Nijinsky's ballet, Stravinsky's music, and the city of Paris all helped create John Gould Fletcher's "first period of full poetic inspiration." The Sacre de Printemps (1913) confirmed his determination to become a modern poet, rebelling against saccharine prettiness and attempting to fuse painting, poetry, and music in his work. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Fletcher was the son of a banker and cotton broker. He was educated privately and at Harvard (1903-1907), from which he resigned in his senior year. In 1908, after having inherited a sizeable income upon the death of his father, he traveled to Italy and then settled in London, which remained his home until 1933.

In 1913 Fletcher spent seven weeks in Paris, enjoying Postimpressionist art, opera, and theatre. He met Ezra Pound with whom he shared an interest in the French Symbolists, and Pound persuaded him to lend financial support to Harriet Weaver's little magazine the Egoist...