What I meant by that comment about Pound. Pound was a voracious, scholarly inclined reader and redefined the "usable past" from scratch, promoting things like the Troubadors, Calvacanti, Chinese poetry, Noh theater. His academic training was in Romance Lanugages and Literatures so he knew about the literary traditons of Spain, Italy, France. This is all in addition to his knowledge of literature written in English. So if even someone like that didn't take an interest in other great modern poets of his own time, like Rilke or Pessoa, it shows that one person cannot read all the poetry available to him or her. I'm sure Pound would have hated Rilke.

A second generation modernist like Octavio Paz could read all the modern poets who wrote in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc... The first generation modernists probably couldn't keep up with all their own conteporaries.