Pound's earlier and shorter poetry is collected in the volume entitled Personae. Although none of the poems in this book were written after 1920, they give an important introduction to the methods that The Cantos use: the centrality of the image, free verse, and the speaking voice. In addition, many of the poems prefigure the themes that Pound addresses more expansively in The Cantos.

In the Literary Essays of Ezra Pound and Ezra Pound: Selected Prose 1909-1965, the New Directions publishing house collected almost all of Pound's important writings on literary, political, and economic topics. (Pound was such a prolific writer that a collection of all of his writings would fill dozens of books.) The Literary Essays contain important statements that illuminate Pound's use of the image and his opinions of literary predecessors. Selected Prose, by contrast, includes many of Pound's...