In a Station of the Metro

Last updated

"In a Station of the Metro" is an Imagist poem by Ezra Pound published in April 1913 [1] in the literary magazine Poetry . [2] In the poem, Pound describes a moment in the underground metro station in Paris in 1912; he suggested that the faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with a description 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. [3]

Contents

It is sometimes considered to be the first haiku published in English, [1] though it lacks the traditional 3-line, 17-syllable structure of haiku.

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

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

The poem contains only fourteen words (without a verb therein—making it a good example of the verbless poetry form). [4]

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". [5] "In a Station of 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 does not contain any verbs. [3] The work originally appeared with different spacing between the groups of words. This can be found in the on-line version of Poetry magazine for April 1913.

Analysis

The poem was first published in 1913 and is considered one of the leading poems of the Imagist tradition. Pound's process of deletion from thirty lines [6] 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 Paris Metro's Concorde station. [7]

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." [8]

Richard Aldington posited that Pound may have been inspired by this ukiyo-e print he saw in the British Library.
Woman Admiring Plum Blossoms at Night, Suzuki Harunobu, 18th century Suzuki Harunobu - Woman Admiring Plum Blossoms at Night.jpg
Richard Aldington posited that Pound may have been inspired by this ukiyo-e print he saw in the British Library.
Woman Admiring Plum Blossoms at Night, Suzuki Harunobu, 18th century

Like other modernist artists of the period, Pound found inspiration in Japanese art, but the tendency was to re-make and to meld cultural styles rather than to copy directly or slavishly. He may have been inspired by a Suzuki Harunobu print he almost certainly saw in the British Library (Richard Aldington mentions the specific prints he matched to verse), and probably attempted to write haiku-like verse during this period. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French vers libre form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.

<i>Haiku</i> Japanese poetry form

Haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a kireji, or "cutting word"; and a kigo, or seasonal reference. Similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryū.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezra Pound</span> American poet and critic (1885–1972)

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imagism</span> 20th-century poetry movement

Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H.D.</span> American poet and novelist (1886–1961)

Hilda Doolittle was an American modernist poet, novelist, and memoirist who wrote under the name H.D. throughout her life. Her career began in 1911 after she moved to London and co-founded the avant-garde Imagist group of poets with American expatriate poet and critic Ezra Pound. During this early period, her minimalist free verse poems depicting Classical motifs drew international attention. Eventually distancing herself from the Imagist movement, she experimented with a wider variety of forms, including fiction, memoir, and verse drama. Profoundly affected by her experiences in London during the Blitz, H.D.'s poetic style from World War II until her death pivoted towards complex long poems on esoteric and pacifist themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Lowell</span> American poet

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

Modernist poetry in English started in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional formalism and ornate diction. In many respects, their criticism echoes what William Wordsworth wrote in Preface to Lyrical Ballads to instigate the Romantic movement in British poetry over a century earlier, criticising the gauche and pompous school which then pervaded, and seeking to bring poetry to the layman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Gould Fletcher</span> American writer

John Gould Fletcher was an Imagist poet, author and authority on modern painting. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to a socially prominent family. After attending Phillips Academy, Andover, Fletcher went on to Harvard University from 1903 to 1907, but dropped out shortly after his father's death.

The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. They were mainly American and were influenced by, among others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. The basic tenets of objectivist poetics as defined by Louis Zukofsky were to treat the poem as an object, and to emphasize sincerity, intelligence, and the poet's ability to look clearly at the world. While the name of the group is similar to Ayn Rand's school of philosophy, the two movements are not affiliated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concorde (Paris Métro)</span>

Concorde is a station on Line 1, Line 8 and Line 12 of the Paris Métro. Serving the Place de la Concorde in central Paris, it is located in the 1st arrondissement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. E. Hulme</span> English poet

Thomas Ernest Hulme was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism. He was an aesthetic philosopher and the 'father of imagism'.

Frank Stuart Flint was an English poet and translator who was a prominent member of the Imagist group. Ford Madox Ford called him "one of the greatest men and one of the beautiful spirits of the country".

