I want to thank Pawel for making many valuable points which can serve as the
basis of a more extended discussion.  There is little I disagree with in his
comments.

Pawel Karwowski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Subject: Re: Give us an interpretation of Pound's Poetry (please)
>
>Wei, I can recommend you a book written by Hugh Kenner. Title is "The Pound
>Era", there is above 600 pages and it is worth its price.

I have already read that work.  Thank you for the recommendation, though.  I
can recommend a few for you if you like.

>You question simply can't be answered in a short mail. I would like to
>describe
>my own expieriences with Cantos to you, but it would be probably to long
>article, not for discussion group.
>Anyway if we will take for example Canto LXXIX (I dont have my whole Pound
>library at hand so I will recall from memory) then what we can find in
>opening
>lines (and in a whole Canto) can be described just only as a "music of
>words".
>
>Moon, cloud, tower, a patch of the battistero
>all of a whiteness
>dirt pile as per de Dell Cosa inset
>think not that you wd/ gain if their least caress
>were faded from my mind...
>
>Pound simply composes poetry. He works like a musician. Unquestionably it
>is a
>sort of poetry very uncommon today. E.P. said once that "poets who dont pay
>attention to the music are simply bad poets".

I have no problem with any of these points.  In fact, I agree, for the most
part.


>Pound proposed many, many years ago something strongly different. He
>rediscovered Provance, he discovered China & Orient for Europeans &
>Americans.
>Provance & China in his verses work together like a  sound & image in the
>movies (kind of "movie poetry" isn't it ? ).
>

I have a little problem with people saying so-and-so "discovered" China, as
if the people living there are non-existent (Columbus "discovered America,"
Marco Polo "discovered "the Orient", and such statements seem a little bit
condescending).  I know you did not intend it in a neo-colonialist sense;
but the choice of words is important.

>But in that same way those "chinese" images & pictures which make big parts
>of
>The Cantos are so terribly uncomprehensible for many readers. Peter Bi said
>about year ago on this list that Pounds poetry is much more "chinese" than
>contemporary Chinese Poetry. (For me it's one out of many aspects of the so
>called "americanization", but lets put this subject on the side right now).
>
Some educated English speaking Chinese say things like this, and without any
affront to Peter Bi, who I do not know well, I must comment.   Some English
speaking French will say Swinburne is more "French" than Baudelaire; and
many 19th century Americans said the Czech composer Dvorak's New World
symphony was more American than any piece written by any US composer in the
US.   I am not sure if any conclusion can be drawn from such statements.

Look at how Pound tries to use historical material in the Cantos.   Pound,
rather oddly, tries to write "Confucian poetry" finding inspiration in
historical classics and the Analects.  I would submit that Pound's poetry
is, in one very important sense, very un-Chinese, because there is really no
such thing as "Confucian poetry", other than in the sense of political
slogans and traditional moralisms (Great Chinese poetry is almost always
Taoist or Buddhist, and must be, to avoid being anything other than
government propaganda.)

>Beginng of Canto LXXIX confronts the reader with the image seen by Ezra
>Pound
>from DTC gorilla cage and we have the next image at once: painting by
>Francesco
>Dell Cosa and the next comment on the side (think not that ...) very misty
>I
>believe, but its purpose can be defined as "reduction", "disapperance of
>previous images & direct confrontation with the poet himself.
>
>Once again - I am unable to describe line after line but as a poet with
>certain
>scientifical inclinations I can tell you that it is clear for me that
>conditions of writing E.P. had to accept in the camp were not perfect.
>Constantly playing musicians (the "bum drum"), shoutings of guardians and
>prisoners. Some 2 pages later you can find separate fragments and words,
>that
>show the noisy conditions Pound had to endure and ...
>

Apart from the issue of the moral and political committments which got Pound
into that situation, I have no real argument with your position.

>... and in a certain moment Pound is visited by Lynx. (It was a really deep
>night I think). Lines which you can read here convinced me that we dont
>have to
>be ashamed that we lived in XX cent. (so called "immortal poetry" you know
>- I
>am serious, if you want to confront this with "mortal poetry" I would
>strongly
>recommend you verses written by recent Nobel Prize winners :-(     . . . .

>I think that a Lots of Jobs in interpretation of E.P. poetry was
>already done. But it does not mean that we should give up and not read or
>translate HIM.

Of course.  He should be translated.


>A Poet of this size does not happen on the surface of our planet
>too often. Certainly if Pound would really want to write "a book of the
>tribe" he should recognize for example Kojiki - famous Japanese set of
>legends,
>german-silesian metaphisical poetry, ancient georgian & armenian poets,
>there
>should be much more about nothern tales (for example Kalevala) and so on
>and so
>on. It wouldn't be wrong for The Cantos if HE would put something about
>Yashihoco no kami, Nukawa-hime or Susaribime no mikoto. (Eventually about
>Angelus Silesius or Martin Opitz). But even in this final form it is
>possible to
>discuss The Cantos as an example of "cross-cultural book", certainly most
>interesting for American and Chinese readers . . .

I concur.  In fact, it is the cross-cultural aspect of Pound's work that I
find most interesting.  I have read a great deal of the Kojiki, and find it
interesting from an anthropoligical, literary, and socio-political angle.
Pound would have done well to use it.  The Kojiki could have helped him
fortify the myth of Japanese superiority, and given him food for the
championship of the Japanese conquest of China and the creation of the
Greater Co-prosperity Sphere.  The point is that once you have established
that Pound is one of the great English speaking poets of the twentieth
century (or even the "greatest", if you prefer), you are still left with the
task of interpreting his work.  Certainly Pound composed beautiful passages
of poetry; of course he used language to produce admirable aesthetic
effects.  What is more, he attempted a modern epic which is utterly unique,
in scope and aspiration.  However, that is where some people want the
conversation to STOP when this the point at which the  conversation must
BEGIN.  The questions must be asked, and the answers cannot be avoided.
What kind of epistemology is Pound using?  What are his philosophical and
metaphysical presuppositions?  What is the relationship between his
aesthetic sense and his socio-political beliefs?  Given that Pound himself
says, "My economics and poetry are not separable . . ."    how are we to
interpret his use of the economic philosophies of Douglas, the fascist Odon
Por, the Confucian Mencius?  How do we interpret "economic poetry" in the
light of commitments to Mussolini, Hitler, Imperial Rome, and Confucian
authoritarianism which are INCORPORATED into the poetry?  What is Pound's
religion, and how are his acts of spiritual communion embodied in the
poetry?   Can  certain aspects of his personal religion be separated from
his belief that the masses should participate in very hierarchical, socially
oppressive types of religious organizations?   Of course these are only a
few of the questions posed by his works.  Many other questions are possible,
and many other issues need to be dealt with.   Simply saying the poetry is
beautiful does not help us interpet it.  Calling it "the music of words"
does not help us interpret it.  Who can say what music APART from words (a
Beethoven Quartet, for instance) actually MEANS?  But Pound's poetry
contains words, and these words MEAN something.   Please INTERPRET the
poetry.

Regards,

Wei

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