> To go on from Richard Edwards and Jacob Korg, to modify what Leon Surette
> wrote, but not intending a defence:
>
> "The British", if you think about it, don't exist;  so any statement
> beginning "The British"  - as "The B are much inclined to scorn and
neglect
> foreigners" - is bound to be ill-founded.  But avoid the rhetorical
overkill
> and say "some" of them, and a verifiable statement becomes possible.  Some
> British scholars, along with some British critics, reviewers and
publishers,
> have scorned and neglected Pound and his work, and some still do.  Is it
> really otherwise in the U.S. and Canada?   Which anthology of American
> poetry gets reviewed, promoted and prescribed, Helen Vendler's (Harvard
and
> Faber), or Eliot Weinberger's (Marsilio)?
>
> As to international Pound conferences as evidence of interest, the record
> shows that in the 70s and 80s of the last century a British series
> alternated with Terry's Orono mindfests, before evolving into the current
> Euro-American series.   But without that development they would not have
> continued.
>
> For open minds, here as elsewhere, no good writing is foreign.  There's
> plenty of evidence of that, much but not all from smaller presses and in
> special interest university courses.  And the usual forces are operative,
> here as elsewhere, to close minds down.  To blame "The British" for that
is
> to be off-target.  I guess it would be safe to say, if you seek the enemy
of
> what Pound's poetry stands for just look about you, wherever you are.
>
> David Moody
>
> p.s. Because Richard Edwards kindly mentioned the critical biography of
> Pound which I am writing I have to say that this is very much a work in
> progress, and far from completion.  It does exist as an ISBN, so far as a
> number can confer existence.
>