"In a Station on the Metro" written by Ezra Pound

The poem “In a Station of the Metro”, written by Ezra Pound, consists of only two lines. When I first read this poem, I was shocked by how quickly the poem ended. The intention of creating a short poem could be to have the reader play close attention to words and patterns. The words, such as “apparition”, “petals”, and “bough” compensate for the length of the poem because there is an unfamiliar connection between each word. As the poem ends quite abruptly, change also occurs quickly. As I looked closer at the words, I noticed that the poem had a sense of dread. This dread appears in both lines of the poem. The first line states, “The apparition of these faces in the crowd”. The “apparition” sets an image in my mind of people that have no capabilities to think for themselves and always do what they are told—ghostlike beings. The people, I imagine, are thoughtless and mindless of their own lives and the world around them. With the production of more technology in the last five years, more and more people are becoming dependent on laptops, Blackberry cell phones, and iPods. We (the consumers) are becoming mindless and thoughtless because we are allowing machines to think for us.

The second line states, “Petals on a wet, black bough”. The “wet” symbolizes weeping while the color black represents death. The death I am speaking of is not the death of a person; it is the death of the minds in the human race. Also, petals do not stand on a branch (“bough”) on their own. Petals are usually a part of a flower. However, as a flower dies and wilts, the petals fall from the flower onto the ground. This is similar to how technology has affected us as a nation. As our society becomes more reliable on technology and concerned with how to advance with technology, the human species will eventually fall apart like a petal on a flower’s stem.

On the other hand, change can occur for the better. There is also an insight in the poem of hope for what the future can become. Even though the word “apparition” means a ghostlike image of a person, it also means the appearance of something remarkable. Since there is said to be an “apparition of these faces in the crowd”, the faces in the crowd can be faces of new born babies since they contain the essence of the future.

The second line, “petals on a wet, black bough”, symbolizes the ending of winter and the beginning of spring. The coming season of spring brings upon new beginnings of change, hope, and life. “Wet, black bough” is referring to the trees that hold the petals of the flowers throughout the season. The “crowds” and “bough” are the elements of strength in the poem. Strength can come in numbers (“faces in a crowd”) or as a sturdy platform (“black bough”). There is a continuous cycle of life throughout this poem. As winter approaches, flowers die and life seems to come to a near halt. However, spring will approach once again as a new light. The advancement of technology in this modern era will bring upon opportunities to progress into a new way of living for the better of all mankind.