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 Ezra Pound: Poet by A. David Moody / An American Poet's Review by Carolyn Grassi
EZRA POUND: POET
A Portrait of the Man & His Work
Volume I The Young Genius 1885-1920
by A. David Moody
Oxford University Press, 2007
As an admirer of A. David Moody's outstanding book, T.S. Eliot: Poet, I eagerly picked up his Ezra Pound: Poet, Volume l. Once again, Moody is a masterful guide-- this time illuminating in detail the evolution of the young Pound as poet of the famed "Cantos." A fascinating pleasurable read for sure thanks to Moody's fine prose and brilliant insights. We travel, as it were, into Pound's intensely self-confident readings and studies of poetry in his Pennsylvania college years. Learn how Pound thought of himself as a future inventor of a new kind of poetry via Pound's uniquely self-directed study, or apprenticeship to the works of the troubadours, Browning, Yeats, Homer, Sextus Propertius, Confucius, Li Po, Rihaku, Calvalcanti and primarily of Dante. Also, Moody situates Pound in the places influencing his future writings-- his American origins, his times in Paris and southern France and primarily, in this Volume I, Pound's years in England. For in London Pound's experiments in poetry, his drawing on currents from the above mentioned writers, will help create such movements in poetry itself, as Imagisime and Vorticism.
Moody presents Pound, the eclectic conversationalist, colorfully dressed figure, the boundlessly generous friend on behalf of other writers (Yeats, Joyce, Eliot). He is seen as constantly appealing to patrons, as John Quinn of New York, for financial support for other artists. Bluntly outspoken, as well, Pound confronts any writer, publisher or critic, he considered out-of-date obstacles to the emerging new poetry. His conviction that the arts will transform the world was unswerving. For Pound, the arts, and especially poetry were intimately woven into the fabric of everything else of value-- history, economics, music, painting, publications, politics, education, etc.
Towards the end of Moody's Volume I, he shows us the shape and content of Pound's great work to come: "The Cantos." This is a key section, where Moody reveals Pound's path as clearly revolutionary for his own work and for modern poetry itself. And though we have only the first seven cantos (in this Volume I), not yet fully developed by Pound at that stage, Moody whets our appetite for the future "Cantos" (and for Pound: Poet Volume II).
At the completion of Moody's clear and wide-ranging account of Pound's development as a young poet we stand, as if impatiently watching Ezra and Dorothy pack their bags for the move from London to Italy-- future home for the creation of Pound's "Cantos." "On with it!"-- we cheer poet and critic.
A final comment-- this is a "must read" for any Pound scholar or aficionado. And for those, as myself, who have stumbled over Pound's poetry and often given up; now we have Moody's sensitive and intelligent guidance into that mysterious complex world of Pound's poetry. I think A. David Moody's Ezra Pound: Poet is the best possible happening for Pound's poetry, since it first appeared.
 The Latest Pound Biography
Ezra Pound: Poet I: The Young Genius 1885-1920
If you want the fullest account of Pound's life to date, start with this volume. It is the first of two volumes and will when complete be more detailed than any biography of the poet so far. If you want to understand why Ezra Pound deserves a biography of this magnitude, read Pound. Almost all his works in poetry and prose are in print, a third of a century after his death. Few writers can claim such longevity. Pound is here to stay, because for all his faults he was a great poet--a highly eccentric and controversial personality, as this biography shows, but a great poet nevertheless.
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