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)