In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

[Achirri Ishmael]

I thought some of us might find this interesting!

Vorticism by Ezra Pound

Short Essay from the Fortnightly Review,

published 1 September 1914, pp461–471.

"THREE YEARS AGO in Paris I got out of a “metro” train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful child’s face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all that day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion. And that evening, as I went home along the Rue Raynouard, I was still trying and I found, suddenly, the expression. I do not mean that I found words, but there came an equation… not in speech, but in little splotches of colour. It was just that–a “pattern,” or hardly a pattern, if by “pattern” you mean something with a “repeat” in it. But it was a word, the beginning, for me, of a language in colour..."

Poem: In a Station of the Metro

For the rest of Ezra Pound's Essay: Vorticism (The Fortnightly Review).

[holmes.tom]

Oh, man, I forgot about this. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and I am a Vorticist. Even the Vorticist website says so: http://www.vorticism.co.uk/holmes/

Here's my Vorticist book of poems: http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Sophie-Hieratic-Head-Pound/dp/1935402560

Oh, my shameless plugs. Sigh. :( 

[John McCreery]

This poem works particularly well for someone who lives in Japan, rides the trains, and is familiar with cherry blossoms against the almost black bark of the cherry trees.