In the Station of a Metro Analysis
“In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound is a very simple yet symbolic poem. “The
apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” In this fourteen word
poem, Pound manages to capture the reader’s attention while creating a vivid image of this scene
in the reader’s mind. Through his writing, he challenges all former types of poem structures,
including the Petrarchan poem. By changing the standard from fourteen lines to fourteen words,
Pound clearly shows his simplicity and brilliance through the dichotomy he presents. Rather than
base our beliefs on things that are not really tangible, one should look at things through a more
realistic perspective because it is more rational to believe things that can actually be seen and
obtained.
In the first part of the poem, Pound uses the word apparition which means a ghost or
ghostlike image of a person. To take it further, we could use it as a metaphor of how the
apparition of the faces stands for unreality. This part of the poem is the portion in which things
are unrealistic. You can’t exactly define the image in which he wants you to create with the
apparition of the faces.
In the poem, Ezra Pound has a good use of metaphors such as he refers the people’s faces
as petals in the second portion of the poem. These petals are representations of beauty, light, and
the realistic view of the picture. As for the black bough represents the rain in the black concrete,
which translates to this dirty dark place, were there is nothing but a blob of obscurity. There for
when Pound says “Petals on a wet black bought” he is referring to these beautiful petals (people
faces) as the light and the beauty of the gray and dull black bough (black concrete).
If we look further into Ezra Pound’s poem, we see a very unique sentence structure. In
reality, this poem could not even be considered a sentence. In order to have a sentence that
expresses a complete thought, you must have a verb, and this poem does not include one at all.
Rather, the first and second halves of the poem are considered fragments. This omission of verbs
is okay because Pound is trying to create an image more than express an action. If we look at a
Petrarchan poem, it includes fourteen lines. We can see Ezra Pound stepping out of that norm by
transforming it from fourteen lines to fourteen words, but we can consider this Pound’s basic
structure in a more concise manner. Another syntax structure that would fit well with the story is
antithesis. Antithesis occurs when there is a contrasting sense. In this poem, the contrasting sense
would be between the intangible things such as the “apparition of faces” versus those things that
are tangible which would be the “petals on a wet black bough.” The intangible fragment is given
first followed by the tangible fragment. These two fragments are separated by a semicolon, and
after the semicolon is when the transformation to reality is made.