Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Spring usually represents abundance and new growth, and this is when the couple's love is in bloom. The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter is an. Here it's important to note that Pound didn't write "The River Merchant's Wife" but rather translated it from the original Chinese, written by Li Po. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter - While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. In the letter, she recalls her first memory of their meeting. Let’s begin, as a river or a journey might, at the beginning. (Man, you should read some of his later stuff!) A secondversion appears as "105. Imagist poem. She recalls her 1st memory of their meeting. Ezra Pound was a fascist. Background to the poem. Imagist poem. [POEM] Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swingin', In the southern breeze. We learn that she was very young at the time of her marriage (although this was typical of arranged marriages when Li Po wrote his original poem.) Back in the 9th Century in … While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” has a very complicated history. Start studying "The River Merchant's Wife". You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. The River-Merchant's Wife: An Answer ... And I flow with the river, swirling with the current, until I reach you, press against the soft skin of your feet, as you wait for me, ankle-deep ... A companion piece to my poem "A River-Merchant's Wife: Another Letter", which itself is a re-imagining of Ezra Pound's rendering of a poem by Li Po. The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter When I read The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter, I mentally divided into three different subsets of the poem. Character Analysis in The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter The narrator of the poem is characterized as a lonely, isolated woman who longs for the return of her husband. Shigeyoshi Obata (London: J. M. Dent, 1923): 151-52 (PL 2671 A1 1923 Robarts Library): The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter is an. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter Introduction. “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” was published in 1915 in Ezra Pound’s third collection of poetry, Cathay: Translations, which contains versions of Chinese poems composed from the sixteen notebooks of Ernest Fenollosa, a scholar of Chinese literature.