Charles:
Thanks! You've articulated something that has been niggling at me, but that
I couldn't get out -- that obviously Pound saw talent in many poets and
writers who appear to be quite different from each other. I'd love to get
Hemingway in here somehow, but I don't think I'm going to have time or space
for purposes of this thesis. Perhaps my dissertation? If anyone knows of
Pound's articulating somewhere all this, please let me know!
I think that Pound's allegiance to certain artists shows something about the
times, and that is an area where I need a lot of help. Was it the ex-pat
feeling? Were these writers he was helping voicing despair and disgust with
America that Pound resonated with? I'm trying to place this into a
historical context, too.
Yes -- Frost's and Cummings' distance -- we had a row about Mending Wall in
class. I said that on the surface the farmer (Frost) thought his neighbor
was inferior for wanting to put up that damn wall every spring. But he also
wanted to understand the "why" of it, and because he was an outsider wanting
"in," as Frost was for the 10 years he was the Derry, NH chicken farmer, he
masks his aloneness with that "urban" disdain.
As for C & F not getting framed -- I think modern critics (those after the
late 1950s, when both were still alive), don't see their poetry as at all
alike, or coming from the same influences. That was my big "why." Why am I
seeing this and no one else?
Frost's biographer Jay Parini told me, "I am ignorant of cummings (sic), but
enjoy reading him." The only person who put them together, but not at
length, is Norman Friedman, who wrote in 1959 E.E. Cummings, the Art of his
Poetry. Happily, Norman is still alive and kicking and we're meeting in NYC
next month to hash this all out. He agrees with me, especially in regard to
the nature poetry.
And it doesn't bother me that others don't share my love for Cummings and
Frost. As my mother once said, "if we were all alike, it would be a boring
world."
Kate
----- Original Message -----
From: "charles moyer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: Imagism and Joyce
> Kate,
> One of the qualities they seem to share is their distance from yet
> closeness to their fellow men, for probably entirely different reasons.
See
> if that doesn't pan out in "Mending Wall" and "Pity this poor Monster,
> Manunkind". Don't pay any attention to those who haven't read them or say
> they wouldn't read them for various empty chic reasons. They obviously
don't
> have the great range of poetic sensibility that Pound had nor ever picked
an
> apple or went to jail for their convictions.
> Good luck.
> BTW Why do you think Frost and Cummings don't get framed together?
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> ----------
> >From: Kate Cone <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: Imagism and Joyce
> >Date: Tue, Mar 12, 2002, 4:50 PM
> >
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > I will note these references...
> >
> > I am writing my masters thesis on how E.E. Cummings and Robert Frost's
> > poetry are related. They both had major relationships with Pound.
> >
> > My major "so what?" about my thesis is: why are 2 of the most popular
> > American poets of the 20th century thought of so disparately that they
are
> > (almost) never put in the same frame in modern criticism? I think I know
> > why, but if any of you have any ideas, PLEASE share. This is obviously a
> > very smart bunch, and I think you'll have much info to give me.
> >
> > Kate Cone, J.D.
> > Topsham, Maine
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Dirceu Villa" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 4:45 PM
> > Subject: Re: Imagism and Joyce
> >
> >
> >> --- "Davis, Alex" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> > Dear Poundians,
> >> >
> >> > I'd be very grateful if anyone could
> >> > recommend any
> >> > articles/books/chapters which dealt with Imagism,
> >> > Pound and Joyce's poetry.
> >> > Thanks in advance.
> >> > Regards,
> >> > Alex Davis
> >>
> >> Mr. Davis,
> >> You may find interesting (I'm supposing you DON'T
> >> KNOW the book yet)the following vol.: Pound/Joyce: The
> >> Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, with Pound's
> >> Essays on Joyce (Ed. by Forrest Read), New Directions,
> >> 1967. Also, Richard Ellmann's biography intitled James
> >> Joyce, for comments on the poems, and an article by
> >> Myra Russel, "The Elizabethan Connection: The Missing
> >> Score of James Joyce's Chamber Music", in James Joyce
> >> Quaterly, Tulsa, Okla, 1963.
> >> Concerning Imagism & Pound, see Ezra Pound's "How
> >> to Read", in Literary Essays (edited by T.S.Eliot),
> >> and Noel Stock's The Life of Ezra Pound, Penguin, 1970
> >> (for Imagism at least the first chapters; also, if you
> >> are starting to read Pound, there is Ezra Pound (Ed.
> >> by J. P. Sullivan)in the collection Penguin Critical
> >> Anthologies, which contains a big deal of critics and
> >> poets etc. reading Pound's work. If you read French
> >> try to find the collection of essays published by Les
> >> Cahiers de L'Herne in two volumes (it is somewhat
> >> difficult to find it, BUT if I could find it here in
> >> Brazil I suppose you can find it too).
> >>
> >> That's what I can collect immediately. IF you need
> >> further information, just say so.
> >>
> >> Dirceu Villa.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> __________________________________________________
> >> Do You Yahoo!?
> >> Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email!
> >> http://mail.yahoo.com/
> >>
>
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