Ezra Pound wanted to be a cultural hero. And he became one. He wrote a lyric epic, the Cantos, all about his heroic quest. And he was a true hero, an honest hero, a real hero, not a narrow little perfect media hero. The heroes are always deeply flawed. Odysseus, Achilles, Rāma… Some people don’t want to read his poetry because he was a fascist. That was surely his darkest side. But his light side was even greater and more intense than his dark side. He was a true hero, a poet-hero, an epic hero.
