Ezra Pound

Poet

Birthday October 30, 1885

Birth Sign Scorpio

Birthplace Hailey, ID

DEATH DATE Nov 1, 1972 (87)

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About

American-born modernist poet whose most famous works include The Cantos, Ripostes, and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. He became an expatriate during World War II and was ultimately arrested by the U.S. government for treason after he aided the Axis Powers in Italy. His blame of finance capitalism for World War 1 led him ultimately to side with fascist ideals. 

Before Fame

As a boy, he attended a number of Quaker schools and later studied at the Cheltenham Military Academy, where he carried out his military training in a Civil War-style uniform. He began attending the University of Pennsylvania at the young age of fifteen.

Trivia

He was confined to St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital for twelve years, beginning in the mid-1940s, and he may have suffered from schizophrenia and/or narcissistic personality disorder.

Family Life

He was born in Idaho and grew up as the only child of Isabel Weston and Homer Loomis Pound. He married Dorothy Shakespear in April of 1914. The couple had a son named Omar, and Pound also fathered a daughter, Mary, through an extramarital affair with Olga Rudge.

Associated With

His literary work inspired Robert Frost and other modern poets.