particular , Pound 's studies of Romantic literature had led him to an admiration of the condensed , direct expression that he detected in the writings of Arnaut Daniel , Dante , and Guido Cavalcanti , amongst others . For example , in his 1911 – 12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris , Pound writes of Daniel 's line " pensar de lieis m 'es repaus " ( " it rests me to think of her " ) ( from the canzone En breu brizara 'l temps braus ) : " You cannot get statement simpler than that , or clearer , or less rhetorical " . These criteria of directness , clarity and lack of rhetoric were to be amongst the defining qualities of Imagist poetry . Through his friendship with Laurence Binyon , Pound had already developed an interest in Japanese art by examining Nishiki @-@ e prints at the British Museum , and he quickly became absorbed in the study of related Japanese verse forms .