Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry

Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Be against all forms of oppression,
Go out and defy opinion.
This is the old cry of the poet, but more precise, as an
expression of frank disgust:
Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family.
O, how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree without shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling.

The virile complaint, the revolt of the poet, all which shows his emotion,—that is poetry.

I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say "I"
When I question you.
For you are no part, but a whole;
No portion, but a being.

When a poet alters or develops, many of his admirers are sure to drop off.

And as for the platform of Imagism, here are a few of Pound's
"Don'ts for Imagists":
Pay no attention to the criticisms of men who have never
themselves written a notable work.
Use no superfluous word and no adjective which does not
reveal something.
Go in fear of abstractions. Don't retail in mediocre verse
what has already been done in good prose.
Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as the average piano teacher spends on the art of music.
Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency either to acknowledge the debt outright or try to conceal it.
Consider the definiteness of Dante's presentation as compared with Milton's. Read as much of Wordsworth as does not seem to be unutterably dull.
If you want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid, or if yon have not the tongues seek out the leisurely Chaucer.
Good prose will do you no harm. There is good discipline to be had by trying to write it. Translation is also good training.

As for the first point, here are Mr. Pound's words in answer to the question, "do you agree that the great poet is never emotional?"
Yes, absolutely; if by emotion is meant that he is at the mercy of every passing mood…. The only kind of emotion worthy of a poet is the inspirational emotion which energises and strengthens, and which is very remote from the everyday emotion of sloppiness and sentiment….

Words are perhaps the hardest of all material of art: for they must be used to express both visual beauty and beauty of sound, as well as communicating a grammatical statement.

What the poems do require is a trained ear, or at least the willingness to be trained.

He baffles us by archaic words and unfamiliar metres; he often seems to be scorning the limitations of form and metre, breaking out into any sort of expression which suits itself to his mood.
and counsels the poet to "have a little more respect for his art."

full of personality and with such power to express it