Yes, I love his stuff. But I wouldn't let him in my house. One day grown-up people will be able to say Pound is a magnificent writer but he was also an ignorant vicious egocentric bastard. Degsey >From: [log in to unmask] >Reply-To: Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine > <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Pound and the very real world of poetry >Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:33:41 EDT > >perhaps to the surprise of no one, I'd like to associate myself with Carlo >Parcelli's observations. it's tiresome to read studies of Pound's life, >which usually amounts to excoriating exposes of his many faults, by writers >whose only contribution to the study of Pound is an attempt to diminish his >poetic achievement -- in my view, the most significant achievement in >poetry >in the 20th century, at least in the english speaking world -- by viciously >denigrating him as a human being; I share Parcelli's view that this is >principally because the poetry of Pound is beyond them. > >joe brennan.... > >In a message dated 05/21/2000 12:05:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >[log in to unmask] writes: > ><< > I'd like to get right to the point here. While I admire and appreciate > much of the scholarship on Pound that appears on this list, I find the > criticism as regards poetry, that is the creation and praxis of poetry, > to be in an important sense utterly without relevance. Although it is > indeed fine and useful (utile to borrow David Jones' term) to perform > these exegetical autopsies on Pound, we should never lose sight of the > poet and poetry that gives us such rich ground to work with in the first > place. This IS the legacy of what I refer to as High Modernism which I > somewhat eclectically extend to include Joyce, Eliot, Zukofsky, Jones, > Bunting, Olson, Duncan, Dorn, Metcalf and few others as well as Pound, > myself and Joe Brennan. Our poetry, in contradistinction to the > solipsistic drivel or pseudoexperimental anagrams that come out of the > academy and virtually all the publishing houses large and small, has > substance; so much substance (a poem that can contain history e.g.) that > many people earn a living mining the moderns and a few more such as > myself try to continue to explore the potential of the form(s). > Pound's poetry (his POETRY!!!) has placed demands on the scholars on > this list that has caused them in casual email conversation (show me an > equvalent list on some darling of Random House or Simon and Schuster) to > far surpass the level of discourse about current poetic movements > anywhere in any venue. That's because there is so much in Pound. So, in > spite of Pound's becoming a further academic opportunity, why aren't you > people out pushing for this obviously rich and most intelligent of > poetic forms to be carried on by succeeding generations? Are you > frightened of being tarred by his anti-Semitism, his Fascism, his > Confucianism? Do you secretly hate him but see his work as a sound > 'business' opportunity? Huh? > I got interested in Pound when I was an undergraduate studying with > Pound's co-translator of greek drama, Rudd Fleming. Subsequently I did a > years independent study on Pound culminating in a poem in the style of > the Cantos called Ontology of Accident. Their is no fascism, > anti-semitism or reactionary Confucianism in my poem yet its still > unmistakably in the style of the Cantos. My thesis committee was > Fleming, Reed Whittemore and Hugh Kenner--Himmler was dead and Edward > Lansdale declined the invitation. I've read Pound's work and the huge > body of criticism for years even as I refined my own approach. But other > than Joe Brennan I've had to do it in a vacuum. Brennan and I are not > hacks. We are decades long practitioners with deep reading agendas and > original epistmological foundations much like Pound and all the other > great high-moderns. Like Pound are approaches may not be "right" > whatever that means, and because were so far outside established > practice they might seem eccentric to the conservative inside. But WE > are the true heirs to the high-modernist tradition, a plethora of poetic > techniques, insights and sources so rich that it has barely been tapped > at the imaginative and creative level though so much ink has been > spilled at the critical level. > I find it useful to continue to read the exegesis on Pound but after > many books, articles and email my enthusiasm is somewhat diminshed. Its > diminished because it should now be obvious to anyone that Pound and his > compatriots and heirs were (are) onto something; that is a poetic form > that simply isn't a reflection of middle class self-absorption or a > self-absorbed reaction to it that professes to be a radical alternative > like Language poetry. In fact, I hesitate to mention the two above > alternatives at all, because in a reasoned and interested poetic > universe they would be so diminished and irrelevant next to the work of > Pound or Joyce that it would be considerd ridiculous to mention them. > But I have to, because now this is pretty much all we've got poetically. > Stupid movements and whiny free verse now rule poetry and as a > consequence poetry has become largely a joke. Pound and the other > moderns for all their faults so far transcend this that poets who work > in their style are excluded by editors to stupid to know what the > authors doing and fellow poets too intimidated to offer them a place at > the table. Beyond that you have an audience that is made up of a mildly > refined soap opera set usually comprised largely of other poets or > poetry wannabees who insist on a stultifying etiquette that precludes > any engagement with the real world. > Many of you people have done the work. Many of you people are on > faculties and witness first hand the mind numbing idiocy that passes for > poetry at the academy nowadays. I'm sorry to say that some of you while > familiar with the larger possibilities of high-modernism, have made > minor reputations writing post-navel doggerel for the current market. > Well, I suggest you begin to understand the value of Pound and the > modernists before the terminally mediocre utterly take over the poetic > world and the squeaking that is poetry today becomes a well deserved > silence of tomorrow. > POUND IS A GREAT POET. And he's put food on the table of a lot of > academic families. That's no small thing. Think about it. If he was > really as worthless as your criticisms imply why do I have over 200 book > length critical studies of the man on my shelf. To me, Pound and the > other high-modernists are a living legacy, a legacy I carry on with > every book I read and every word I pen. I hope someday a couple of you > people will begin to understand a little of what I'm saying here.--- > Carlo Parcelli > > >> ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com