Did Eliot ever say why he became an Anglican? It seems he starts out
very far from such a position reading Jessie Weston and James Frazer. Still
I've always thought a possum would more resemble a Southern Baptist- "Do
folks keep eatin' possum 'til they can't eat no more?" I remember seeing
their carcasses lying about in the French Market in New Orleans.

    "How confusing your religion is anyhow." -from a letter of Pound to
Eliot

Charles

----------
>From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Canto ergo possum
>Date: Sun, Jan 26, 2003, 8:42 PM
>

> Tom,
> I don't know that Pound regarded Eliot as "spiritually dead"; the nickname
> suggests a poet-persona whose voice has a disembodied quality--  the voice
> of a poet who  is "playing dead" -- holding his own severed head in his
> hand, as it were. This quality is one that William Carlos Williams did not
> like at all; he refers to Eliot as "frozen" or "sub-zero" or something like
> that--I can't remember his exact words or where he says this. But In
> _Paterson_ where the frozen lettuces or cabbages are tossed off the bridge
> and smash onto the frozen river below, I think Williams must be dealing
> with Eliot.
> Tim Romano
>
>
> At 02:50 PM 1/25/03 -0500, you wrote:
>>Interesting, how TS Eliot's nickname was Possum, one known to Pound, and
>>here it is on the listserv. The quote you gave us from EP is great. Did
>>Pound view Eliot as spiritually dead? I know Pound edited "The
>>Wasteland." Or, was it more of a friendly shove? Tom NJ
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>
>>"Mr. Eliot who is at times an excellent poet and who has arrived at the
>>supreme Eminence among English critics largely through disguising
>>himself as a corpse once asked in the course of an amiable article what
>>'I believed'."
>>-- E.P., Credo (1930)