In order to be a poet one must necessarily step outside of the contemporary
norm, he or she must be ab-normal, else he or she would have no perspective
nor anything to say.
 
Pound was of course abnormal, insane, if you will, as is every poet who has
anything useful to say.  Rather than calling them insane, however, which
carries all kinds of negative freight, I'd prefer to think of them as
transported outside the quotidian.
 
If you put Pound in the crowd of his own sort, he seems normal.  Those who do
not dwell in that land, but rather stand at the border and peer will, of
course, ponder the  strange antics of that lands denizens and sometimes call
it genius and sometimes madness, but at no time really understand.
 
I have had the opportunity to carefully read The Cantos a couple of times,
and, too, a variety of his other poetry.  I've read his radio talks and
considerable portions of his prose.  I've read criticism.  I've read
biographies.  I'm sure the folks on this list have also.  Pound's a genius.
Clearly the finest poet of his generation.  There have been other mad men:
Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, Hemingway, Poe, Borges, Eliot, Lewis, Blake, Shelley,
Byron, etc., etc., etc.
 
A "sane" person will not make good art.  They will, rather, be busy doing the
9 to 5 routine, making money, mowing the lawn.  They will be critics.
 
If I had the choice, I'd rather be a poet (I tried for 30 years) than a critic
(I tried for 10 years).   I became enough of a critic to know I could never be
a poet.  Now I go to work, make money, mow the lawn....
 
I apologize for this confessional out of the blue sky of lurkerdom.
 
Best to all,
 
Jim Thiele