Ezra Pound – The Good Reader

This poem by Ezra Pound (1885–1972) always reminds me of my student days, because a fellow-student really did not like it at all. “Too short,” he said, “not proper poetry”.

I, of course, took the opposite view. When you read the poem and think about what it says, what could actually be a more serious or appropriate subject for a poem?

This is almost the definitive example of the style of poetry that Pound called “Imagism”. It is influenced by the Japanese Haiku form, although, strictly speaking, it is not a Haiku because it has more than the required seventeen syllables.

I like the way that the title is actually an extra line in the poem, providing a context and another image. It’s not really accurate to describe it as a two-line poem.

In a Station of the Metro

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

I am beginning to wonder whether I will ever be able to go to an art exhibition again, so on this first anniversary of the UK lockdown, here is an appropriate poem.

Every word counts in this short, haiku-like poem. In the title, for instance, we have “L’Art” rather than “Art” and that specific date. This was the year of the post-impressionist exhibition in London that introduced Van Gogh, Cezanne and other French modern artists to a puzzled public.

The poem is a very good example of imagism, the poetic style that sought to make a break with the more wordy Victorian style of poetry, just as artists were trying to find new means of visual representation.

There are strange clashes here, red and green, food and poison, but the overall impression is a sense of excitement, helped by that exclamation mark and the use of the word “feast”. To me, it conveys the sheer pleasure of oil paint thickly applied to the canvas.

L’Art, 1910 by Ezra Pound

Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.

Tag: Ezra Pound

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

L’Art, 1910 by Ezra Pound

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