Skipwith Cannell (1887–1957) was an American poet associated with the Imagist group. His surname is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. He was a friend of William Carlos Williams, and like Ezra Pound he came from Philadelphia. Cannell studied at the University of Virginia and was enthusiastic about the work of Edgar Allan Poe and the free verse of The King James Version of The Bible. He was briefly married to Kathleen Eaton Cannell, who was generally known as 'Kitty'.

Francis Willoughby Tancred was an English poet associated with the Poets' Club, a group of writers, established by T. E. Hulme, who were the forerunners of the Imagist movement. They carried out practical studies on Chinese poetry and haiku. Tancred's own influence on the genre has been relatively minor. He is one of the poets referred to in Ezra Pound's Cantos, LXXXII.

<i>The Egoist</i> (periodical) Major English Modernist periodical founded in London, running from 1914 to 1919

The Egoist was a London literary magazine published from 1914 to 1919, during which time it published important early modernist poetry and fiction. In its manifesto, it claimed to "recognise no taboos", and published a number of controversial works, such as parts of Ulysses. Today, it is considered "England's most important Modernist periodical."

Des Imagistes: An Anthology, edited by Ezra Pound and published in 1914, was the first anthology of the Imagism movement. It was published in The Glebe in February 1914, and later that year as a book by Charles and Albert Boni in New York, and Harold Monro's Poetry Bookshop in London.

The Montreal Group, sometimes referred to as the McGill Group or McGill Movement, was a circle of Canadian modernist writers formed in the mid-1920s at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. The Group included Leon Edel, John Glassco, A. M. Klein, Leo Kennedy, F. R. Scott, and A. J. M. Smith, most of whom attended McGill as undergraduates. The group championed the theory and practice of modernist poetry over the Victorian-style versification, exemplified by the Confederation Poets, that predominated in Canadian poetry at the time.

Edward Augustine Storer (1880–1944) was an English writer, translator and poet.

<i>Cathay</i> (poetry collection) Poetry collection by Ezra Pound

Cathay (1915) is a collection of classical Chinese poetry translated into English by modernist poet Ezra Pound based on Ernest Fenollosa's notes that came into Pound's possession in 1913. At first Pound used the notes to translate Noh plays and then to translate Chinese poetry to English, despite a complete lack of knowledge of the Chinese language. The volume's 15 poems are seen less as strict translations and more as new pieces in their own right; and, in his bold translations of works from a language he was unfamiliar with, Pound set the stage for modernist translations.

A verbless poem, a poem without verbs. Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" is a verbless poem of fourteen words:

References

  1. 1 2 Higginson, William J. (1985). The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. Tokyo: Kodansha International (published 1989). p. 51. Six months after Poetry magazine began, in the issue of April 1913, Ezra Pound's now famous 'In a Station of the Metro' appeared. This may be the first published hokku in English.
  2. Axelrod, Steven Gould and Camille Roman, Thomas J. Travisano.The New Anthology of American Poetry: Traditions and Revolutions, Beginnings to 1900.Rutgers University Press (2003) p.663
  3. 1 2 Barbarese, J.T. "Ezra Pound's Imagist Aesthetics: Lustra to Mauberley" The Columbia history of American poetryColumbia University Press (1993) pp.307-308
  4. Hirsch, Edward 'A Poet's Glossary' Houghton Mi n, 2014
  5. Ayers, David. Modernsim: A Short Introduction. Blackwell (2004) p.2
  6. "On "In a Station of the Metro"". MAPS: Modern American Poetry Site. Archived from the original on 18 May 2019.
  7. Pound, Ezra (1 September 1914). "Vorticism". Fortnightly Review. No. 96. pp. 461–471.
  8. Pound (1916) Gaudier-Brzeska, 103. https://archive.org/details/gaudierbrzeska00pounrich
  9. Video of a lecture discussing the importance of Japanese culture to Pound's early poetry, London University School of Advanced Study , March 2012.

Wall Street journal, Jan 7-8, 2017 Page C14 review by Willard Spiegelman

Sources