The Philippine Women’s University 

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 

Manila, Philippines 

Morente, Jullia Mae S.     Analysis on In a Station of the Metro/Jan. 17, 2020
AB Psychology - II          A.Y. 1920-02 with Dr. Leonardo O. Munalim

Simplicity

After I read the poem that would serve as the topic for our midterm analysis, my jaw had
dropped from my mouth to the floor as I thought of how was I supposed to compose a three-
paragraph text that described a two-liner literature with less than 15 words and depicted just one
scenery. I picked up my jaw, scrolled downwards and had confirmed of its length; my jaw
dropped once again. But then I came to an epiphany that pictures or paintings may not have
words written on them, but deserved a tale of a thousand words – I was optimistic. I realized that
poems did not require you to use highly sophisticated words, nor a specific number of lines, nor
even a word count. Poetry was, and is still, about emotion and it is then that I saw how one scene
can have a person bursting with sentiments; it is then that I realized that I was focusing on
finding a page full of context to be unshelled to be able to craft three paragraphs worth reading
by the professor – but not on the simplicity of the text. That was it, my moment of Eureka!

Ezra Pound did not dwell on the irrelevance of additional text that was not in the scene he
was in, he wanted to illustrate that one moment where he felt an array of delightful emotions –
that being in our modern times, we try so effortlessly to forget the small things in life. The poem
was about the simple portrayal of how one moment of his day went by, no flowery words that
made it sound a tad more “poetic”, because it was, alone, a poem worth seeking. As I searched
for the history of Pound’s work, I found out that the poem was originally composed of thirty
lines, but he dismissed this as it did not fully describe the phenomenon. Then, the continuation of
the poem’s construction was done half a year later, with 15 lines, and a trip to the trash bin as it
still did not fit well. After a year, Ezra Pound found contentment as he wrote his now-famous
two-liner, 14-word literary work. Pound, in meeting Thomas Ernest Hulme, an English poet who
was a former member of a Poet’s Club at Oxford, in 1908, discussed how a poem could turn
from a masterpiece to a mess with the mistake of not creating a text that was straightforward,
centered on one image, and produced a musical sound. Thus, the creation of his poem In the
Station of the Metro.

As I read the poem again, I imagined myself at the station, looking at the clock and
seeing 5:30 PM. Rush hour. I was at the far end of the station, sitting down, when I saw the train
approaching the platform. I began to decipher what Pound had written. In the first line of the
poem, Pound wrote “The apparition of these faces in the crowd”. The people’s faces were
ghostly, not because they looked tired but because of their movement. How fast people were on
the platform equaled to how fast they disappeared inside the train. The apparitions of
personalities who quickly traversed inside the public transportation vehicle, whilst some were
memorable because of their beauty, all of them blended in a crowd of the same flesh. Even if the
poem was written in the early 20th century, it is still quite relatable today and if Ezra Pound
would still be alive in this era, I suppose he would write something shorter than fourteen words -
comparing its reading time to how fast the modern people in these times are moving. In the
second line, it is continued with “Petals on a wet, black bough”. I would like to think that like
petals, humans, too, end up withering and falling from their bough – symbolizing life that leads
to death and the main branch being the purpose of man. The petals are still moistened and
attached to its core, giving the significance of the life cycle and rising for another day. Until one
moment where the petals no longer hold the ability to stay with its bract and dry up. This is the
time when it has to leave its branches and man is to lay on a wooden coffin. Ezra Pound has
written about the longevity of life and how many fail to absorb their surrounding because they
are focused on things that make us mechanical – almost forgetting to live like we are humans
that were given the golden opportunity to appreciate His work.

References

Encyclopedia. (2020, January 5). Topic: In a Station of the Metro. Retrieved from
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/station-metro#B

Poetry Foundation. (n.d.) In a Station of the Metro. Retrieved from

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12675/in-a-station-of-the-metro