[Allen Tice]

........In a Station of the Metro

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

The famous Imagist poem above: Nice as it is, would it have been better to find it as one image in a rather longer poem? Or is it good enough as it is?

This is not a trivial question to me. The architecture of larger structures is absent from Haiku (and ironic couplets too). Is a strong epiphany enough? For example, would Pound, given his esthetics, have been able to elevate an experiential frame sufficiently to the degree necessary to surround this with equivalent astounding beauty?

Moments of ecstatic perception: how to embody them, that is my question.

PS: a related issue is, had it not been published by the emerging Ezra Pound, mightn't it have been totally forgotten?

[Orwn Acra]

It is perfect as is.

There are ways to construct a larger haiku-like scheme while maintaining the haiku aesthetic. Stevens was very good at this, and you might notice that his more imagistic poems are often divided into multiple sections or are very short—I think this is key to allow each image to stand out. If you were to combine all of Pound’s best short poems into one poem (imagining that this poem somehow made sense and wasn’t hindered by the amalgamation itself), the total effect would be weaker than each poem read separately. I would argue it is because the brain can only process so much decadence. Mary Meriam made a good comment on a recent poem of mine when she stated: “My mind goes a little wild after each line, so I need lots of space and time to read them.”

Anyway, Pound could go on and on when he wanted to. Perhaps the reason why the above poem is so famous and so memorable is that, unlike the Cantos, we can take in full light its presence.

[Allen Tice]

Walter, thank you!
"The brain can process only so much decadence' !!
A scintilla of truth!

I wouldn't argue with you about its perfection, except that all of us perceive it in isolation as defined as "complete" by the original author.

However, I can easily picture it as a strong part of a much longer poem by many authors. Two of them being: W.H. Auden and, believe it or not, even Allen Ginsberg -- who is not my favorite poet by many, many, many miles. It would fit nicely into an Auden -- it's that good! and would sparkle in one of the better Ginsbergs.

.......

[Woody Long]

Just as it is, concentrated on the visual image, the reader is nearly forced to concentrate on that image, which is striking & almost mystically evocative.

If placed in a larger context, it would have to relate in some way to that context and something of the concentrated attention of the reader on the visual would likely be lost.

I don't believe that poems are absolute objects. (I don't believe in absolutes generally.) A poem when being read is more or less an interaction between the reader and the text. So: I would not be able to say that one or the other of the possibilities is better. Or perfect.

— Woody

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Allen,

I think it's a great question. It feels complete and perfect as it is. I feel a little pleasurable shiver every time I read it (or 'think' it – it's so short you can carry it around with you)

The poem is often said to be 'only 14 words long', but that's cheating. I think the title is a necessary part of its strength and the contrast between the flatness of the title and the delicate beauty of the poem is its heart. The modernist impulse (the Metro was less than 10 years old) set against natural/supernatural images 'apparition', 'petals', 'wet', 'bough', while also suggesting modern impersonality, must have been striking. Like writing a beautifully profound poem about our relationship to the internet. (Ha. I'm sure that's been done)

Weird coincidence: I compared Mary's last poem to Ginsberg, whilst mentioning haiku, which felt riskily gauche. And then both names pop up in this thread.

[Allen Tice]

Mark, the title is absolutely integral to the poem. It sets the scenery up; turns on the footlight gels and the limelight spot. It is part of the poem, and it seems to me that if this were placed as a stained glass tableau in a greater structure, a form of the title would have to be right there in that picture.

I guess I'm wondering if a gem-cut cameo like this is best by itself or among a few equally good other images. What really grabs me by the nape is my thought that (wonderful as it is) this is all too similar in impact to just one of the diamonds and rubies that populate Homer and Shakespeare (or Auden when he is thundering).

Yes, Woody, its individual impact might seem less if arrayed beside a thick context, but, what if the context were only five or ten gems?

[Woody Long]

I think it is the concentration of the reader's attention on the specific visual image that is critical to the effect of the given phrase. It seems to me that any additional context could only diminish that, whatever its quality.

If a number of "gems" were added, the resulting poem might have a great poetic effect on readers. But, in any case, the effect of the specific phrase would likely be less.

As an aside: taken as wholes, there's no "objective" way to compare the effects of the two poems. The effects are subjective, at the reader's end. They are not in the poems. There is no accounting for effects.

All IMHO of course. Poetics, not physics.

[Allen Tice]

Woody, I have to agree in theory with what you say. (There's an old joke about certain types of precambrian intellectuals who worry very much about things that work too well in "practice" but not at all in "theory".)

