On this day in 1933 Ezra Pound met with Benito Mussolini. This was a brief, one-time talk, but it would bring out the worst in Pound's personality and lead to personal disaster; it would also inspire some of the best of modern poetry.
Pound had lived in Italy since 1924, and become increasingly political. Like many in the 20s, he had come to look upon Mussolini as Italy's salvation and a great man; when granted an audience with him he took along not just some of his poems but an eighteen-point summary of his Social Credit monetary policies. Mussolini ignored Pound's politics and thought his poems divertente (entertaining), but Pound came away impressed: he had seen the new Thomas Jefferson, and "never met anyone who seemed to GET my ideas so quickly as the boss ... FULL STORY »
