Naturally man made

Naturally man made

Breaking rules. Many of us do it. Whether the act is as small as using the wrong door or as big as using the wrong traffic lane, breaking rules is just an everyday occurrence. However it is the use of rules that define who we are. To insist on using the right door makes you a meticulous person; while using the right lane makes you a safe driver. It is every little rule that we follow that makes us who we are. Breaking the rules is a characteristic commonly associated with writing poetry. In the early days, poems had to rhyme and follow a specific meter. However, as time went on poets began to break the rules and form into what is now known as free verse. Modern standards of free verse have almost nothing to do with what poetry use to sound like. However there still remains a form to be followed.
Now what would we call a poem that does not follow any criterion for being a poem, even to free verse standards? “In a station of the metro” by Ezra Pound would be one up for review. Many may argue that this poem is merely a sentence, an incomplete thought, or even just a group of words. Despite it breaking all these rules, Pound’s poem obeys the one rule that all poems must obey. This rule is that they must all have a deeper meaning than what is being said. A sort of cryptic message that lies deep beneath the surface of the words. All poems have a message and Pound’s poem is no exception. With a little decoding, one can find out that Pound is making a statement of how no matter how much humans try to distant themselves from nature, the line between them is blurred and that they have more in common together than one thinks.
Pound first compares a subway system to a tree's vascular system to emphasize similarities. In terms a form and function, a tree has much in common with a subway system. A subway system can be thought as a vascular system of the city. Meanwhile a tree has a vascular system. Both use a complicated series of tubes and pods to transport nutrients throughout the entity to which they serve. The tunnel and train serves the city, while the vessel and pod serves the tree. Even the end points of these vessels are similar. A subway system will have stations which are analogous to the pores found throughout the tree. Pound is showing that no matter how large the entity is, it still relies on a vascular system to keep it working. A city, which can be thought as the poster child of human civilization must still have a system that is awfully familiar to a tree; which can be thought of as the poster child of nature. They are both living systems and have adapted similar techniques to distributing its nutrients.
Pound uses pedals and faces to exhibit the fruits of the system’s labor. As the nutrients are distributed throughout the tree, each nutrient plays their own role in benefitting the tree; whether it is to help the tree grow or to make the tree blossom with pedals. In this case the pedals can be thought of as the fruits of the tree’s labor. Analogous to the pedals would be the human faces which Pound directly compares pedals to in his poem. The faces of the people make each subway uniquely looking, as do the pedals to each branch. Humans are subconsciously taking influence from nature by decorating their subway stations with faces, much like how a tree decorates each branch with its pedals. This use of aesthetic resources brings humans one step closer to nature.
Pound brings humans and nature close together enough to be separated by a fine line, only to blur this line by contrasting the two systems. A tree can be thought as one of the simplest structures on earth. While a train station can be thought of one of the most complex inventions ever put forth by anything to touch this earth. A tree is so simple in only needing photosynthesis to thrive, while a metro station needs everything from electricity to people to run the station to revenue to pay for everything. A tree is a warm and comforting figure of peace and tranquility, while a train station is a place where very busy people come and go without a second thought. Pound is showing how no matter how complex and sophisticated something is, its roots will be buried deep within a part of nature.
The line is blurred even further with contrasts within each system’s qualities to represent the other system. Once the line is already blurred, Pound takes it yet another step further by contrasting elements within the systems themselves. Within the metro station, faces are contrasted with the rest of the station. It is here we have an organic versus industrial contrasting. Nature is represented by the human faces while humans are represented by their own creation. With the tree system, we have pedals which are often associated with being very bright and vibrant with color contrasted with a “wet black bough”. Once again nature is represented by something that is very warm and peaceful i.e. The pedals, while humans are being represented by something that is dark and cold. Being black and cold to nature is a common perception for some to have about the human race and what they have become to nature. The line is blurred because we find that even within systems that are thought to be purely for nature or purely for humans, we find representations of the opposing system within it. We now have a sort of yin and yang effect with both systems within each system.
“In a station of the metro” is without a doubt a poem. Not for the fact that it breaks the rules of conventional rule breaking poems, but for the fact that it has a deeper meaning than what is being said literally. It comments on how humans and nature are all related in one giant loop. No matter how big the loop; be it a tree, a metro station, or the tree and metro station together. Representations of both will always be found no matter where you look. This is because everything is linked together in a yin and yang effect. One can not exist without the existence of the other. It is with this encrypted message that “In a station of the metro” can be considered a poem.