Anyway, since we're rolling along here, I'd like to unpack this to a perhaps gaseous size: For the sake of an absurd comparison, let's equate this poem to a "miracle" (not necessarily religious, just real good stuff that's stupefying). Now, if there is a real spate of such incredibilities, they suddenly become ordinary: "That's how things are, amazing!" and we put on sunglasses and try to adjust. Or if there is just one huge "outlier" of an event (that Metro poem, say), well, we are impressed and our jaws drop and we think Ezra Pound must have digested bumblebees before he wrote the Metro poem. Hard, maybe hard to replicate! The third possibility is building a poem with a few such pearls beyond price arranged in a meaningful constellation. (And then other such pattern poems elsewhere.)

To me, one "miracle" like the Metro poem would like a bit of company alongside it in the poem--not too much, and not too little.

To me, I'd like the small constellation poem arrangement in a size digestible by short-tempered modern humans. Humans cannot stand too much glory. Or maybe that's me.

Anyway, you're right. Unquestionably. The concentration on the single visual image is very effective.

[Woody Long]

Allen —

Regarding theory: Since no experiment is possible, short of giving everyone in the poetry world amnesia inducing drugs and then asking them to compare, whatever can be said must be speculation. But I can't remain silent.

I guess that Pound's poem is a meld of imagism & the oriental (e.g. haiku). In my reading of it, the poem is entirely without anything other than the visual image. In my first post above I called the visual image "almost mystically evocative", & for me what it evokes is wordless. I have seen petals plastered on cherry tree branches by the rain & they make me think of Pound's poem & that he is right in his comparison.

I'm reminded of the red wheelbarrow, which also is very strongly visual for me, but also seems to have some meaning other than the visual image alone.

I'm reminded (because of your "gems") of diamonds. A large solitaire by itself? Or surrounded by smaller stones? Or, like the Pleiades, a sorority of peers? All could work.

I keep thinking: throw out caveats regarding conventional form, & of meaning, etc. Would the Metro work as the couplet of a sonnet? Very well maybe. Is it possible to have a completely visual sonnet? I'm doubtful. In a sonnet, the elements more or less have to relate to each other.

Could it be one of 13 ways of looking around a subway? All of them "visual only"? Yes. Some might try.

I wouldn't particularly care to see a parody.

No way to rank all these possibilities as to which would be better.

I come from an era that the National Lampoon (in a 1970's issue) referred to as the Age of Art Yucko. We look for simplicity and the plain, but don't get much beyond that in terms of esthetics.

[Allen Tice]

Woody, I like very much your idea of the Metro poem in a sonnet. It could even be in the middle, intensifying what follows, driving home some other couplet.

The Metro poem is a comparison without the words "like" or "just as" etc.

What I meant about Homer is mostly his short similes, many visual, but not all, that emerge from nowhere almost without warning, to stop the action or swerve to another season of life. Thousands of people have pulled these out from Homer's huge poems, and they can stand on their own. All each needs is a good title. For example, the Iliad 3.447-49: "(Thus) he spoke and led the way to the bed, and his wife followed after him. These two then slept upon the corded bed, but the son of Atreus wandered through the crowds of men like a wild beast . . ." It's so short, but its power is in the contrast with the domestic image that precedes it.

Another "Metro-sized" comparison image (of a fatal arrow wound) from Homer that is so absolute that it was picked up by the best (Sappho, Catullus, and other champs): Iliad 8.306: "(And) he bowed his head to one side like a poppy which in a garden weighted down with fruit and spring rain; thus he bowed to one side . . ."

("Metro"maniac-level quality?)

Or in the Iliad 8.555-560, where the soldiers in the Trojan camp rejoice in their almost certain victory next day: "(Just as when) the stars in heaven shine clearly around the gleaming moon when the air is still, and all the peaks and jutting rocks and glens stand out sharply, and from heaven bright air pours down, and the shepherd is glad in his heart, so many separate fires blazed in the Trojan camp. . ."

Enough! A lot of the power of these comes from their contrasts with the bitter context that surround them. Just as perhaps the Metro people as ephemeral flowers contrast with the mechanically static tunnel around them. Or plop the Metro poem into a war environment and what do you get? Even more power. (1912 was almost 1914.)

If an image or a comparison is so good that readers and hearers will go back to pluck it from its surroundings, then that's quality beyond doubt.
The "Metro" would be plucked, I think.

As someone said, Context is important.

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