by Diane Kennedy

Created on: September 10, 2010

Biography: Ezra Pound

Controversial American poet Ezra Loomis Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885, but grew up in Wyncote, Philadelphia. When he was twelve, Pound was enrolled in a military academy, where he studied Greek and Latin. He continued to study languages for two years at the University of Pennsylvania. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Ezra met and became friends with future fellow poet, William Carlos Williams. In 1903, Ezra Pound transferred to Hamilton College and earned his degree in Anglo-Saxon and Romance languages. He went to work immediately, teaching at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. He was asked to leave this post in 1908, after entertaining an actress in his quarters.

Ezra Pound took this opportunity to travel to Europe, making stops in Spain and Italy before settling in London. Pound was drawn to London through the influence of W. B. Yeats, whom he idolized and eventually befriended. Ezra Pound once remarked, “Yeats knew more about poetry than anybody else.” Ezra’s first published work of poetry was entitled, A Lune Spento, and was published privately in Venice, Italy. During this time, between the years 1908 and 1911, Pound published six books of poetry, mostly inspired by his intense interest in Provencal and early Italian poetry.

Ezra’s style became more modern in 1912, when he founded the Imagist movement with Ford Madox Ford and T. E. Hulme. The Imagists believed in free verse poetry, that contained only words contributing to the overall and direct treatment of the subject. Rhythm was intended to be musical, rather than concise. One of the most famous Imagist poems was written by Ezra Pound. In a Station of the Metro was inspired by a succession of beautiful faces he had seen at the Paris Metro station earlier in the day and felt a sudden need to express.

However, Imagism soon fell out of favor with Pound. He cast the style aside to write in the avant garde manner of Vorticism, which he founded and advocated through the associated magazine, Blast. Through exposure to visual artists working in this mode, Ezra became aware of a new structure his poetry could form. He began to look at lines of verse as juxtaposed masses and planes. This idea can be seen in Pound’s 1915 translation of Orientalist Ernest Fenollosa’s classical Chinese poems, which he transformed into graceful free verse, and called Cathay. Cathay is considered one of Pound’s most beautiful works. It became clear

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