Rick and list members,
I think the vowel tone leading concept linked to the loom and line of
music. Here's Duncan-
"AT THE LOOM PASSAGES 2"
"A cat's purr
in the hwirr thkk 'thgk, thkk'
of Kirke's loom on Pound's Cantos
'I heard a song of that kind...'
my mind a shuttle among
set strings of the music
lets a weft of dream grow in the day time,
an increment of associations,
luminous soft threads,
the thrown glamour, crossing and recrossing,
the twisted sinews underlying the work.
Back of the images, the few cords that bind
meaning in the word-flow,
the rivering web
rises among wits and senses
gathering the wool into its full cloth."
Check out the rest of the poem's "stuff" in Duncan's BENDING THE BOW
pp.11-13. Duncan says in his Introduction p.vi, "The poem is not a stream of
consciousness, but an area of composition in which I work with whatever
comes into it. Only words come into it. Sounds and ideas. The tone leading
of vowels, the various percussions of consonants. The play of numbers in
stresses and syllables. In which meanings and ideas, themes and things seen,
arise. So there is not only a melody of sounds but of images. Rimes, the
reiteration of formations in the design, even puns, lead into complexities
of the field. But now the poet works with a sense of parts fitting in
relation to a design that is larger than the poem. The commune of Poetry
becomes so real that he sounds each particle in relation to parts of a great
story that he knows will never be completed. A word has the weight of an
actual stone in his hand. The tone of a vowel has the color of a wing.
'Don't mess up the perception of one sense by trying to define it in terms
of another,' Pound warnd. But we reflect that the ear is the organ not only
of hearing but of our equilibrations."
In which of his books is the owl poem?
Charlie
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>From: Richard Seddon <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: more tone leading
>Date: Sat, Nov 8, 2003, 4:51 PM
>
> Dear List
>
> I came across another Duncan reference to tone leading of vowels.
>
> It is in Duncan's essay "The Lasting Contribution of Ezra Pound" in "Robert
> Duncan: A Selected Prose" edited by Robert J. Bertholf.
>
> In it Duncan seems to attribute the tone leading concept to Dallam Simpson
> who, Duncan writes, issued a Manifesto I in "Four Pages". Duncan quotes
> this Manifesto in his essay. Part 2 of that Manifesto reads "2) If the
> verse-makers of our time are to improve on their immediate precursors, we
> must be vitally aware of the duration of syllables, of melodic coherence,
> and of the tone leading of vowels.". Simpson probably got the concept of
> tone leading from Duncan who in turn got it from Pound on a post card as
> Burt Hatlin reported. Duncan does not say and for some reason allows the
> reader to think the concept is Simpson's. The idea of duration of
> syllables obviously (to me at least) originates with Pound's quantitative
> verse experiments and thoughts on verse timings. Duncan does introduce the
> Manifesto by saying of it, "I have always thought of as Poundian in origin".
>
> Duncan in this essay also seems to suggest that Pound and Duncan's circle
> of poets were using a metric of phrases where the phrase takes the place of
> the syllable. Duncan writes, "Pound's craft takes the shape of the phrase
> as its base". This may come as old news to many of you but it was an eye
> opener to me. Suddenly a light began to dawn over Pound's insistence "to
> compose in the sequence of the musical phrase". It is still dawn and it
> might be a false dawn but hope reigns for understanding. :>)
>
> Duncan also makes reference to vowels and consonants in his poem "An owl is
> an only bird of poetry". Vowels are compared to the fluttering of an owl
> and "The consonants are a church/ of hands interlocking". Duncan provides
> sketches for clarification. In one an owl head is peering out of the
> wrapped fingers of two hands.
>
> I would enjoy comments from any and all who have seen this essay and poem
> by Duncan.
>
> Rick Seddon
> McIntosh, NM
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