The Verona encounter was made at a significant time for both poets. In the first months of 1922, Pound edited Eliot’s The Waste Land and became involved in its publication. He tried to set up a subscription for his friend, called Bel Esprit so that he should leave his bank employment and have freedom to write; in Verona, Eliot informed him that he would start a literary magazine, which a month later he decided to call The Criterion.