Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" might be discarded by many readers due to it being composed of fourteen words, but within those fourteen words, Pound creates a genre, a feeling and a unique style of poetry. One of the unique things about this poem is that it does not contain any verbs. There is no action or no movement in the poem. There are only two images: one being the crowd of people in the station and the other a leaf on a black bough. Still, even though there is no indication of a present movement, the word "apparition" creates a feeling that the crowd of people that Pound mentioned in the first line are constantly appearing and disappearing, never to be seen again. Pound does not create any feeling in these lines directly too. There's an ambiguous emotional space in the lines, and the only, if any, indication of what might be called or can create an emotion would be the word "apparition". "Apparition" means appearing, but it also means a ghost which, in the general census, is a scary thing so, the observers might assume a kind of panic or fear in the persona because of the appearance and the disappearance of the crowd. This negative feeling might also be about the impermenance of the moment. This idea can be supported by what Pound wrote in the second line. Pound's image in the second line is a fleeting moment too. It creates the image of a moment in the rain. The bough that the leaf is attached to is wet, because of the rain that might have happened or happening. Rain has come and gone away; it fleeted. Just like the rain, the leaves of a tree will come and go and just like the leaves, people in the station will come and go. So, Pound might have felt the impermenance of himself and everything when he saw the image that inspired this poem. A little historical context would help the readers understand this feeling of impermenance Pound felt in this random moment that he captured. "In a Station of the Metro" was published in 1913 which is a year before World War I. Soon, World War I would come and bring the death of millions of people. So, it would be appropriate that Pound might have felt the tension in the world and felt how impermanent we, as human beings are. Still, with all these explanations, the poem does not have a clear message that one can pinpoint. It is a highly concise poem that is formed by fourteen words, none of which are verbs, which create two different images. It is highly ambiguous, and one can only assume what Pound meant by this poem. It could be a moment that Pound wanted to capture or a poem of experimentation that Pound had no intention of making as deep as argued.

Nedim Emre Özkaş