Highlight words and phrases that suggest why Pound wrote “In a Station of the Metro.”

Question

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.

–“Vorticism,” Ezra Pound

Answer 1

In the excerpt from Ezra Pound discussing "In a Station of the Metro," several words and phrases suggest his motivations for writing the poem:

1. "I saw suddenly a beautiful face" - This emphasizes the suddenness and unexpectedness of beauty, highlighting a moment of clarity or revelation that inspired him.

2. "and then another and another" - The repetition indicates a building intensity of his experience, suggesting a profound impact of what he observed.

3. "beautiful child's face" - This introduces the innocence and purity associated with childhood, adding depth to the emotional experience.

4. "tried all that day to find words" - This signals a struggle to articulate his feelings, emphasizing the difficulty of expression in capturing such profound emotions.

5. "what this had meant to me" - This phrase reflects on the personal significance of the experience, indicating that it was deeply resonant and worth exploring through poetry.

6. "could not find any words that seemed to me worthy" - This reveals a sense of frustration and reverence, suggesting that the experience was so beautiful that mere words felt inadequate.

7. "lovely as that sudden emotion" - The juxtaposition of beauty and emotion underscores the ephemeral nature of the experience that he seeks to immortalize through his writing.

Overall, these words and phrases convey a sense of awe, urgency, and the inadequacy of language to capture the beauty he witnessed, all of which drive Pound to create "In a Station of the Metro."