Ezra Pound Poster

This is a digital painting portraying Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885 - 1972). Pound was one of the most controversial, influential, and innovative poets of the modernist period. His contribution to poetry began with his promotion of Imagism – a movement that emphasizes on clarity, precision and economy of language. His best-known works include Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and his unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos. His own work apart, Pound was responsible for advancing the careers of some of the best-known modernist writers of the early 20th century like Eliot, Joyce, Lewis, Frost, Hemingway. He was arrested for treason by American forces in Italy in 1945. After being declared insane and unfit to stand trial for his life, committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, DC, until 1958; lived in Italy, 1958-72. While in custody in Italy he had begun work on sections of The Cantos for which he was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the Library of Congress.