Yes, Wei. As you well now, I am using Pound as a source of inspiration
in my poetry. And my politics and economics at least superficially
resemble yours. The fact that you seamlessly associate 'inspiration'
with the datum of the Cantos speaks to your capacity to engage Pound
poetically at all.
But that is not even the central point. One can become a better person
for reading Pound. You once asked me how this was possible. There is, of
course, the bitter lessons of a bad example of the negative elements in
Pound that until recently dominated this list to the exclusion of all
else. But also there is the question that arises out of reading the
Cantos, how such beauty can be attended by such squalor. No one's
questioning the squalor though I'm suspicious of your method of
quantifying your Confucian condemnation of Pound. It smacks of a pogrom.
But indeed if the poem is not treated as first and foremost poetry,
then, yes, Pound, for all his greatness is under threat by a current
poetic 'community' arising from the Charlemagne of confessional poets,
Robert Lowell that has now degenerated into the equivalents of Charles
the Simple and Charles the Fat. They would like nothing more than to
eliminate or at least marginalize 'difficult' poetry in favor of navel
pickin' solpisism and poems about the domestic life of the academic
bourgeiosie. Carlo Parcelli

Below is a post I sent to another list that may clarify (or confuse) the
issue of how reading Pound can be seen as a (negative) moral imperative
for all those engaged in discourse on poetry. Is Pound more interesting
because he is so problematic?

<The fellow who posted that Pound's work was abstruse but that he was
somehow sucker punched into supporting fascism has got it 180 degrees
wrong as was pointed out to him by other members on this list. Pound is
a great and comprehensible poet who provides tremendous rewards and
debits
for that comprehension. Also, his anti-semitism and fascism were
virulent and cannot be dismissed. Read a Casebook on Ezra Pound among
other things.
Baraka and Pound do not invite parallels. (Notice I simply said do not
invite parallels). As an Italian American growing up in a working class
neighborhood of mostly other Italian Americans, Pound could have
strolled down the street without fear. If he had uttered "periplum" or
something in Italian he would have been held in awe. Amira Baraka would
have walked down that same Jim Crow, John Kasper street at his own
peril.

I have an uncle still living who bombed East Africa for Mussolini. I had
another uncle who was part of Patton's tank core who
once told me that if he knew that fighting the Nazi's would have saved
Jews he wouldn't have done it. I saw a wonderful woman, a professional
dancer, treated as an utter pariah because she married a black man. I
saw a mother attempt suicide when she learned her son was gay. So I grew
up in an unremitting atmosphere of racism and intolerance. And just when
I began to emerge from that, largely by getting a little college and
meeting other people, I ran into Pound. Now, I had violent, and I mean
violent arguments, with family and neighbors as I shed the views I had
been taught. But I'd have to say that none were more violent than the
ones I had (and have) with Pound. Pound's talent and accomplishment is
so great it can't be extinguished by pointing to his shortcomings any
more than Williams' or MacLeish's canon can be bouyed by their
comparative toelerance despite their relatively minor faults such as
Williams'infidelity. If only Pound's POETRY
wasn't so good, we could be done with the bastard.> Carlo Parcelli




En Lin Wei wrote:
>
> Joe Brennan wrote:
>
> >I also object to the absolutist tendency of your criticism.  and while the
> >broadcasts, etc., make it easier to understand the "Fascist, anti-semitic,
> >hierarchical [and] anti-democratic" aspects of Pound, they do nothing to
> >help
> >us to understand Pound the poet.
>
> Tell us what you think would help us understand Pound the poet.
>
> [I submit that the hierarchical and anti-democratic aspects of Pound's
> outlook permeate the Cantos.  They are not extraneous, existing merely in
> the broadcasts. If I am correct, then studying the broadcasts helps us
> understand both the poet and the poem. ]
>
> >honestly, it's a drag when one reduces
> >everything about Pound to conform to the political picture one has drawn of
> >him, and allows him to be nothing but "Fascist, anti-semitic, hierarchical
> >[and] anti-democratic".
>
> Draw your picture.  I would honestly like to know what your picture of Pound
> is.  You have criticized my picture of Pound, but not drawn your own.
>
> >so even though I'm repeating myself, once again I
> >remind you that these qualities have not gone unnoticed by the critical
> >community at large, nor have they been ignored . . .
>
> I think the full implications of Pound's Confucianism have been ignored.
> Most of the critics and poets who talk about Pound's Confucianianism simply
> see Confucius as the fortune cookie philosopher, divorced from his political
> and social significance in over two thousand years of history.
>
> Through my analysis I am trying to fill a gap in current Pound studies
> between those who view Pound's use of
> Confucianism in purely ethical terms (with no reference to Pound's politics)
> and those who try
> to clarify the relation between Pound's poetry and his politics (with little
> or no reference to the large Chinese
> cultural-historical component of Pound's Cantos).
>
> If I am correct about the way Pound uses Confucian materials, then the
> negative qualites, the anti-democratic aspects of the Cantos, may be five to
> ten times worse than most previous critics have maintained.
>
> >the world is not endangered
> >by Pound . . .
>
> Perhaps it is; perhaps it is not.  You might be correct on that point.  But
> is the world endangered by severe criticism of Ezra Pound?  I doubt that it
> is.
>
> >the right-wing is not using his work as a source of inspiration and
> >small children are not being force-fed a steady diet of Poundian garbage.
>
> If the right wing were using his work in this way, would you approve or
> disapprove?
>
> Is anyone using Pound as a source of inspiration for any purpose?  And if
> so, what is the purpose?  And what is effect, ultimately, if Pound's work is
> thoroughly imbued with authoritarian, anti-semitic, classist, racist,
> imperialist, fascist, and other ethically objectionable features?
>
> If reading and studying Pound leads a single poet or scholar to think that
> Confucius is some cute moral philosopher who made ethically sound
> judgements, I would find that problematic.
>
> Regards,
>
> Wei
>
> PS  I would like to see ANYONE on this list do a reading of Pound, an
> interpretation of Pound (esp. one involving his use of the Chinese
> materials) which shows us the merits of his poetry, both in terms of its
> method and its moral or spiritual content.
> ________________________________________________________________________
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