Imagism
The Imagist Movement began in the United Kingdom and in the United States in the early 20th century. The poets did not all follow a fixed metrical pattern in which they wrote their poems with. Imagist poetry used clear and precise imagery to paint a picture. T. E. Hulme in 1908 proposed to London"s Poet Club Imagism that described that poets had to be very precise and nothing less to accurately present a picture in the mind or an actual painting. Imagism was a reaction to Romanticism against its abstractness and its less precise thinking. Ezra Pound initiated the movement officially when he read a poem by HIlda Doolittle, signed it "H.D. Imagiste" and sent it to a poetry club. He and other poets aimed to replace abstract literary devices with precise descriptions and details. Imagists such as F.S. Flint had a note on a poem with which he said Imagist poetry should use no words that have no meaning or do not contribute to the overall gist of the poem.
IN a Station of the metro
Poem Analysis
In this very short Haiku poem that is also a metaphor, Pound compares the ghostly or fading faces of people in a subway crowd to wet petals of a flower on a tree branch at night. This very much correlates to how Imagist poets wrote their poems, very precise, to the point, and without any unnecessary words. Pound probably describe the faces as as an apparition due to there being so many faces that each passing face seems to look like a ghostly figure. The large amount of faces may also seem ghostly due to many appearing to him and then disappearing all of a sudden. Pound in the poem does not use the words "look like" and just puts the next phrase at the bottom of the first. This might be due to his movement's syntax where any words not essentially needed are not used. When he says that their faces are like a wet and black tree branch you can see in your mind the desolate looking flowers on an old tree branch with a 40 degree late spring day setting with clouds on the horizon and the moon in the background. A bleak and depressing feeling comes to mind when thinking of the flowers in this setting and the people in a subway station about to board a train home late on a rainy and late day. Pound though may just be admiring nature while saying or writing these lines. He may try to be relating the faces with something in nature to relax with after a long tiring day at the city. |
Literary Devices
Metaphor- The poem, "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough." is a metaphor in itself comparing the faces at the station with the petals of the flowers. Alliteration- "Black bough" is an alliteration due to the repetition of the "b" consonant sound Imagery- He describes the tree branch as wet and black which creates a sensory image Allusion-The title even though not technically part of the poem adds importing details to the poem due to it only being two lines long. The metro station in which he refers to the Concorde Station of the Paris Metro system. |