A couple of tidbits from the recent Bookforum review of the new Library of America and Pisan Cantos editions (http://www.bookforum.com/davenport.html), that I found via AL Daily (http://www.aldaily.com/):

The reviewer (Guy Davenport) writes about half way through the review:
"As a longtime expatriate in Italy, he kept in touch with spoken American language through the movies, which he regularly attended."


Earlier on, he quotes this clip from 'Mauberly':

The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme

It's un-scholarly of me to ask without looking it up first, but what is this "kinema?" Is he talking about film here? -- some idea of the 'work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction?'

 - Dave Klopfenstein



-----Original Message-----
From: Burt Hatlen <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mar 25, 2004 11:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Pound and Movies

Pounders,

I've been thinking about the parallels between Pound's poetics and the film aesthetic of the 1920s, and I'm looking for information on what movies Pound may have seen during this period and what he might have thought/said about them. I'm also
looking for critical commentary on the relationship between Pound's poetic methods and film technique. Kenner in The Pound Era and Max Nanny in his book on Pound and the electronic age mention that in developing his concept of "montage" Eisenstein
points to the Chinese ideogram as a model, and the analogy with Pound's poetic method is obvious; but neither Kenner nor Nanny explores the relationship between Pound's poetic methods and actual films of the time.  Any tips would be much appreciated.

Burt Hstlen