Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Poundwas an expatriate American poet and critic, and a major figure in the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. His best-known works include Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberleyand the unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 October 1885
CityHailey, ID
CountryUnited States of America
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.
Properly, we should read for power.
Song in the Manner of Housman" O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera.... London is a woeful place, Shropshire is much pleasanter. Then let us smile a little space Upon fond nature's morbid grace. Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera....
The Garden En robe de parade. - Samain Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anaemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth. In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.
'Tis not need we know our every thought Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit And serve our jape's turn for a night or two.
The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep (Cantico del Sole)
As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it.
Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.
Allow me to say that I would long since have committed suicide had desisting made me a professor of Latin.
No verse is libre for the man who wants to do a good job.
The what is so much more important than how.
Bureaucrats are a pox. They are supposed to be necessary. Certain chemicals in the body are supposed to be necessary to life, but cause death the moment they increase beyond a suitable limit
If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.
Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.