BK. Ezra Pound

16. ‘Affirmations IV: As for Imagisme’. New Age 16/13 (January 1915): 349-50.

Pound’s attack on ‘bad vers libre’ (read: as written by Amy Lowell and her followers) draws a parallel between contemporary poetics and ‘Rihaku’s’ (Ch., Li Po) complaint that ‘imitators of Kutsugen [Ch., Ch’ü Yüan] couldn’t get . . . underlying rhythm into their vers libre’. Pound offers a Japanese transliteration of lines from Li Po to support the point, but Hesse (151) argues that his interpretation of Li Po is a misunderstanding. Reprinted in 73.