Blog Post 2: Topic #2

The Imagist movement was started as a retaliation towards the Romanticism. Its focus was on moving away from the abstract and conveying meanings of a poem through clear, precise images (Poets.org). Three of the main tenets of Imagism are “direct treatment of a ‘thing’” whether it be subjectively or objectively”, to not use any unnecessary words, and “to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence to the metronome” (Poets.org). Ezra Pound is the founder of the movement and his poem, “In a Station of the Metro” exemplifies the doctrines of Imagism through the use of diction and imagery.

            “In a Station of the Metro” is only two lines, so paying close attention to Pound’s choice of words is a key factor in understanding its images. Pound likens “the apparition of… faces” to “petals”. The word “apparition” illustrates an image of blurring objects. In the poem, he is specifically referring to the faces of the other people in the station. People in the station are hard to identify because they are blurring with one another as they disappear and reappear. He compares this to petals. Each face is a petal among other petals that are hard to distinguish between. However, using “petals” also implies a certain delicacy to these faces as well as a similarity. They all were once part of the same cluster that gradually got pulled in different directions, also relating to them being passengers of the Metro. Then he compares the “crowd” to a “wet, black bough”. The image produced suggests that the crowd is possibly all darkly dressed. Their faces are the petals or the splash of color on a branch, while the rest of their attire make them blend into one body, the bough. The only movement is of their slippery faces as they shuffle throughout the station. This diction follows the second tenet of imagism where they only use necessary words, and each word in the poem is important in conveying the image Pound wanted to paint.

            Pound illustrates a clear image following the first tenet of the imagist movement, but this picture’s preciseness is also because of the title of the poem. Going back to the second tenet, he uses the title as an added detail for the image while also not repeating unnecessary words. By narrowing the scene in a station, Pound creates a more focused perspective. The speaker could either be a passenger waiting for their train or they could be a bystander observing the drifting crowd. However, the narrator seems separate from the scene, too. Whether he is a passenger or a bystander, it is like he is different from them. A passenger, too, but one that does not blend among the masses and the way he observes the crowd gives off a liminal feel where the speaker seems even separate from his own body. The image also emanates a dark dance. The “petals on a wet black bough”, especially, showcase this atmosphere because of the contrast. Petals are associated with flowers which are normally seen as beautiful, but when they are stuck to a dark, wet branch it stains the beauty of the petals. It can be interpreted to how the workings of human society have been muddled.

            The Imagist manifesto is embodied in Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” through its diction and imagery. Both literary devices serve to treat the direct message of the cluttered human society as they pass through the liminal space of the metro station. Each word contributes to an image of moving faces in an amalgamated crowd of people trying to get from one place to the next. It also fits into the last tenet, where the lines of the poem do not follow a meter; it is free verse and its disjointed sentence rhythm creates its own musical phrase in order to match the ambience of the poem.

Word Count: 649