The Egoist

by Elyse Graham The final issue of The Egoist, modernism’s archetypal little magazine, appeared in December 1919. It had run for five years, during which time it had seen circulation fall from 2,000 to 1,500 to 1,000 to, at last, 400 copies.1 During the war it downsized from weekly to monthly distribution. Even with these… Continue Reading The Egoist

Quia Pauper Amavi

by Edgar Garcia “An epic,” writes Ezra Pound in the ABC of Reading, “is a poem including history.”[1] History is the story of peoples through time. But Pound’s bare definition of epic according to its historical aspect fails to identify who the given history includes. Elsewhere, Pound identifies a historical subject with a phrase borrowed… Continue Reading Quia Pauper Amavi

Guide to Kulchur

by Edgar Eduardo Garcia The difficulty of summarizing a book like Ezra Pound’s Guide to Kulchur is brought about by the already highly condensed summary it gives of its subjects, 2,500 years of “ideas going into action.”[1] The martial undertones of the metaphor, “going into action,” might lead the reader to reckon that Pound is… Continue Reading Guide to Kulchur

Cathay

by Andrew Karas In 1915, Ezra Pound published a slim volume of poems which he called Cathay and which contained, according to its title page, “translations by Ezra Pound for the most part from the Chinese of Rihaku.” Yet in writing the poems contained in Cathay, Pound set out to do much more than transcribe… Continue Reading Cathay

Certain Noble Plays of Japan

by Michael Chan Certain Noble Plays of Japan: From the Manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa, Chosen and Finished by Ezra Pound, with an Introduction by William Butler Yeats (hereafter Certain Noble Plays of Japan) is a collection of four Nō plays published in 1916 by Ezra Pound. As the title states, Pound selected these translations based… Continue Reading Certain Noble Plays of Japan

Des Imagistes

Des Imagistes: An Anthology (1914) by Elyse Graham When Ezra Pound arrived in London in 1909, he began arranging introductions to all the literary people he could manage. The most felicitous was to the novelist Olivia Shakespear; not only did she connect Pound with her lover, W.B. Yeats, but Pound eventually married her daughter, Dorothy.… Continue Reading Des Imagistes

In a Station of the Metro

by Pericles Lewis Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” of 1911, reads, in its entirety: The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. The juxtaposition of two images, the travelers on the subway platform and the flower petals, offers what Pound called “direct treatment.” The sparseness of… Continue Reading In a Station of the Metro

Sestina: Altaforte

by Sam Alexander Ezra Pound‘s “Sestina: Altaforte” (1909) was first published in June, 1909. Pound had given a reading of the poem to the Poets’ Club two months earlier, which was so emphatic that at the Soho restaurant where the club met “a screen had to be placed around the gathering to prevent a public disturbance.”[1]… Continue Reading Sestina: Altaforte

“1920 (Mauberley)”

by Edgar Eduardo Garcia Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, published by The Ovid Press in 1920, is commonly referred to as Ezra Pound‘s “farewell to London.”[1] He moved to Paris shortly after its publication. The circumstances of his departure, in combination with the poem’s satirical inveighing of English culture and intellectual life, prompt readings of the poem… Continue Reading “1920 (Mauberley)”

Ezra Pound

Biography by Anthony Domestico and Pericles Lewis Critic, poet, impresario, and propagandist, Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was one of the shaping forces of modernism, with connections to the era’s most influential writers of prose and poetry.  In championing the liberatory effects of free verse and in skillfully practicing the techniques of collage and allusion, Pound placed a… Continue Reading Ezra Pound