University of Pennsylvania

William Carlos Williams served as a physician in his home town of Rutherford, New Jersey, from 1910 to 1951, and in hours after work wrote fiction, poetry, plays, and criticism. He was born on September 17, 1883, in Rutherford, educated at Horace Mann School in New York, and from 1902 until 1906 studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he met Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle. He interned at the French Hospital and Nursery and Child's Hospital until 1909, and the next year, after studying briefly in Leipzig, touring Europe, and visiting his old friend Pound in London, set up his private medical practice in Rutherford. In 1912 Williams married Florence (Flossie) Herman, who gave birth to their two sons, William Eric in 1914, and Paul in 1916. Over the next seven years, despite the demands of his medical practice and a young family, Williams published four books of verse, Al Que Quiere! (1917), Kora in Hell (1920), Sour Grapes (1921), and Spring and All (1921), that clearly established him as America's foremost modernist poet. Because his poetry was not received warmly at first, he shifted into fiction and plays, but the major work of his life proved to be Paterson, an epic poem published in five volumes from 1946 to 1958. In 1926 he had won an award from The Dial for a poem titled "Paterson," and the theme stuck. Recognition came slowly. The University of Washington at Seattle invited him to be visiting professor of English in 1948, but his 1949 appointment as consultant of poetry at Library of Congress was withdrawn after an investigation into his associations with Ezra Pound, although the appointment was renewed in 1952. In 1950 Williams was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1953 shared the Bollingen Award with Archibald MacLeish. All his life, from his early editing of Contact in 1923, Williams befriended younger poets. The letters to many, such as Denise Levertov, have survived. On March 4, 1963, Williams died in his sleep after years of illness, especially strokes in 1951-52, 1958, and 1961. He was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His volumes of poetry are as follows:

• Williams, William C. Poems (privately printed, 1909)
• Williams, William Carlos. The Tempers (London: Elkin Mathews, 1913).
• --. A Book of Poems: Al Que Quiere! (Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917). York University Library Special Collections 5773
• --. Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems (Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1921). York University Library Special Collections 4748
• --. Spring and All (1923: New York: Frontier Press, 1970). PS 3545 .I544S7 1970 Victoria College Library
• --. The Cod Head ( Harvest Press, 1932).
• --. An Early Martyr and Other Poems (New York: Alcestis Press, 1935).
• Adam & Eve & the City (Peru, Vermont: Alcestis Press, 1936).
• Complete Collected Poems (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1938) PS 3545 I544 A17 1938 York University Library
• The Broken Span (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1941). York University Library Special Collections 4737
• The Wedge (Cummington, Mass.: Cummington Press, 1944).
• Paterson (New York: J. Laughlin, 1963). 5 vols., published separately 1946-58. 811.5 W728pa Trinity College Library
• --. The Clouds (Wells College Press and Cummington Press, 1948)
• --. The Pink Church (Golden Goose Press, 1949). York University Library Special Collections 5832
• The Desert Music, and Other Poems (New York: Random House, 1954). PS 3545 I544D4 Robarts Library
• Journey to Love (New York: Random House, 1955). PS 3545 I544J6 Robarts Library
• --. "The Lost Poems of William Carlos Williams," ed. John C. Thirlwall, in New Directions 16 (1957).
• Pictures from Bruegel, and Other Poems (New York: for J. Laughlin by New Directions, 1962). PS 3545 .I544P45 Trinity College Library

