Poetry is a very subjective art it is up to the authors to determine how they want to convey their message to the readers. Both Ezra Pound’s poem “In the Station Metro” and Emma LaRocque’s poem “The Red in Winter” use imagery, that is very subjective to interpretation, to convey their message in an economic manner. Pound’s artistic imagist poem shows that art isn’t just visual but it can also be portrayed through words alone; and that imagery is a powerful aspect of poetry. LaRaque’s however is focused on how images can portray political issues among differing cultures.
A tactic used by many poets is economy of verse; meaning that they try to get their point across in as few words and as little space as possible. Both Pound’s and LaRocque’s poems are very short, LaRocque’s being fives lines and Pound’s only two. Both poets do a great job of making use of every single word in their poem. For instance Pound chooses to use a semi-colon instead of using linking verbs to portray that the idea from line one is connected to the idea of line two. Economy of verse is not just evident in Pound’s poem but also in LaRocque’s.
LaRocque, instead of using punctuation to be economical with her phrases chose to make many of her words have multiple meanings within the context of the poem. The word rouge in “The Red in Winter” had multiple meanings. Rouge meant, the Red River, make-up, and Cree people or Red-Skinned people. White was another word that LaRocque chose to use to convey multiple meanings through the use of just one simple word. LaRocque wanted the readers to understand that white isn’t just the colour of snow, but also the colour of Caucasians and that it signified coldness and loss of life. Economy of verse is not the o...
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... almost angel like sticking out from a sea of blackness in the underground of a subway.
In conclusion both Ezra Pound’s poem “In the Station Metro” and Emma LaRocque’s poem “The Red in Winter” state the author’s perception of the world very well through imagery that is very subjective to interpretation. Even though they have similarities in style they are almost polar opposites in terms of meaning as Pound’s talked about art and LaRocque’s talked about politics. The two poems are extremely good examples of imagist poems, that used imagery and economy of verse.
Works Cited
Ezra, Pound. "In a Station of the Metro." The Harbrace Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Jon C. Stott, Raymond E. Jones. Toronto: Nelson Education Publisher, 2013. 213. Print.
LaRocque, Emma. “The Red in Winter.” Canadian Literature. Native Writere & Canadian Literature, 1990. 124-25. Print.
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Pound, Ezra. "A Few Don 'ts by an Imagiste." Poetry Magazine 1.6 (1913): 95-97. The Poetry Foundation. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
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Rothenberg, Jerome and Pierre Joris, eds. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California, 1998.
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