Question

Why did Ezra Pound reduce "In a Station of the Metro" from 30 lines to two?

Answer 1

Ezra Pound reduced his poem "In a Station of the Metro" from 30 lines to two because he was a Modernest. He worked in extremes and either wrote minimalist works that consisted of two lines or he wrote epic works that consisted of hundreds of lines. He also refused to repeat himself throughout his career as a poet. The Modernism movement started at the beginning of the twentieth century. It broke away from traditional structures such as rhyme and meter. Modernism created free verse. 

Answer 2

The lines are :

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough."

The poem was first published in 1913 and it became a notable work of the Imagist tradition. Pound's reduction from thirty lines to only fourteen words characterizes Imagism's economy of language, precision and non-traditional verse form. Metro at La Concorde, in Paris was a center of inspiration for Ezra which filled him with intense emotion and revelation.