C. David Heymann 's recently published ' political profile , Ezra Pound: The Last Rower, has once again provoked public discussion of the poet's conduct during World War II and its effect upon his reputation. Michael Schmidt. co-editor of Poetry Nation, is highly critical of much that has been written about Pound's politics, and their relationship to his poetry. In this talk he suggests some new wavs in which we can understand the link between his cultural beliefs and their subsequent poltical expression, and, drawing upon Yvor Winters 's distinction between a writer's ' morality ' and ' theology '. he proposes a new approach to Pound's verse.