Ezra+Pound

=Ezra Pound=

On October 30, 1885, in Haley, Idaho, Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was born. Pound was known for being an expatriate writer who wrote some of the most memorable poetry; he was also a writing critic. Pound would help others with their writing and was also said to be a great friend. He got married to Dorothy Shakespeare in 1914. Ezra Pound was not a fan of the World Wars. He was outraged with England and blamed capitalism for the outburst, so he moved to Italy in 1924. He was said to have been a supporter of Hitler. Pound was paid, by the Italian government, to write badly about the U.S, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Jews. He was then later arrested in 1945, charged of treason, and sent to detention in a U.S military camp. His punishment included being trapped in an outdoor six-by-six steal cage for three weeks which caused a mental break down. Pound then had to spend 12 years in a psychiatric hospital. His friends and other writers campaigned his release and he lived the rest of his life in Italy until his death on November 1, 1972 at the age of 87.

Ezra Pound was a major figure in the modernist movement. His writing first began with Imagism, the movement developed by Japanese and classical Chinese poetry, where clarity and precision is stressed and forgoes any rhyming. Some of his most famous works include: Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Maulberly, and The Cantos. Pound has been said to be one of the most controversial writers, and a very important contributor to modern day poetry. Not only did Pound write himself, but he also helped find some of the other famously known writers as well. He discovered, and shaped the writing of writers such as: Ernest Hemingway, T.S Eliot, James Joyce, and Robert Frost. Pound influenced T.S. Eliot but Eliot also influenced him. Ezra Pound was greatly impacted and found inspiration in a lot of people such as, Ford Madox Ford, Confucius, Henry James, and W.B. Yeats. Pound has been described as being more responsible for the twentieth-century revolution in poetry than any other individual.

Pound and his family lived in Paris from 1921-1924. He was friends with many famous authors and artists including the Hemingway’s. He spent much of his time building furniture for his house and the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. He also met Olga Rudge in Paris, a woman who had an affair with for around 50 years. He died November 1, 1972 in Venice, Italy where he lived as a recluse.