If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

"Picasso" by Gertrude Stein (1909)

“If I Told Him” is the second of two literary portraits of Picasso that Stein attempted. “Picasso,” Stein’s first attempt published in 1909, uses many of the same techniques as Stein’s later literary portrait of the painter. Both poems, for instance, rely on the repetition (with minor variation) of whole phrases. This earlier portrait lacks some of the symbolic depth of “If I Told Him,” and places less emphasis on particular words. “Picasso” also lacks conventional line breaks and is structured in prose paragraphs rather than in poetic stanzas.

“In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound (1913)

Stein is not the only Modernist poet who attempts to capture the entirety of their subject using abstract impressions rather than linear sentences. Ezra Pound, occasional attendee of Stein’s Paris salons, was one of the major forces behind Imagism, a literary movement with similar aims and influences. Like Stein, Pound relies on a series of impressions rather linear narratives. Unlike Stein, however, Pound uses precise imagery to communicate his subjects. “In a Station of the Metro” is one of Pound’s most famous and successful Imagist poems.

“Objects” by Gertrude Stein (1914)