I stand with those grateful to Wei for his analysis of Confucianism
as yet another rotten prop in Pound's political thinking, and also with
those who find the analysis grown stale on tenth repetition. Burt Hatlen
has the right idea.
        Wei's touching faith in "Ultimate Meaning", "philosophical or
metaphysical grounding" in poetry, and the like remind me of an anecdote
recalled recently in the New York Review of Books by the poet James Fenton:
        At one point in his life, Degas was trying to be a poet and working
hard at it. He complained to his friend Mallarme, a real poet, that he had
wasted a day over a failed sonnet. "And yet it's not ideas that I lack,"
said Degas. "I'm full of them. I have too many." Mallarme replied: "But,
Degas, it's not with ideas that you make verses. It's with words."

Cheers.
Paul Montgomery
Lausanne, Switzerland