Poetry and Poetics–Lit 204

While this poem is short, I think the use of language adds multiple meanings and possible interpretations which make it super interesting to dissect. From the title, and the footnote in the Norton Anthology, that the poem was inspired by a time the author was at a metro station in Paris. I found the word choice in “these faces” particularly intriguing. The footnote states that the poem was written six months after Pound was in Paris at this station, yet the word choice of “these” makes the poem feel present and engages the audience; the poem makes the audience feel like they are looking at the faces with Pound. In this way, I feel like Pound is trying to imply that anyone can be like him or be a face in the crowd and this crowd is more symbolic of a larger human condition.

I also found “apparition” really interesting as an adjective in this context. Apparition associates ghost-like images with the faces  and introduces death as a theme to consider in the poem. Pound is essentially looking at a large group of living, moving people and seeing a bunch of ghosts. I wonder if Pound was trying to make an ironic statement here about society, or perhaps just making an unlikely comparison to highlight the remarkableness of the faces in the crowd. 

The second line of the poem uses strong imagery. I think the placement of the ceasura also plays a very important role here. The pause it creates when read and spoken makes “wet” and “black” both very distinct. In this way, I think the punctuation separates the expressions and emphasizes them so the reader can really create an image in their head before understanding the picture Pound is trying to paint. My struggle with this poem was finding the connection between the two lines.  I considered the fact that Pound could be comparing the two images; faces in a dark, dirty metro resemble wilted petals on a dark black bough. Maybe the connection highlights a connection between the natural and human life given the stark contrast between the both images. I also considered that maybe the poem isn’t really intended to mean anything at all rather a stream of images that come to the author’s mind. Pound could be remembering certain things and this crowd and bough are just two images that came to him, hence the fact it was written six months after. The use of “apparition” in this case could signify a distance Pound feels from the crowd given his imagination or the fact that he probably cannot remember the faces in that crowd, so they appear empty (or ghostly). 

I am also presenting on this poem but I wanted to outline some of my initial thoughts about the poem that I had while reading it. The poem’s audience is Autumn itself which is first set up in the title of the poem. In this way, the poem works to personify Autumn and gives it human-like characteristics such as having relationships and sleeping. In the same way, by personifying Autumn the speaker gives Autumn a sense of mortality. Much like a person, the existence of Autumn implies impending death and decay. In this way I think the comparison between Autumn and a person is very interesting, almost stating that death is what makes something human. Connecting to this idea, the rest of the poem describes the unique beauty that Autumn holds– and states that it’s beauty should not be compared to that of Spring, the more typical season of ‘beauty’ in poetry from the same time period. I think the speaker tries to articulate with this idea that Autumn is so beautiful because it is followed by death. Almost like the decay which follows Autumn makes it even more beautiful. This gets at a possible main idea for the poem: that Autumn’s beauty comes from the surge of life and fullness preceding death. 

I found the format of this poem particularly interesting, especially because it reads like prose with varying stanza lengths (like paragraphs). The poem basically isn’t a poem, in the traditional sense, at all because it lacks rhyme and meter and other classic conventions for the time period. I think the form sort of mimics the story-aspect of the poem though, as the speaker is basically recounting something he did and discussing it in this ‘prayer’. The lines that really struck me “While with an eye made quit by the power\ Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,\ We see into the life of things” (lines 47-49), I think get to the central meaning of the poem. The simplicity and power of nature’s beauty which is incomparable to any human beauty or desire. The power of harmony the speaker suggests is the serenity of nature and the “togetherness” it seems to possess. In a way the speaker seems to make a comparison between his younger, naive self, who was more caught up in temporary pleasures and beauty and himself now who turns to nature for fulfillment. To that end, part of growing up is learning to appreciate the reliability and beauty of nature. The speaker praying for nature to not be forgotten when they die. 

This sonnet from Shakespeare seems to be urging a young man to find a wife and have children to pass on his image and beauty. At first I thought this sonnet was just a reiteration of traditional gender roles, urging a man to seek out a woman to provide for and having a family to take care of. Especially in line 4 which says, “Thou dost beguile the world, unless some mother,” which is basically urging the young man to find a woman so he is not forced to leave her childless. The poet tells the young man that procreation could repair or refresh his aging looks. I found this part of the poem to be extremely interesting, the idea that pieces of someone can be preserved and passed on–and the idea that someone carrying another person’s pieces can keep those aspects alive in the original person longer.  I almost imagine this like a crutch, Shakespeare comparing this young man’s offspring to someone that could help his self-love grow even more, self-love  noted as being too abundant in the absence of children. There is a lot of irony in the idea that to reduce obsession with the self and love for the self one must create a person so similar to themselves that they can love themselves in a separate thing so as to hide their selfishness. I think one could argue that having kids is selfish–that taking pride in the similarity of one’s kid to oneself magnifies existing self-love. I also found it really interesting to see that men experienced pressure to have children and settle down early in this period of time, much like women were known to be. We don’t really see beauty, love, and offspring talked about a lot with the focus being on a man, which could display another layer of irony used by Shakespeare in this poem.