See also

• The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (New York: New Directions, 1967). PS 3545 I544Z52 1967B Robarts Library
• The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: Volume I, 1909-1939, ed. A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1986). PS 3545 I544A17 Robarts Library
• I Wanted to Write a Poem: the Autobiography of the Works of a Poet, ed. Edith Heal (London: Cape, 1967). PS 3545 I544Z52 1967 Robarts Library
• The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams, ed. Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1998). PS 3562 .E8876Z49 Robarts Library
• Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981). PS 3545 I544 Z6534 Erindale College Library
• Something to Say: William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets, ed. James E.B. Breslin (New York: New Directions, 1985.). PS 324 W47 1985 Robarts Library
• Wagner, Linda Welshimer. William Carlos Williams: A Reference Guide (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978). Z 8976 .44 W27 Robarts Library
• --. "Williams, William Carlos." American National Biography Online. American Council of Learned Societies: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Wallace, Emily Mitchell. A Bibliography of William Carlos Williams (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1968). Z 8976 .44 W3 Robarts Library
• William Carlos Williams reads his poetry (Caedmon TC 1047, 1958). PS 3014 Erindale College Library AUDIOCASS

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, born on October 30, 1885, in Hailey, Idaho, obtained an M.A. in Romantic literature after attending the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College from 1901 to 1906. His first job came as lecturer in French and Spanish at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1906, but his resignation was requested. In 1908 he left for England and lectured in medieval Romance literature at the Regent Street Polytechnic Institute in London. His first volume of poetry, A Lume Spento, came out in London in 1908. It was followed by Exultations and Personae (1909), Provenca (1910), Canzoni (1911), Ripostes (1912), Cathay (1915), Lustra (1916), Quia Pauper Amavi (1918), and his early masterwork, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920). These books established his literary reputation and enabled him to turn to journalism for a living and, more than any other poet of his time, to promote the writing of others. His anthology Des Imagistes (1914) publicized the modernist verse of Richard Aldington, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), and F. S. Flint. Pound acted as unofficial secretary for the Irish poet W. B. Yeats from 1913 to 1916, as a correspondent for Poetry (Chicago), as co-founder, with Wyndham Lewis, of BLAST!, and as London editor of The Little Review from 1917 to 1919. In all these roles Pound promoted those whose poetic talents he admired. Almost single-handedly, Pound popularized ancient Chinese poetry by translating it for a wide audience. He befriended poets as diverse as Robert Frost and D. H. Lawrence. His most successful protégé was T. S. Eliot. Pound helped get Eliot's poems into print and, after leaving London for Paris in 1920 and becoming the Paris correspondent of The Dial (New York), not only assisted Eliot in editing The Waste Land but acted to have it published in that journal. With his wife Dorothy Shakespear (1914), Pound used his base in Paris to create an avant-garde literary scene that attracted writers as diverse as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Pound's life-work, the Cantos, began in England and moved with him to France and then to Rapallo, Italy, where he settled permanently in 1925. The 116 Cantos were published in groups from 1917 to 1968. During World War II, Pound supported Mussolini and broadcast on his behalf over Italian radio from Rome until 1945. These talks were anti-semitic and anti-capitalist. US forces arrested him for treason at Genoa that year and incarcerated him in an army training facility near Pisa. For some weeks he was kept in a smallish wire cage in the compound courtyard. About this time, he wrote the Pisan Cantos (New Directions, 1948), which won the Bollingen Prize the next year -- for good reason, because these are the poems of a great spirit. The Army then sent Pound to Washington, D.C., to stand trial for offences that might have warranted a death-sentence. The court judged him unfit, by reason of insanity, to stand trial and committed him to a mental institution, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in Washington. Released in 1958, owing to lobbying of the literary community led by his many friends, and especially Robert Frost, Pound returned to Italy. He died on November 1, 1972, in Venice, and is interred in San Michele Cemetery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Pound had two children, Omar Shakespear, and Mary Rachewiltz. His second companion was Olga Rudge, with whom he lived for 12 years. See also

• Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious Character: the Life of Ezra Pound London: Faber and Faber, 1988. PS 3531 .O82Z5526 Robarts Library.
• Doolittle, Hilda ("H.D.") End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1979. PS 3531 .O82Z595 Robarts Library.
• Gallup, Donald Clifford. Ezra Pound: A Bibliography. Charlottesville: for the Bibliographical Society, 1983. Z 8709.3 .G3 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1972. PS 3531 .O82C27 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. Collected Early Poems. Ed. Michael King. New York: New Directions, 1976. PS 3531 .O82A17 Robarts Library
• Pound, Ezra. Literary Essays. Ed. T. S. Eliot. New York: New Directions, 1954. del P685 A135 Fisher Rare Book Library
• Rachewiltz, Mary de. A Catalogue of the Poetry Notebooks of Ezra Pound. Ed. Donald Gallup. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. PS 3531 .O82 Z789 Trinity College Library.

