The Beginnings of Analyzing Poetry...

So as I begin my venture into analyzing these two pieces of poetry, I must remind you to bare with me as I have not done this in about six months and never have considered myself an expert as it. However, these two poems have given me reason to think deeper beyond just the plain words. "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound gave me a little bit more difficulty than Raymond Carver's "Photograph of my Father in His Twenty-Second Year," mostly because it was only a couplet and sometimes it is difficult to find deep meaning in fourteen words and one sentence...but here is my attempt.

I'll begin with Pound's "In a Station of the Metro." The title leads me to believe this is obviously in an urban area since the setting is a station of the metro. "The apparition (which yes I did look up that it's a ghostlike figure...so i suppose that's my vocab word of the week) of the faces in the crowd," (line 1) makes me think the faces are all blank and no one truly pays attention to them. The words "wet" and "black" also suggest a mellow and dark tone. I feel like this can relate to the students of Clemson walking around campus to their class on the first day. They're semi blank because everyone is tired and not used to getting up early from their previous long break. The students are anxious and unaware of their surroundings because about all their brains can focus on in those moments is where their class is and, "What in the world is this new semester going to be like?!" Although, I do not believe the first day of class should offer a gloomy tone as this poem does, to some people it is extremely anxiety-provoking and could, in fact, be construed that way.

The second poem, "Photography of My Father in His Twenty-Seond Year" by Raymond Carter I especially loved (and I can't say that about most poetry). I felt like Carter started off in the first stanza doing and excellent job of laying the scene. Even by starting of by simply saying, "October" (line 1) the reader receives a mental image of leaves changing, a time for new beginnings, the old gone and the new to come. Carter, by implementing diction such as, "embarassed," "sheepish," bold," and "hearty," he shows us what type of character this man was. One of my favorite lines, (line 10), "All his life my father wanted to be bold," shows how this man was always striving to be noble and upstanding, but certainly had his flaws as well. Right in line 11 is where the turn begins, "But the eyes give him away..." He's a sweet man, who apparently can't hold his liquor, as his child can relate to him, and loves to fish. I feel like the photograph taken that his child is looking at and reminiscing upon was a good day for this man. He is having a good ol' time drinking a beer and catching fish. I truly like this poem because it made me chuckle at the end because I too would have no idea where a good place is to fish. I relate to this because I too hold my own father on a high pedestal. Although, just like the father in the poem, my dad is not perfect, but he is a wonderful dad and I love him dearly...which is exactly how the speaker feels in this poem. I suppose I could be missing something here, but I think this is a feel-good poem meant to make the readers smile, and it accomplished that task.