Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro"

Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” addresses a changing society and can be interpreted with a negative or a positive connotation. The title sets the scene for the poem. The speaker is describing what he sees at a modern metro station. He sees faces in a crowd as he observes the station. The speaker may be appreciating the fact that all these people are able to get where they need to go while experiencing the diversity that comes along with riding the metro. The speaker is exposed to all kinds of different people in a place that was new at the time. The second line uses a simile to relate the crowd to petals on a bough. This could signify that the metro allows individual people, like petals on a bough, to unify with a single purpose. The single parts are part of a greater whole.
The Poem could also be interpreted with a message against modernity. The speaker describes the faces in the crowd as “apparitions.” The word apparitions could signify that the faces are emotionless, losing their humanity as they crowd together. The speaker may expressing his concern that the metro causes people to become less personal in that they simply want to arrive at their destination without taking the time to notice the others around them. The second line has clear indications of a negative approach to modernity. The bough that the petals are a part of is described as wet and black. These words bring up images of a gloomy, rainy scene. The speaker may be using the simile of the bough in order to express that the people have become too uniform. They have no need to speak to the others around them. They have become like a lifeless hive with the purpose of simply getting somewhere.