Bottom: On Shakespeare

Louis Zukofsky first achieved a reputation in the literary world during the 1920s, when Ezra Pound published his work in Exile. Later he became editor of Poetry, in which, in 1931, he actively promoted the as yet relatively unknown William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Rexroth, among others. Zukofsky was born in New York City and received both his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and taught for two years at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Zukofsky's poetry is notoriously difficult, although it continues to generate its defenders and a small but gallant group of explainers.