I don't know if the change to a semi-colon is an error.  In the 1926
Personae, collecting for the first time all of Pound's earlier work that he
wished to preserve, the poem contains the semi-colon.  Not that we can
assume Pound poured over the Boni & Liveright proofs with great care; some
of his early small press publications contained many errors despite his
involvement in the publication process.  An argument could be made for a
colon, semi-colon, other or no punctuation mark at that point in the poem.
As with H S Mauberley, for example, the question of typographical form and
determining the author's intent can be frustrating.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacob Korg [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 11:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: cooking in a station of the metro


Yes, let's not have any more errors. My version of "Metro" was from
memory, and it would be best not to assume that "wet, black" went
together.And the colon is certainly of prime importance.It has become a
semicolon in The Collected Shorter Poems, which I think is another error.
                                Jacob Korg

On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Jonathan P. Gill wrote:

> As regards Pound and food:  there was a good paper on Pound and food by
> one of our Franco-American colleagues at the conference in Brantome a few
> years back.
>
> As regards In a Station of the Metro:  Let's not introduce more errors, at
> least not by mistake!  There was a colon after "crowd" in the first
> version, which you can see reprinted in facsimile in Poetry and Prose--my
> library also has bound volumes of Poetry (actually, they seem to be
> versions of the originals reprinted for library use in the 1920s).
>
> Jonathan Gill
> Columbia University
>