Thanks to Everett Lady for reminding me in his bio that Takoma Park--where I was born--was actually a pretty hip place, despite being the Seventh Day Adventist capital of the world. And if anyone has more info on Sheri Martinelli, please do post it. What little I have read about her has fascinated me, and no doubt, others. Didn't someone post a photo of her last year?
 
Robert E Kibler, PhD
English and Humanities
Valley City State University
[log in to unmask]
701-845-7108
 
-----------------------------------------------
 "Pay no attention to names. Investigate 
into the reasons things are as they are."
    Chu Hsi, The Great Synthesis, 3:27b
 
>>> Everett Lee Lady <[log in to unmask]> 01/12 8:21 PM >>>
>Pound [in St Elizabeths] was lonely and despised, but
>some people were willing to give him their love. It was a questionable
>love, but while it lasted it was something. Add a few explanatory lines to
>the _Companion_ and let it go at that.
 
 
This is what is commonly known as "flame bait," otherwise known as
"trolling."  It is the form of scholarship most commonly found in
supermarket tabloids.  (Also exercised by Clifford Irving, who for a
while had a number of people convinced that his book was an actual
biography of Howard Hughes.  He went to jail for the caper.)
 
I can't accurately report that Pound was never lonely for any moments in
the entire 24-hour day, but I never saw any indication at all of
loneliness from him.
 
As to being loved, one of the constants throughout most of E.P.'s life
was that people loved him.  Considering the harshness with which he
often attacked both friend and foe in his correspondance and his
published writings, this was an amazing thing.  And many of his old
colleagues who might otherwise have simply dropped him went out of their
way to send friendly communications to him in St. Elizabeths simply
because of the injustice of the way he was being treated.  Eliot,
Williams, and Hemingway were among those who continued to regularly
correspond with him, despite drastic political differences.  I suspect
that even Joyce would have written him a letter from time to time if
he'd still been alive, although certainly Joyce had every reason to
feel agrieved by Pound's treatment of him.
 
Others, including writers who Pound had not even known before, came by
in person to see him.  One of the major disappointments for me was
having missed meeting both E.E. Cummings (a long-time friend of Pound's,
of course) and Tennessee Williams, because they came in the middle of
the week when I was in school.  (Sheri reported that Cummings wore a
suit with a vest and pocket watch and looked like the White Rabbit from
Alice in Wonderland.  To her disgust, E.P. and Cummings spent most of
their time together talking about the weather.)
 
Many more people visited Pound in St Elizabeths than would have ever
come to Rapallo to see him.  A son or grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright
showed up one weekend.  And there were the young academics: Hugh
Kenner, Guy Davenport, and Professor Giovannini from Catholic
University.
 
Some of the younger visitors were quite interesting.  Diane DiPrima was
a regular visitor, although unfortunately that was before the time I
showed up.  There were Reno Odlin, Hollis Frampton, and too many others
who I no longer remember.  And Pound thoroughly enjoyed some of the
young disciples who never went on to become famous, especially John
Chatel ("young Chatel," as E.P. so often called him in his letters),
who Pound scrounged food for from the hospital cafeteria.
 
And then there was Sheri Martinelli, who was truly delightful and
was in some ways, I believe, a woman as remarkable as Lou Andreas-Salome
(an intimate friend of Niezsche, Rilke, and Freud).  Most of Pound's
biographers have not bothered to learn much about Sheri, but she had
been a protege of Anais Nin before putting herself under Pound's wing.
Both Anatole Broyard and William Gaddis were in love with Sheri in the
Forties.  See my web page
http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady/snapshots/sheri.html 
to learn more about her.
 
And read Paideuma, especially the articles by Marcella Spann Booth, to
learn what Pound was really like at St. Liz.
 
But it was not only his old friends and his young disciples who gave
Pound their love.  Apparently the inmates in the asylum were quite
devoted to him, and he seemed to enjoy them.  In either Charles Norman's
biography or Humphrey Carpenter's, there is a report from someone who
visited Pound at St Liz, and Pound was commenting on his lawn chairs,
which he found the ideal furniture, and one of the inmates said,
"Yes, and not only has he got a lawn chair, but he's got a heart bigger
than all Washington."
 
According to all reports, the people in Rapallo loved Pound.  And the
guards at the prison camp at Pisa, who had been told that he was a
despicable traitor who should not be talked to, came to have a lot of
affection for him and did forbidden favors for him.
 
And his daughter Mary certainly gave him a love which was far beyond
what he deserved, given the way he had treated her.  I don't know that
much about Omar, although I do know that he did write regularly to
Pound at St. Elizabeths.
 
 
As to being despised....  Well yes.  But then I happen to know for a
fact that Professor Morse is despised.  And for that matter, so am I
despised.  And President Clinton is despised, as was John F. Kennedy and
Dwight D. Eisenhower.  In fact, there may be people in the world who
are not despised by anyone, but no one who is a public figure (or
teacher, or otherwise involved in dealing with people) can make this
claim.
 
You would think that people who have made a profession out of studying
Pound would have learned a little bit from him about the use of
language.  One of the things about the passive voice is that it makes it
much too easy to leave out important details.
 
I know that there exist people who despise Morse, and I know that there
exist people who despise me.  Thus to say, "Morse is despised" or "I am
despised" is accurate, but quite misleading (since I am fairly certain
that most of the world loves both of us!)
 
If one had said, "Everyone despised Pound," then this would have been a
more specific statement that could be discussed intelligently.  Clearly
such a statement would be false.
 
On the other hand, if one had said, "Most people despised Pound," then
this would have been accurate on a purely numerical basic.  However most
people who despised him knew almost nothing about him, and what they
knew was mostly wrong.  The more relevant fact is that the more people
knew about Pound, the less likely they were to despise him, even when
they violently disagreed with his political attitudes (as most people
did and most people still do).
 
What does seem to be true is that many of the academics who have devoted
a significant portion of their careers to studying Pound seem to despise
him as a person.  Maybe this tells us something about Pound.  Or maybe
it tells us something else.
 
--Lee Lady