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, born on October 30, 1885, in Hailey, Idaho, obtained an M.A. in Romantic literature after attending the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College from 1901 to 1906. His first job came as lecturer in French and Spanish at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1906, but his resignation was requested. In 1908 he left for England and lectured in medieval Romance literature at the Regent Street Polytechnic Institute in London. His first volume of poetry, A Lume Spento, came out in London in 1908. It was followed by Exultations and Personae (1909), Provenca (1910), Canzoni (1911), Ripostes (1912), Cathay (1915), Lustra (1916), Quia Pauper Amavi (1918), and his early masterwork, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920). These books established his literary reputation and enabled him to turn to journalism for a living and, more than any other poet of his time, to promote the writing of others. His anthology Des Imagistes (1914) publicized the modernist verse of Richard Aldington, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), and F. S. Flint. Pound acted as unofficial secretary for the Irish poet W. B. Yeats from 1913 to 1916, as a correspondent for Poetry (Chicago), as co-founder, with Wyndham Lewis, of BLAST!, and as London editor of The Little Review from 1917 to 1919. In all these roles Pound promoted those whose poetic talents he admired. Almost single-handedly, Pound popularized ancient Chinese poetry by translating it for a wide audience. He befriended poets as diverse as Robert Frost and D. H. Lawrence. His most successful protégé was T. S. Eliot. Pound helped get Eliot's poems into print and, after leaving London for Paris in 1920 and becoming the Paris correspondent of The Dial (New York), not only assisted Eliot in editing The Waste Land but acted to have it published in that journal. With his wife Dorothy Shakespear (1914), Pound used his base in Paris to create an avant-garde literary scene that attracted writers as diverse as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Pound's life-work, the Cantos, began in England and moved with him to France and then to Rapallo, Italy, where he settled permanently in 1925. The 116 Cantos were published in groups from 1917 to 1968. During World War II, Pound supported Mussolini and broadcast on his behalf over Italian radio from Rome until 1945. These talks were anti-semitic and anti-capitalist. US forces arrested him for treason at Genoa that year and incarcerated him in an army training facility near Pisa. For some weeks he was kept in a smallish wire cage in the compound courtyard. About this time, he wrote the Pisan Cantos (New Directions, 1948), which won the Bollingen Prize the next year -- for good reason, because these are the poems of a great spirit. The Army then sent Pound to Washington, D.C., to stand trial for offences that might have warranted a death-sentence. The court judged him unfit, by reason of insanity, to stand trial and committed him to a mental institution, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in Washington. Released in 1958, owing to lobbying of the literary community led by his many friends, and especially Robert Frost, Pound returned to Italy. He died on November 1, 1972, in Venice, and is interred in San Michele Cemetery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Pound had two children, Omar Shakespear, and Mary Rachewiltz. His second companion was Olga Rudge, with whom he lived for 12 years. See also

• Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious Character: the Life of Ezra Pound London: Faber and Faber, 1988. PS 3531 .O82Z5526 Robarts Library.
• Doolittle, Hilda ("H.D.") End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1979. PS 3531 .O82Z595 Robarts Library.
• Gallup, Donald Clifford. Ezra Pound: A Bibliography. Charlottesville: for the Bibliographical Society, 1983. Z 8709.3 .G3 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1972. PS 3531 .O82C27 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. Collected Early Poems. Ed. Michael King. New York: New Directions, 1976. PS 3531 .O82A17 Robarts Library
• Pound, Ezra. Literary Essays. Ed. T. S. Eliot. New York: New Directions, 1954. del P685 A135 Fisher Rare Book Library
• Rachewiltz, Mary de. A Catalogue of the Poetry Notebooks of Ezra Pound. Ed. Donald Gallup. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. PS 3531 .O82 Z789 Trinity College Library.

