11-02-2014, 08:54 AM
Length isn't necessarily a good way to choose poems 
This poem uses a single image, that of a crowd in a railway station, to stand for quite a large idea: the frailty and impermanence of humanity. The poem has been stripped back to these few words because they are the most important -- remember that a poet of the calibre of Pound never uses a word by accident. Everything is there for a reason.
I'm not going to paraphrase it for you, because I think that's the easiest part once you work out what it's really trying to say.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; -- we know it's a busy station, presumably with lots of people, all of which have faces -- so why zero in on a few individual faces? What's this saying about a "faceless crowd"? Some will stand out to us. Some will be memorable. The rest will blend into a generic blob of peopleness. This line is the "setup", giving us context.
Petals on a wet, black bough. -- now the contrast, giving us the metaphor. The 'wet, black bough' (or branch) is quite a dismal and gloomy image, so I always think it's cold and has just rained, maybe at the start of spring when winter hasn't quite given up. Petals are new, fresh, delicate, and die quickly. They are bright spots amid the gloom, but they will not last.
Hope that helps you a little bit.
This poem uses a single image, that of a crowd in a railway station, to stand for quite a large idea: the frailty and impermanence of humanity. The poem has been stripped back to these few words because they are the most important -- remember that a poet of the calibre of Pound never uses a word by accident. Everything is there for a reason.
I'm not going to paraphrase it for you, because I think that's the easiest part once you work out what it's really trying to say.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; -- we know it's a busy station, presumably with lots of people, all of which have faces -- so why zero in on a few individual faces? What's this saying about a "faceless crowd"? Some will stand out to us. Some will be memorable. The rest will blend into a generic blob of peopleness. This line is the "setup", giving us context.
Petals on a wet, black bough. -- now the contrast, giving us the metaphor. The 'wet, black bough' (or branch) is quite a dismal and gloomy image, so I always think it's cold and has just rained, maybe at the start of spring when winter hasn't quite given up. Petals are new, fresh, delicate, and die quickly. They are bright spots amid the gloom, but they will not last.
Hope that helps you a little bit.
It could be worse