Ezra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho, in 1885. He completed two years of college at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree from Hamilton College in 1905.

After teaching at Wabash College for two years, he traveled abroad to Spain, Italy and London.

He became interested in Japanese and Chinese poetry. He married Dorothy Shakespeare in 1914 and became London editor of the Little Review in 1917.

In 1924, he moved to Italy and became involved in Fascist politics. He did not return to the United States until 1945.

He was arrested on charges of treason for broadcasting Fascist propaganda by radio to the United States during the Second World War.

In 1946, he was acquitted, but declared mentally ill and committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.

During his confinement, the jury of the Bollingen-Library of Congress Award decided to overlook Pound’s political career in the interest of recognizing his poetic achievements.

He was awarded the prize for the Pisan Cantos (1948).

After continuous appeals from writers won his release from the hospital in 1958, Pound returned to Italy and settled in Venice, where he died, a semi-recluse, in 1972.