Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound

(10/30/1885 - 11/1/1972)
Ezra Loomis Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885 but spent his formative years in Wyancote, Pennsylvania, where his father was an assayer to the United States Mint. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania for two years then transferred to Hamilton college, receiving a degree in 1905.

After teaching Romance Languages at Wabash College in Indiana for two years, he resigned and travelled to Spain, Italy and England, where, as the literary executor of the scholar Ernest Fenellosa, he became interested in the poetry of the Chinese and Japanese. Ezra Pound founded the Imagist movement in poetry, which encouraged experimenting with different verse forms, and opposed representational art in favor of abstract forms.

Ezra married the artist Dorothy Shakespear in 1914 and in 1922 began a life-long relationship with violinist Olga Rudge. In 1924 he moved to Italy and became involved in Fascist politics, and did not return to the United States until 1945, when he was arrested for broadcasting facsict propaganda via radio to the United States during WWII, on charges of treason.

In 1946, he was acquitted, deemed unfit for trial, and declared insane. He was committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. After many letters and appeals from friends and writers, including Robert Frost, Ezra won his release from the hospital in 1958. He soon returned to Venice, where he died, a recluse, in 1972.

A Girl A Pact
A Virginal Alba
An Immorality Ancient Music
Ballad of the Goodly Fere Before Sleep
Canto I Canto XIII
Envoi Epilogue
Ezra on the Strike Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord
Francesca Further Instructions
Grace Before Song Historion
In a Station of the Metro In Tempore Senectutis
In the Old Age of the Soul Invern
Ione, Dead the Long Year Ité
L'Art La Regina Avrillouse
Lament of the Frontier Guard Masks
Meditatio Nicotine
Portrait D'une Femme Salutation
Sestina: Altaforte Silet
Song Song in the Manner of Housman
Song of the Bowmen of Shu Statement of Being
Sub Mare The Bath Tub
The Fault of it The Garden
The Garret The Jewel Stairs' Grievance
The Lake Isle The Logical Conclusion
The Needle The Plunge
The Return The River Merchants Wife: A Letter
The Seafarer The Seeing Eye
The Summons The Tree
These Fought in any Case Ts'ai Chi'h
Villanelle: The Psychological Hour Villonaud for this Yule