In Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” the author creates a imagist poem based at a Metro Station, viewing people pass by through possible rain, calling them apparitions and comparing them to petals on a “wet, black bough.” He follows the Imagist Manifesto through the use of free verse, diction, and rhythm, all vital rules for Imagist poetry.
Pound’s uses of free verse allows space for ambiguity. The imagist manifesto suggests that a poet should not be contained, rather they should be free to challenge and take risks, because poetry cannot be defined to one set format. Pound was very interested in Chinese and Japanese poetry and therefore followed a similar to format to a haiku, yet Pound flips it and does his own rendition of it, further exemplifying this idea of free verse writing. Instead of four lines, Pound uses two. Although the poem is in free verse, it also must have rhythm.
Pound argues that the Imagist poet must also “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” With this in mind, Pound seems to use a rhythm that is long and flows within each lines. The repetitive use of the sound in the line “wet, black bough” compliments it’s previous line which is longer and uses “apparition,” “faces,” and “crowd” to keep a consistent flow throughout the poem.
Another rule of the Imagist Manifesto is that a poet should “use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something.” Anything that isn’t adding to the poem is only taking away. Therefore, Pound’s diction is all purposely chosen, for each word does not only have one meaning. An “apparition” is not only a ghost, but humans that are blurred do to the wet window, or the “wet, black bough.” Pound accomplishes painting an image with minimal words, selecting each word purposely to add on to the poem and furthermore creating a new form of poetry, focused on minimal language, with a power impact.
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