I have a ten-year correspondence with Sherri, whom I met at
the MLA in San Francisco in, I think, 1979.  Amazingly,
in all her many pages one gleans almost no specifics,
little factual info about her life or personal relationship
with EP (at least, that I remember: I haven't poked into
this file in many years).  Her psyche, however, is voluminously
displayed in these letters.  She operated in a higher dimension
than mine.  She also included in her letters many sketches
and copies of drawings--especially of EP.
 
==Dan
 
 
At 09:37 PM 1/12/00 -0600, you wrote:
>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
>
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