Inspired by the city of Venice, this collection draws together essays and poems commemorating the beginning and end of Ezra Pound's poetic career-starting in 1908, when Pound chose Venice for his first home abroad and published there his first book of poems, and ending in 1972, with Pound's death and burial in Venice, his simple grave now a place of literary pilgrimage.

Among the topics covered are biographical accounts of Pound's life in Italy, new criticism of his earliest poems and his later Cantos-many of them filled with Venetian images-and essays on his legacy and literary associations, especially with Ernest Hemingway and James Laughlin.

Recent poems by eight poets paying tribute to Pound round out the volume. Contributed by scholars and poets from around the world, these pieces reflect today's growing international interest in Pound.