A verbless poem, a poem without verbs.[1] Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" is a verbless poem of fourteen words:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Afanasy Fet produced two other classics of the genre: "Storm in the evening sky" (Буря на небе вечернем, 1842) and "Whisper, timid breathing" (Шепот, робкое дыханье, 1850).[2] Otto Jespersen observed that the absence of verbs can give "a very definite impression of motion."[3] It has been called "poetry without any dress, without ornament".[4]