Ripostes Explained

Ripostes of Ezra Pound
Illustrator:	Dorothy Shakespear
Country:	London, England
Publisher:	Swift & Co.

Ripostes of Ezra Pound is a collection of 25 poems by the American poet Ezra Pound, submitted to Swift and Co. in London in February 1912, and published by them in October that year.^[1] It was published in the United States in July 1913 by Small, Maynard and Co of Boston.^[2]

Ripostes is the first collection in which Pound moves toward the economy of language and clarity of imagery of the Imagism movement, and was the first time he used the word "Imagiste." Of its 25 poems, "Salve Pontifex" had appeared in A Lume Spento, and eight others had appeared in magazines.^[2] The book includes Pound's interpretation of the Old English poem "The Seafarer".^[3]

Further reading

• For the original text of The Seafarer, see "The Seafarer", Anglo-Saxons.net, accessed October 19, 2010.
• For Pound's interpretation, see Pound, Ezra. "The Seafarer", Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto, accessed October 19, 2010.

Notes and References

1. Wilson, Peter. "Ripostes of Ezra Pound". The Literary Encyclopedia, September 7, 2004, accessed October 19, 2010.
   • For submission and publication months, see Pound, Ezra. Poems and translations, Library of America, 2003, p. 1239.
2. http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=201&section=notes "Poems and Translations"
3. Alexander, Michael. The Poetic Achievement of Ezra Pound. University of California Press, 1979, p. 61ff.