Ezra Pound

A scrappy fellow from Idaho

Came to Europe to try to show

Poetry could break free from the past

Helped Hemingway Eliot Joyce 

Helped define the modern voice

Yeah Ezra Pound kicked off with a Blast

Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, you turned poetry around

Though your Cantos are a tough slog to this day

They seem so crabbed and bloated 

Were you crazy when you wrote it

You’re a wild man but I love you Ezra Pound

American life moved too shittily

So he settled down in Italy

Didn’t mind expressing his political view

Loved Mussolini and the fascists

Never tried to mask it

Spoke out for the Axis powers in World War Two

Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, are you brilliant or a clown

Are you a fascist or are you insane?

Your readers called you genius

But the Feds said you were treasonous

You’re a wild man but I love you Ezra Pound

I know that you fell into fascism pretty deep

But I won’t put you down for the company you keep

Didn’t Woody Guthrie after all fall in

With fellows who were followers of Stalin?

The Feds didn’t like what’d he expressed

So they put him to a mental test

Said he wasn’t guilty, just insane

Locked in the bughouse for twelve years

Didn’t change much it appears

Ezra Pound what went on in your brain?

Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, you’ve turned my head around

No one did more for modern poetry

You sure did make it new 

But you didn’t much like the Jews

You’re a wild man, but I love you Ezra Pound