Ezra Pound Imagism Analysis

If one were to search Ezra Pound on the internet, the results would most likely show a connection to imagism. He is known for putting in place imagist principles that are represented in several of his books and poems (“Imagism” Poetry). These principals are branched from the better part of Pound’s life which included more than just his writings. As he lived in three different countries, experienced at least two major wars, and built great relationships with other writers, he learned and changed over the years (Litz). Pound is well known for his contribution to imagism through his poetry which resulted from his many exotic life experiences that had a great influence on his writings. Imagism can be defined as the 20th-century counterrevolutionary

The text of the poem is like so, “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet black bough” (Pound). The poetry expresses a work of art, while Pound always thought that the meaning of art was to make something new. The poem is a visible form of Pound’s idea of imagism. These ideas include full focus with no attention being drawn away from the individual or thing. The poem is also composed of only words that are appropriate to the piece of writing (“In a Station of the Metro” 115). Any extraneous words that could be used in the poem would just be distracting and take away from the true meaning. Instead of taking many parts of the poem and hoping people understand the image that has been created, Pound is taking real human experiences and making them into an established image. He takes emotion from the experiences and puts it into poetry. According to an excerpt written by Pound, it describes this moment of what the poem, “A Station in the Metro” is talking about. Pound was getting out of a Metro train and saw a “beautiful face” that words could not describe. He tried long and hard, but still could not create words that could portray his feelings then (“In a Station in the Metro” 115). The article describes it as a “one image poem”, meaning Pound keeps it simple and rids of any extra words that might distract the reader (“A Station in the Metro” 116). Shortly after the event at the Metro, Pound wrote a thirty-line poem, and, six months later, a fifteen-line poem about the experience. But, he ended up trashing it because it described the happenings of the occurrence instead of the pure image of the beautiful women he saw (“A Station in the Metro” 116). This two-line poem was written a year later, fully conveying the specific image Pound wanted readers to see through his “[haiku]-like sentence”