Ezra Pound by T.S. Eliot

"All talk on modern poetry, by people who know," wrote Mr. Carl / Sandburg in _Poetry_, "ends with dragging in Ezra Pound / somewhere. He may be named only to be cursed as wanton and / mocker, poseur, trifler and vagrant. Or he may be classed as / filling a niche today like that of Keats in a preceding epoch. / The point is, he will be mentioned."

This is a simple statement of fact. But though Mr. Pound is well / known, even having been the victim of interviews for Sunday / papers, it does not follow that his work is thoroughly known. / There are twenty people who have their opinion of him for every / one who has read his writings with any care. Of those twenty, / there will be some who are shocked, some who are ruffled, some / who are irritated, and one or two whose sense of dignity is / outraged. The twenty-first critic will probably be one who knows / and admires some of the poems, but who either says: "Pound is / primarily a scholar, a translator," or "Pound's early verse was / beautiful; his later work shows nothing better than the itch for / advertisement, a mischievous desire to be annoying, or a / childish desire to be original. " There is a third type of / reader, rare enough, who has perceived Mr. Pound for some years, / who has followed his career intelligently, and who recognizes / its consistency.