I'm 23 and have read the Cantos for about three years now and am finally at a
point where I can read it and really, I mean REALLY enjoy it. I mean I get
it. I tried working with notes but it's just too slow. It's true: they teach
you to read them. With the ABC, Kulch, and Essays/Prose, you pretty much get
all the extra detail explained without having to actually go out there and
dig up dusty Arnaut Daniel, Dante, and Confucious texts. Of course it's
difficult. But it's probably easier to get into them today. All the extra
text you'd might need is pretty easy to find today circa 2000. There's the
internet. There's four million books on Pound (though they tend to be
useless, they at least can give a foothold or two.

But that's just me. Who knows.


-Erik Bader