Ezra Pound’s poem depicts the image of a crowded subway station in a metropolitan. The poem can have multiple meanings depending on the reader’s point of view. For example, the poem can be read and interpreted as pro-modernization or anti-modernization depending on whom the reader is. In the poem Pound describes the people in the crowds as “The apparition of these faces in the crowd.”(Page 1264, line 1) Apparitions are usually interpreted as something that is supernatural in appearance like a ghost. Pound then goes on and says, “Petals on a wet, black bough.” (Page 1264, line 2) The image of the flowers can and the image of the tree bough can represent life in nature, but Pound mentions that the flowers are on a black bough. The black bough in this case can represent death because tree boughs are usually brown in color. This image of the petals gives the image of life, but the image of the black bough gives the image of death. In this case the image of the subway station represents modernization, darkness, and being trapped. The subway station can represent being trapped because subways stations are usually underground. The image of being underground usually means that you are trapped. When all of the meanings are put together it means that you think there is life in modernization, but it leads to problems that have no way out because it grows on something that is already dead or dying. The poem though can also be interpreted as pro-modernization. Line one of Pounds poem can also be interpreted as the images of the crowd that pound saw. Line two can be seen as petals growing on a black bough, which is the image of a beautiful scenery. The poem can then be interpreted as a comparison of the scene in a crowded subway station to petals growing a black bough. This comparison would mean that modernization is beautiful like nature and would be pro-modernization.
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