Tim,

I appreciate your thoughts.

Brennen

>From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>    <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Pound the poet
>Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 14:49:32 -0500
>
>Brennen wrote:
>
>>  The problem with Pound is that if
>>one doesn't share his extensive classical education, then one cannot fully
>>grasp his images without referring to other texts. The meaning is not
>>fully
>>contained in the poems.
>
>True enough, but is it appropriate to call this a "problem with Pound"?
>Couldn't  it just as easily be described as a problem with education?
>
>
>>Therefore I go back to my central question: To what extent did Ezra Pound
>>write in the "language of common speech,"  [...] Also: How can one get to
>>images when the poem
>>refers to so many other works other than itself? Is Pound's poetry "hard
>>and
>>clear?"
>
>
>The allusions occur in poems that ARE written "in the language of common
>speech."  The allusions and the diction are separate 'issues' or 'problems'
>if you want to call them that. The use of foreign languages does not mean
>that Pound's language is muddy or that his lines lack a "hard edge".
>Compare these two poems; each has what might be called an oriental theme;
>the first talks of pagodas and Chinese geese, the second of sennins.
>Which  of the two strikes you as being closer to spoken language? Which of
>the two has the greater clarity?
>
>#1
>Bells of gray crystal
>Break on each bough--
>The swans' breath will mist all
>The cold airs now.
>Like tall pagodas
>Two people go,
>Trail their long codas
>Of talk through the snow.
>Lonely are these
>And lonely and I ....
>The clouds, gray Chinese geese
>Sleek through the sky.
>
>#2
>The red and green kingfishers flash between the orchids and clover,
>One bird casts its gleam on another.
>
>Green vines hang through the high forest,
>They weave a whole roof to the mountain,
>The lone man sits with shut speech,
>He purrs and pats the clear strings.
>He throws his heart up through the sky,
>He bites through the flower pistil and brings up a fine fountain.
>The red-pine-tree god looks at him and wonders.
>He rides through the purple smoke to visit the sennin,
>He takes "Floating Hill" by the sleeve,
>He claps his hand on the back of the great water sennin.
>
>But you, you damn'd crowd of gnats,
>Can you even tell the age of a turtle?


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