Everett Lee Lady wrote:
 
> 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.
 
I have to say that I don't think this is true (yes, there are a few, but not
many).  A so-called poet named Tom Dish, who reads his "criticism" on NPR,
recently came down in favor of the St John's banishment and claimed, in fact,
the very opposite: that academics who write about Pound completely ignore his
politics.  What I do think is that those of us who care about Pound as a poet
and person (and no one can claim he wasn't an amazingly interesting and
many-sided person whose opinions were based on ideas that were incontestably
moral, however misguided we may find them to be from our vantage point today)
cannot afford to tiptoe around the issue of his politics.  It is something with
which we are all forced to contend, however uncomfortable it may make us, if we
hope for anything we say about Pound to be taken seriously.  Of course there
are many annoying, outrageous, and just plain silly comments, but the
contention is worth it.
 
Best wishes,
Patricia