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Pound ► Powell I 1537
World War I he published two of his most important poems, “Homage to Sextus Propertius” (1919) and “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” (1920). He also began publishing The Cantos, an attempt at an epic sequence of poems, which would remain his major poetic occupation throughout his life. With the onset of the Great Depression, he increasingly pursued his interest in history and economics, became obsessed with monetary reform, and declared his admiration for Benito Mussolini. In World War II he made pro-fascist radio broadcasts; detained by U.S. forces for treason in 1945, he was initially held at Pisa; The Pisan Cantos (1948, Bollingen Prize), written there, are notably moving. He was subsequently held in an Ameri¬ can mental hospital until 1958, when he returned to Italy. The Cantos (1970) collects his 117 completed cantos.
Pound, Roscoe (b. Oct. 27, 1870, Lincoln, Neb., U.S.—d. July 1, 1964, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. legal educator and botanist. After studying botany at the University of Nebraska and law at Harvard University (1889-90), he was admitted to the Nebraska bar, and he practiced law while also teaching at the state uni¬ versity (1890-1903). At the Univer¬ sity of Nebraska he directed the state botanical survey (1892-1903) and discovered a rare fungus (. Rosco- poundia). He later taught at several law schools, most notably Harvard (1910-37), where he also served as dean (1916-36), instituting many reforms. He was perhaps the chief U.S. advocate of sociological juris¬ prudence, which holds that statutes and court decisions are affected by social conditions; his ideas appar¬ ently influenced the New Deal pro¬ grams of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. After World War II he helped reorganize the judicial system of Taiwan.
Poussin \pii-'sa n \, Nicolas (b. 1594, Villers, France—d. Nov. 19,1665, Rome, Papal States) French painter. Except for two years as court painter to Louis XIII, he spent his entire career in Rome, where he became an admirer of ancient Roman civilization. In early works, he depicted themes from Classical mythology in a painterly style reminiscent of such Vene¬ tian masters as Titian. Turning to Raphael for inspiration, he began in the mid 1630s to develop a style marked by Classical clarity and monumen- tality. His late masterworks, such as Holy Family on the Steps (1648), employ a style calculated to express virtue and rectitude, featuring only a few figures painted in harsh colours against a severe background. In his landscapes, such as Landscape with Polyphemus (1649), the disorder of nature is reduced to the order of geometry. His austere and highly ordered compositions influenced generations of French painters, including Jacques-Louis David, J.-A.-D. Ingres, and Paul Cezanne.
powder metallurgy Fabrication of metal objects from a powder rather than casting from molten metal or forging at softening tempera¬ tures. In some cases the powder method is more economical, as in mak¬ ing metal parts such as gears for small machines, in which casting would involve considerable scrap loss. In other cases, melting is impractical (e.g., because the melting point of the metal is too high). Powder metal¬ lurgy is also used to produce a porous product that will allow a liquid or gas to pass through it. See also metallurgy, sintering.
Powder River River, northern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, U.S. It rises in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming and flows north 486 mi (782 km) to join the Yellowstone River near Terry, Mont. Tributaries include the Little Powder River and Crazy Woman Creek.
Powderly, Terence V(incent) (b. Jan. 22, 1849, Carbondale, Pa., U.S.—d. June 24, 1924, Washington, D.C.) U.S. labour leader. The son of Irish immigrants, he became a railroad worker at age 13 and a machin¬ ist’s apprentice at 17. He joined the Machinists’ and Blacksmiths’ Union in 1 87 1 . Three years later he joined the secret order of the Knights of Labor, and in 1879 he was chosen for its highest post, grand master workman. He presided over the union in its period of greatest membership, but attacks by opponents such as Jay Gould caused membership to decline.
Powderly became absorbed in internal disputes and finally resigned in 1893. See also labour union; Uriah Smith Stephens.
Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr. (b. Nov. 29, 1908, New Haven, Conn., U.S.—d. April 4, 1972, Miami, Fla.) U.S. politician. In 1937 he succeeded his father as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City, and built its membership to 13,000. Elected to the New York City Council in 1941, he became the first African American to serve on that body. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1945-67, 1969-71), he spon¬ sored much social-welfare legislation, including a minimum wage act, antipoverty acts, and bills providing federal aid to education. Known for his flamboyance and his lack of concern for House decorum, he was the target of a libel suit and was investigated for financial misconduct. In 1967 the House voted to exclude him, but the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that the House’s action was unconstitutional.
Powell Vpo-ol, 'pau(-9)l\, Anthony (Dymoke) (b. Dec. 21, 1905, London, Eng.—d. March 28, 2000, near Frome, Somerset) British nov¬ elist. He published his first novel.
Afternoon Men (1931), while work¬ ing in a London publishing house.
He worked in journalism and served in World War II before publishing the first of 12 novels in the autobio¬ graphical and satiric series A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-75). His best-known work, it reflects his out¬ look and experiences of English society in the decades before and after the war. His later novels include The Fisher King (1986).
Powell, Bud orig. Earl Powell
(b. Sept. 27, 1924, New York, N.Y.,
U.S.—d. Aug. 1, 1966, New York City) U.S. jazz pianist and composer.
Powell played in Cootie Williams’s big band (1942^14) before becoming part of the burgeoning activity of bebop in the late 1940s. His style became the predominant approach for post-swing era pianists: he did away with most accepted functions of the left hand, reducing it to playing brief, syn¬ copated chords supporting long melody lines by the right hand. He moved to Paris in 1959 and returned to the U.S. in 1964. His career was inter¬ rupted several times due to nervous breakdowns thought to derive from head injuries sustained in a racially motivated attack in 1945.
Powell, Colin (Luther) (b. April 5, 1937, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. general and statesman. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he entered the U.S. Army after college and served in the Vietnam War (1962-63, 1968— 69). After holding various posts in the Pentagon and elsewhere, he was appointed senior military assistant to the secretary of defense in 1983. In 1987 he joined the staff of the National Security Council; in that same year Pres. Ronald Reagan appointed him assistant to the president for national security affairs. In 1989 Powell was promoted to four-star gen¬ eral and, appointed by Pres. George Bush, became the first African Ameri¬ can to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He helped plan the invasion of Panama (1989) and the military operations of the First Persian Gulf War. Under Pres. George W. Bush he served as secretary of state (2001-05), the first African American to hold that post.
Powell, John Wesley (b. March 24, 1834, Mount Morris, N.Y., U.S.—d. Sept. 23, 1902, Haven, Maine) U.S. geologist and ethnologist. Powell took many expeditions (1871-79) down the Colorado River, describing the earliest of these in Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries (1875). He developed the first comprehensive classification of American Indian languages (1877) and was the first direc¬ tor of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology (1879— 1902). In 1881 he became director of the U.S. Geological Survey, where he worked extensively on mapping water sources and advancing irriga¬ tion projects.