IN A STATION OF THE METRO
by
Ezra Pound
by
Ezra Pound
"In a Station of the Metro" is an Imagist poem by Ezra Pound published in 1913 in Poetry The poem attempts to describe Pound's experience upon visiting an underground metro station in Paris in 1912, and Pound suggested that the faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with a deion but with an "equation". Because of the treatment of the subject's appearance by way of the poem's own visuality , it is considered a quintessential Imagist text. The poem was reprinted in Pound's collection Lustra in 1917, and again in the 1926 anthology Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound , which compiled his early pre-Hugh Selwyn Mauberley works.
The poem
The poem contains only fourteen words, further exemplifying Imagism's precise economy of language. Pound was influential in the creation of Imagist poetry until he left the movement to embrace Vorticism in 1914. Pound, though briefly, embraced Imagism stating that it was an important step away from the verbose style of Victorian literature and suggested that it "is the sort of American stuff I can show here in Paris without its being ridiculed". "In a Station at the Metro" is an early work of Modernist poetry as it attempts to "break from the pentameter", incorporates the use of visual spacing as a poetic device, and contains not a single verb.
Text
IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Analysis
The poem was first published in 1913 and is considered one of the leading poems of the Imagist tradition. Written in a Japanese haiku style, Pound’s process of deletion from thirty lines to only fourteen words typifies Imagism’s focus on economy of language, precision of imagery and experimenting with non-traditional verse forms. The poem is Pound’s written equivalent for the moment of revelation and intense emotion he felt at the Metro at La Concorde, Paris. Pound explains in his artic value.
The poem is essentially a set of images that have unexpected likeness and convey the rare emotion that Pound was experiencing at that time. Arguably the heart of the poem is not the first line, nor the second, but the mental process that links the two together. "In a poem of this sort," as Pound explained, "one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective." This darting takes place between the first and second lines. The pivotal semi-colon has stirred debate as to whether the first line is in fact subordinate to the second or both lines are of equal, independent importance. Pound contrasts the factual, mundane image that he actually witnessed with a phor from nature and thus infuses this “apparition” with visual beauty. There is a quick transition from the statement of the first line to the second line’s vivid phor; this ‘super-pository’ technique exemplifies the Japanese haiku style. The word “apparition” is considered crucial as it evokes a mystical and supernatural sense of imprecision which is then reinforced by the phor of the second line. The plosive word ‘Petals’ conjures ideas of delicate, feminine beauty which contrasts with the bleakness of the ‘wet, black bough’. What the poem signifies is questionable; many critics argue that it deliberately transcends traditional form and therefore its meaning is solely found in its technique as opposed to in its content. However when Pound had the inspiration to write this poem few of these considerations came into view. He simply wished to translate his perception of beauty in the midst of ugliness into a single, perfect image in written form.
It is also worth noting that the number of words in the poem (fourteen) is the same as the number of lines in a sonnet. The words are distributed with eight in the first line and six in the second, mirroring the octet-sestet form of the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet.
Another analysis
The short poem “In a Station of the Metro” is an example of Pound's artistic theory of Imagism, which he advocated for a brief while in his career and which had a lasting impact on his writing and modern poetry. During his time in London, just before World War I, Pound developed a theory of poetry, which he termed Imagism, that stripped away the rhetorical excesses and vagueness that he believed obscured so much of contemporary poetry. In their places he advocated precise, careful presentation of specific images accurately rendered. Although Pound would later move beyond this rather limited concept, he retained the essential parts of it, and many of the passages in the Cantos are basically Imagist in their style.
An Imagist poem, by the very definition of the term, was brief. Seldom has the concision been carried so far as Pound's 1913 verse, “In a Station of the Metro,” which consists of only two lines. The poem appears to be a translation of some Japanese haiku, and while Pound was undoubtably influenced by that tradition, his poem was completely original.
He has left a deion of how he composed it. One evening, while coming out of the London subway (the “metro” of the title), Pound was struck by the sight of a beautiful face, then another and yet another. Seeking to express this experience, he began writing a poem which ran to thirty-two lines. After much paring and revision, he finally achieved the image and effect he sought: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/ petals on a wet, black bough.”
Although at first reading the poem seems to be about very little (and even that little is mysterious), a second glance shows how well it fits into Pound's theory of imagism and just how Imagism works. To begin with, there is the single image, designed in this case to reproduce an experience not literally but emotionally and psychologically. Further, the image is presented in a specific literary form, the phor, recognized since ancient Greece as one of the most powerful devices of poetry. Aristotle, for example, termed the proper use of phor the supreme test of a writer. This use of phor is worth noting, because Pound is often considered a poet who rejected past conventions and techniques. Actually, he delighted in the poetic devices and scorned only their inferior use.
In keeping with Imagist theory, the words in the poem are, with one significant exception, concrete and specific: “faces,” “crowd,” “petals,” and “bough” are all common English nouns, strung together in conventional English syntax. The two adjectives, “wet” and “black,” are hardly unusual, and are just the sort of precise words to modify a noun such as “bough.” Moreover, the phor is logical: Beautiful faces seen against a rainy London evening are like flower petals on a dark, wet branch. Through a careful selection of relevant images, Pound has re-created for the reader the effect impressed upon him that night.
The one word that is not a concrete noun is “apparition,” and its unusual nature is highlighted by its placement at the beginning of the poem. By using this word, suggestive of ghostly sightings or supernatural experiences, and linking it with a string of commonplace nouns and modifiers, Pound is again re-creating what happened and what he experienced: a seemingly ordinary climb up a flight of subway stairs that turned into a vision.
In only two lines and fourteen words, Pound managed to re-create an entire experience by careful use of a specific image. A brief poem has been made to carry more emotional and psychological weight than Pound's contemporaries would have thought possible. His poetic successors would find the techniques used here essential in writing the poetry of the rest of the twentieth century.
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