Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" and the Imagist manifesto

Option 2

16 April 2018

Literary movements are very similar to connoisseurs, they move by the sense of taste. Being a peculiar feature, taste can both stay static or change over time. Indeed, the palate within the literary and the gastronomic individual is similar. To many it is a matter the deals with the person’s “taste buds” but to me the anatomic comparison extends. Hidden is the paramount importance of smell, because without this ability the sense of taste becomes seemingly lost.

Digressing from what seems to have been a tangent, Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is a poem that conforms to the Imagist manifesto. To briefly enumerate Amy Towell’s list “On Imagism” from Tendencies in Modern American Poetry:

1. Use “language of common speech” and the exact words to describe an event while avoiding clichés (9-10).
2. New rhythms are used contrary to past usages (9-10).
3. There is an “absolute freedom in choice of subject” (9-10).
4. Imagism as the title suggests focuses on showing an image (9, 11).
5. Make concrete and clear poetry (9, 11).
6. Concentration on a subject is vital to poetry (9, 11).
7. Suggestion created by implications (12).

These seven points are key in helping discover and categorize any Imagist poetry, in theory. So, using a standard is great but one should always keep in mind that there will still be some sort of malleability. Not all features have to be exact.

To begin with using this structure in Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” (#1) states of regular language usage known to the general public which would be checked yes. Words like “apparition,” “faces,” “petals,” and “bough” do not steer away from common usage. There are also no clichés and there is a distinct impression given to the reader by the seeming shift from a societal view to one of nature in the poem (12). The impressions are used to convey the right impression and feeling to the reader (12). This feeling is ambiguous with the choice of word “apparition” giving the perception of something that comes from nowhere and yet it is contrary to what one would expect in a metro. Faces of different people coming would be common. “Apparition” also has a double meaning of also relating to ghosts. This however seems to be of no major correlation to the poem. New rhythms (#2) also states of continuous free-verse usage in Imagist works. This meaning it is free of metrical patterns or rhythms and which would also apply to Pound’s poem. Here is what I thought to be first of a form of iamb meter and with the second line being the inverse of the first line. Bold letters being stressed and unbold unstressed.

The ap | pari | tion of | these faces | in the | crowd;

Petals | on a | wet, black | bough.

As can be seen the meter is off towards the end by one syllable and the two lines do not end in a rhyme. As for the next idea of subjects (#3) as stated, “Old, new, actual, literary, anything which excites the creative faculty in the individual poet, is permissible;” in Imagist poetry (10). Check. Imagism (#4) is then described as “a clear presentation of whatever the author wishes to convey” (11). This one not fitting exactly in since the representation of what the author wishes to convey is in part of great importance to the title. Without it the interpretation of the poem can go many ways. This significance goes more with (#7) suggestions and implications since with the title interpretations can be focused and based on a subway type setting. This would be difficult to do if say there was no title and the title used was the first line of the poem. Making of concrete poetry (#5) is to make the images more solid than blurry as explained by Towell, “That is why, although so many Imagist poetry is metaphorical, similes are sparingly used” (11). Check. Pound uses concrete and metaphorical images indeed. The “faces in the crowd” being “Petals on a wet, black bough” (12). Finally is concentration (#6), which I would say is of great importance to the poem. The point of concentration is of knowing to stay on a subject and knowing when to stop (11).

Ezra Pound does so by knowing the variable knowledge of people and their possible experiences in a subway. There is no need to elaborate and explain any more of setting the title is enough. The taste acquired by one's "taste buds" says it is just about a given event that has many faces compounded together by a substance. The metaphor of the wet bough possibly being water and that of those in the metro possibly being work itself as the adhesive. The faces in the crowd are distinct and contrast directly with the dark "black" background of the branch. Each petal has its different distinct features but it is hard to tell or admire because of the glued claustrophobic feeling of many petals. The taste says something but there is a smell that says there is more. Indeed, try to eat blindfolded while holding your nose. The taste goes away. In writing there too is a sense away from having to touch or feel, this sense is given and felt similar to what the Imagists believe of "'one must feel it."' Ezra Pound's poem feels Imagist, I am sure of it.