It's in fact poetry!

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

-Ezra Pound




How could it possibly be that these fourteen little words be poetry? Well if looked at a little deeper than one would think that the words Pound uses are hardly little. When you hear the word "little" you think insignificant. This poem is definitely significant with plenty of meaning. Pound uses a style of Japanese haiku in an Imagism fashion. Yes, it doesn't even have a single verb. Finding beauty in something not so beautiful is difficult, but writing about that beauty can be just as if not even more difficult. It took Ezra Pound a while, but he certainly accomplished painting a beautiful picture with words.
Fine. How can I see what Pound saw by reading his poem? That's the question that many may next ask themselves after being told that this poem is a poem full of images and beauty. Let's dissect this work then shall we. Let's start off by examining the word "apparition." It's described as a supernatural appearance of a person or thing, or the appearance of something remarkable or startling. The appearance of all of these things are short and quick. The poem itself is like an "apparition" being very short and quick to read. It flashes past our eyes on the page just as the faces in a crowd of a metro station do. The two lines in this non traditional poem go by fast, perhaps too fast. The moment you witness something beautiful you no doubt want that moment to last, but many times it doesn't. So you make a mental image of it and then later try to convey the image through some other venue. Pound decided to convey his mental image of beauty that he experienced through words.
The second line of the poem contrasts with the first. The first word is "petals" bringing a feminine element. Petals are soft to the touch, delicate, and of course beautiful. The last word of "In a Station of the Metro" is "bough," meaning the branch of a tree. A black tree branch, black being the color used to describe the bough, is certainly not as fragile as a petal nor as fair. Thus we find something attractive out of something not so beauteous. The petals symbolize the startling faces within the crowd, while the black bough symbolizes the crowd as a whole. The petals and those beautiful faces mentioned are only small parts to something bigger. Let's not forget that our senses are again used when reading "wet." I imagine the touch of wet petals on a tree during a rainy day. Lastly there is the use of rhyme in Pound's poem. "Crowd" and "bough" bring an element of fluidity as the poem is read.
Imagery, symbolism, and rhyme are ingredients Pound used to paint a picture of beauty he experienced. If you have a revelation of some sort and can put into words to where when people read them they can envision even a small fraction of your encounter, then isn't that poetry?