It is Poetry, isn't it ?

In a Station of the Metro

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

EZRA POUND 1913

____Can these few words, these two lines without clear rhymes, without regular metrics, without even verbs, be considered as a poem ? Is it poetry ? As we will see, these fourteen words, apparently dry and austere, are richer and convey more symbolic than one could possibly imagine at first.
____“Apparition”, the first word, is a pivotal clue to understanding the poem. This poem is subtle and brief, passing as the flash of an apparition. As we will see, all the themes of the poem are conveyed by this noun : a sensitive dimension, a kind of religious dimension, a striking re-discovery of aesthetics, a thought about life and its origins.
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____First, the poem in itself is an “apparition” : only two lines, forming on the paper a visual decrescendo (the first line is longer than the second). We are here in the register of quickness, of the passing instant. The visual result is a complete success, the reader is stricken by the format. There is a real research on the exterior design of the poem.
____The poet also plays with the readers’ senses. The apparition is total, it involves all the senses of the body. The sounds are particularly important. I understand this poem as the depiction of the brief moment, the few seconds between the opening of the doors of the train and its departure. The sounds tell us all these elements, they create the imagery, the atmosphere of the poem. The assonance in [i] (“The apparition of these black faces in the crowd;”) symbolizes the tinkling of the opening of the doors. The alliteration in [b] at the end (black bough), a dull and repetitive sound, seems to reproduce the sound of a train leaving its platform. The rhythm reinforces this impression. The first line, without any punctuation, without any pause, gives a feeling of hurry, like a perpetual stream that cannot be stopped: the flow of busy people flooding the Metro station, the “crowd”. With sound alone, the poet manages to recreate the environment surrounding him.
____Then, suddenly, with the sense of view, the poet seems to rediscover a new aesthetics, a beauty in all these movements. An “apparition” is, above everything, a visual effect. The poem is like a pointillist work of art, inspired by the pointillist movement and impressionism. The “crowd” is no more an anonymous mass of people, but a living body composed by “faces”; individual human beings emerge from the crowd through the eyes of the artist. The “faces” are compared with “petals”, like small color spots composing a broader picture on a “black” background. The contrast “black”/”petals” reinforces the apparition of the colors and the lightness, both embodied by the petals as a godly apparition, coming from the darkness of the everyday routine. The “apparition” enables the artist to find Art even in the most gloomy and dark place, to make beauty appear in the mundane. But the rediscovery is even more general : one can see in this poem a large rediscovery of life. The four words “Petals on a wet”, separated from the rest of the poem by the semi-column and the comma, are like a respiration in the poem, a moment of analysis for the artist, an instant when the time seems suspended between the arrival and the departure of the train. These words can be interpreted as the symbol of the emergence of life. The wet (read as a noun), the moisture, is the primary element (sometimes seen as disgusting but a vector of fertility), from which can emerge life. In this case, the most beautiful and delicate example of life : a “petal”, from moisture emerges beauty. Here there is a play on words : “wet” can be read as a noun or as an adjective if you consider the rest of the poem. As an adjective, wet reinforces the contrast between the frailty of the petals and the austerity of the station surrounding the scene. The “wet, black bough” can be understood as the railroad in the middle of the station. The imagery is rich : the faces are like flowers and the bough, the branch, can be either the crowd or the railroad, both transporting passing passengers in a way. Here again, the aim of the poem is to show that beauty can emerge from every kind of dark and dirty situation. Even in a very austere place you can feel the strength, the movement, the beauty and the ephemeral nature of life.
The sense of smell and touch can be found in the poem too (“wet”, “petals” of flowers) but these senses seem less important.

____So, with few words the poet subtly elevates a mundane situation, playing on sounds, colors, feelings, rhythm to convey an atmosphere, creating a new aesthetic where beauty and life can emerge from masses and darkness. The concision is compensated by a very rich imagery and a deep research on literary effects. This is definitely poetry.