Pound’s Poetry in Perspective

In the journal Catholic Anthology 1914-15 is published Pound’s poem, “In a Station of the Metro” (p. 88), along with many of his other poems and some by other authors we have studied. His poem was published alongside “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, as well as works by Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Allen Upward, W. B. Yeats, and a few less-popular ones like Edgar Lee Masters and Harold Monro. I could find little about the motivation behind this collection, but I did notice that this edition of the anthology had a distinct pattern among its submissions, and it defined itself by the popularity of its authors. The pattern that I noticed showed that most of the poems seemed to be about personal perspective, and most of them were from the point of view of one speaker observing his surroundings. This theme fits well with poems like “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “In a Station of the Metro,” because each represents one specific perspective on reality. Edgar Lee Masters’ poems especially displayed this use of personal perspectives, since most of his poems were titled as names, such as “Roscoe Purkapile” and “Ollie McGee,” and each poem described that speaker’s personal viewpoint on their surroundings. The authors who probably had more of this type of perspective poetry, and who were more widely published, seemed to have more submissions in the anthology. Yeats’ poem was the first in the anthology, followed by five of T.S. Eliot’s poems. Ezra Pound published nine of his own poems, under the heading “Contemporania.” These, along with poems by Carl Sandburg and William Carlos Williams, were published toward the end of the anthology, as if Pound wished for the anthology to start with strong authors and end with them as well. The anthology also sported a motto in Latin, surrounded by a crest. The motto states “fructus inter folia,” which means “fruit among the leaves.” This motto may have some reference to Whitman, who gets an introductory quote in the front of the publication – “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose” – and have something to do with his perspective pieces in Leaves of Grass, especially within “Song of Myself.” Also, it could merely refer to the precedence Pound wished these poems to have over their contemporaries. He wished the poems within the anthology to be the proverbial “fruit” among the plain, old “leaves” of other poets. Either way, it is an intriguing anthology and displays a great deal about fragmentation and perspective poetry.