In the midst of all this rather sentimental recollection and praise
for "granpaw", especially Robert Kibler's adoration of EP's "love of
humanity", let also recall the broadcasts and at least two of the
Cantos, and various comments in letters and elsewhere which
showed no sympathy at all for an entire race of people herded
into gas ovens by monsters who our lover of humanity supported
by default and ignorance, if not out of a genuine respect for the
the leaders and their political ideas...
 
Stoneking
 
 
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Kibler <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: EP and academics
 
 
> I too discovered Pound and then couldn't get enough of him. I think his
irreverence, his rascality, his immense learning, and his love of humanity
drew me to him. And at times he has something like wisdom in his
percpetions. Wherever else I went intellectually, I always returned to
Pound. I think this was because many of his interests were also my
interests--classical antiquity, chinese philosophy, medieval europe, war,
and poetry.  And there is a vulnerablity in his work that appeals to me. A
brave front to it, and as Alex mentions, a mind at work. A mind at work.
>    I think that the longer I worked with Pound, the more I came to see his
work not for itself, but rather, as a series of gateways into this, that, or
the other world, or frame of mind, or philosophy, et cetera. I think I came
to see his work as requiring something from me in a way that other works do
not.  A responsibility to aesthetic and moral engagement. A responsibility
to inquiry. And a responsibility to not deify Pound himelf, who much of the
time, seems to explore a lot of ideas--a little bit--and who much of the
time, doesn't even adhere to the programs or manifestos that he promotes,
and who much of the time, is really a bad poet, a lousy logician, and an
egotistical, out of touch, impressionable, good hearted, academical
fool--but a fool who ernestly sought a human paradise.
>
> >>> Michael Alleman <[log in to unmask]> 08/26 10:57 AM >>>
> I have been lurking on this list for about three years, and I'm not sure
why
> now I break my silence, except, perhaps, because this thread offers the
> opportunity for an introduction.
>
> Pound completely won me over when I was living in a small mountain
community
> in Colorado.  I was between graduate programs and as far (in climate and
> geography) from my home in south Louisiana as I could get.  Alone, I would
> for hours read Pound in a small unheated room above a cinder-block garage.
> Was it "comfort" I felt among the coyotes' cries and my visible breath?
> Perhaps, but the comfort a child finds upon awaking in the middle of the
> night and hearing conversations in another room, perhaps a light crawling
> under the door.  In other words, the Cantos allowed me to "keep company,"
> allowed me to see in moments of isolation how Galileo was right--"and
still
> it moves."  Of course, the world of the Cantos can be just as
disconcerting
> (as I've found lately), but my point is that sentimental people will find
> sentimental comfort, others other.  There is, after all, a "comfort" in
> Oedipus that comes with the realization that the universe is order, but
it's
> "cold comfort" for Club-Foot.  "What thou lovest well remains . . ."
> achieves a moment of climactic comfort (or consolation, though I'm making
a
> dangerous conflation here), but what kind of comfort?  It's a defiance of
> mutability, of failure.  It's a moment comparable to the end of "The
Battle
> of Maldon" when Birhtwold says "Our hearts must be stronger, our courage
> greater, because our strength wanes."   Courage is comfort, and sometimes,
> at night, away from home, courage is the comfort one needs.
>
> Michael Alleman
>