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, born on October 30, 1885, in Hailey, Idaho, obtained an M.A. in Romantic literature after attending the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College from 1901 to 1906. His first job came as lecturer in French and Spanish at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1906, but his resignation was requested. In 1908 he left for England and lectured in medieval Romance literature at the Regent Street Polytechnic Institute in London. His first volume of poetry, A Lume Spento, came out in London in 1908. It was followed by Exultations and Personae (1909), Provenca (1910), Canzoni (1911), Ripostes (1912), Cathay (1915), Lustra (1916), Quia Pauper Amavi (1918), and his early masterwork, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920). These books established his literary reputation and enabled him to turn to journalism for a living and, more than any other poet of his time, to promote the writing of others. His anthology Des Imagistes (1914) publicized the modernist verse of Richard Aldington, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), and F. S. Flint. Pound acted as unofficial secretary for the Irish poet W. B. Yeats from 1913 to 1916, as a correspondent for Poetry (Chicago), as co-founder, with Wyndham Lewis, of BLAST!, and as London editor of The Little Review from 1917 to 1919. In all these roles Pound promoted those whose poetic talents he admired. Almost single-handedly, Pound popularized ancient Chinese poetry by translating it for a wide audience. He befriended poets as diverse as Robert Frost and D. H. Lawrence. His most successful protégé was T. S. Eliot. Pound helped get Eliot's poems into print and, after leaving London for Paris in 1920 and becoming the Paris correspondent of The Dial (New York), not only assisted Eliot in editing The Waste Land but acted to have it published in that journal. With his wife Dorothy Shakespear (1914), Pound used his base in Paris to create an avant-garde literary scene that attracted writers as diverse as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Pound's life-work, the Cantos, began in England and moved with him to France and then to Rapallo, Italy, where he settled permanently in 1925. The 116 Cantos were published in groups from 1917 to 1968. During World War II, Pound supported Mussolini and broadcast on his behalf over Italian radio from Rome until 1945. These talks were anti-semitic and anti-capitalist. US forces arrested him for treason at Genoa that year and incarcerated him in an army training facility near Pisa. For some weeks he was kept in a smallish wire cage in the compound courtyard. About this time, he wrote the Pisan Cantos (New Directions, 1948), which won the Bollingen Prize the next year -- for good reason, because these are the poems of a great spirit. The Army then sent Pound to Washington, D.C., to stand trial for offences that might have warranted a death-sentence. The court judged him unfit, by reason of insanity, to stand trial and committed him to a mental institution, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in Washington. Released in 1958, owing to lobbying of the literary community led by his many friends, and especially Robert Frost, Pound returned to Italy. He died on November 1, 1972, in Venice, and is interred in San Michele Cemetery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Pound had two children, Omar Shakespear, and Mary Rachewiltz. His second companion was Olga Rudge, with whom he lived for 12 years. See also

• Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious Character: the Life of Ezra Pound London: Faber and Faber, 1988. PS 3531 .O82Z5526 Robarts Library.
• Doolittle, Hilda ("H.D.") End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1979. PS 3531 .O82Z595 Robarts Library.
• Gallup, Donald Clifford. Ezra Pound: A Bibliography. Charlottesville: for the Bibliographical Society, 1983. Z 8709.3 .G3 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1972. PS 3531 .O82C27 Robarts Library.
• Pound, Ezra. Collected Early Poems. Ed. Michael King. New York: New Directions, 1976. PS 3531 .O82A17 Robarts Library
• Pound, Ezra. Literary Essays. Ed. T. S. Eliot. New York: New Directions, 1954. del P685 A135 Fisher Rare Book Library
• Rachewiltz, Mary de. A Catalogue of the Poetry Notebooks of Ezra Pound. Ed. Donald Gallup. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. PS 3531 .O82 Z789 Trinity College Library.