Examination of In A Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound
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In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Ezra Pound
Anonymity and loneliness. The constant doldrums and exact pattern of every day life. "In a Station of the Metro" is but a short poem, two lines, neither very long. But anyone that has ever traveled the subways of Paris or New York City, and seen the dark under-lit caves filled with thousands of faces that one will probably never see again, knows that each face has something behind it. A mass of individual beauty combined to make something else. Leaves of a dark plum tree dripping rainwater after a heavy storm.
Obscurity combats individual achievement and beauty in the primary conflict of this poem. One will never know each and every person that travels a subway. It's just too massive...