At school I was taught that Pound was nuts, you didn't need to read him,
Eliot, Auden and McNiece were the real poets. So as soon as I could I...
 
Access to Pound IS still a problem in the UK and I can confirm the earlier
message that it's hard to get even a basic collection from a bookshop, and
when you want to follow up you need a University Library, a poundian pal,
or some sleuthing skills. I think the new construction of most teaching
courses in the UK (shorter modules on broader topics, on the whole) also
mitigates against the kind of sustained attention which Pound asks for.
"Poetry is for interested people" sd Zukofsky.
 
Pound on the web isn't such an odd or futuristic idea: the Chadwyck-Healey
online full-text poetry project has just opened its "Modern Poetry" files
(including a complete Bunting) and I know they're planning to extend them
significantly. Ideally, this would allow classes to build their own
mini-anthologies of, say, modernism, and extend their reading around as
much as they pleased...
 
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Richard Caddel
Durham University Library, Stockton Rd., Durham DH1 3LY, UK
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 (0)191 374 3044    Fax: +44 (0)191 374 7481
WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dul0ric
 
"Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write."
                                - Basil Bunting
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