“And then the crowd broke up, you went north to
San palace,
And if you ask how I regret that parting:
It is like the flowers falling at Spring’s end
Confused, whirled in a tangle.”
— “Exile’s Letter” by Ezra Pound
Technique
In “Exile’s Letter,” Ezra Pound creates an emotional hook by associating personal emotions with events to create interiority.
The poem opens with “And then,” which is a common phrase in oral and written storytelling that implies successive events. A string of successive events can feel overwhelming for people like Pound’s first-person narrator. Next, he says directly that him and his friend parted, which takes an emotional toll because he misses his friend dearly. He compares the emotional toll to flowers at the end of Spring, when they have finished blooming and are already slouched, stem leaning, head hanging. Like the flowers, he feels that same deep sadness and expresses it physically through his posture.
Use
- Narrate in first-person to establish interiority.
- Use flashbacks to create nostalgia or longing, which is a common feeling people experience.
- Associate emotions with events, which can be layered to flesh out feelings.
- Use everyday symbolism or an analogy to extrapolate emotions.
The Periplous 