Thank you for wishing to contribute to The Cantos Project. The aim of this online resource is to develop our understanding and appreciation of the individual cantos in and for themselves, as well as in relation to one another, to their historical context, and to Pound’s life. The scholarly wager is that by providing annotation, calendars of composition, bibliographies, links to drafts, and recorded readings, we will be in a better position to grasp the nature of Pound’s aesthetic and intellectual effort and bridge the gaps we still have in our understanding and evaluation of the whole poem.

Due to copyright restrictions, only twelve cantos can be shown “live,” i.e. open for annotation at any one time. On the whole, each canto will be live for a year, after that, the menu link to it will be “unpublished,” and the canto hidden from view to make place for the next. The annotation will also appear in a digital companion, which will grow as the work proceeds and will be used for stable cross-reference. Every month then, one canto text will disappear to make place for another one; the text will be replaced by a Companion page containing just the annotations. In this way, we are ensuring that the website is active and dynamic: cantos will be published and unpublished serially, as the work progresses.

The news ticker on the homepage will let visitors know about the current stage of the work. By annotating and publishing in small steps, we can use work already done as we go along and actively prepare for what is around the corner.

From the start, the website includes comprehensive bibliographies for every section of The Cantos, so it can be used for research and reference.