Ezra Pound: University of Delaware Library.

Pound and Little Magazines

One of Pound’s chief methods of disseminating information and presenting the work of new poets was publication through a variety of small literary and artistic-minded journals. His own writings for these publications were often a financial lifeline as well. In London, he wrote music and art reviews for New Age under a pseudonym, and served as Poetry magazine’s (self-appointed) overseas editor (its founder, Harriet Monroe, had contacted him in 1912 to see if he would contribute poems to her new magazine), using the magazine to launch, among others, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, and the Imagists, such as H.D. and Amy Lowell.

Later, in 1917, Pound became the “foreign editor” of an American magazine, The Little Review, which was founded in Chicago in 1914 by Margaret Anderson and joined in 1916 by Jane Heap. As he stated, he wanted “a place where the current prose writings of James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and myself might appear regularly, promptly, and together, rather than irregularly, sporadically, and after useless delays.” The magazine rapidly became a showcase for Pound and his circle and serialized, through Pound’s urging, James Joyce’s Ulysses, beginning in 1918.

Pound also contributed to numerous other magazines during this period, including the Egoist (where he placed Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916), the Dial, and BLAST, which he co-edited with Wyndham Lewis. He fulfilled a longstanding plan of running his own journal with The Exile, which ran for four numbers in 1927 and 1928.

Pound was also involved with the journal Pagany, and contributed material and advice to the editor, Richard Johns. Johns had originally tried to have William Carlos Williams serve as co-editor when the magazine was launched in 1929; Williams declined, but he contributed his own work, solicited material from others, and advised Johns on editorial matters.

  • The Little Review. (Chicago) Volume IV, no. 1, May 1917.
  • The Little Review. (Chicago) Volume V, no. 11, March 1918.
  • The Dial. (New York) Volume LXIX, no. 3, September 1920.
  • The Exile. Nos. 1-4. 1927-1928.
  • Ezra Pound to Richard Johns, editor of Pagany, autograph letter signed, November 3, 1930.