Childhood Memories

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound (1913)

Often described as the founder of Imagism, Ezra Pound was both a pioneer of modernist poetry and personal steward to those poets whose work he admired. “In a Station of the Metro” is only two lines of free verse and, like “Childhood Memories” is given to no strict or inherited metrical pattern, allowing only one stressed syllable for every three. However, Pound’s tight control of the sonic qualities of the line are evident: The poem pivots from imagist contemplation of the blurred faces in a subway station to its final and sudden landing of its three ending syllables, each stressed and coming in rapid succession, like knocks on a door. Pound gives the simple image meaning through sound alone. Pound’s landmark work “The Cantos” took over 50 years to write and is roundly considered among the most influential modernist works of the century.

The Fish by Marianne Moore (1918)

Containing a similar imagist gesture, “The Fish” by foundational poet Marianne Moore is another work of modernist meditation leveled on nature. Moore was among the many modernists to have poems published in the magazine William Saphier co-edited, Others.