Ezra Loomis Pound

Pound, Ezra Loomis (1885–1972), U.S. poet, critic, and translator. A gifted linguist, he went to Europe in 1908 and soon won recognition. His most important works are Homage to Sextus Propertius (1918), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and the epic Cantos (1925–60). He championed the imagist and vorticist movements, and influenced T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and W.B. Yeats, among others. He supported Benito Mussolini, and after broadcasting pro-Fascist propaganda during World War II, he was indicted for treason by the United States; he was found unfit to plead and confined to a mental institution until 1958.