The Pisan Cantos

The Pisan Cantos are a section of The Cantos, a long, unfinished epic poem by American poet Ezra Pound. Pound began writing The Cantos in 1915, and they became his primary poetic focus, with the last sections published in 1968. The complete collection contains 117 sections.1

The Pisan Cantos, published in 1948, were written while Pound was imprisoned. These sections are considered among the most admired parts of the larger work and received a Bollingen Prize in 1949. The term "canto" itself refers to a major division within a long narrative poem, originating from the Latin word for "song".12