>> there is no easy resource for pound as there is for >> eliot or joyce. > >What about Terrell's guides? again: not an easy resource. the cantos make more sense on their own. sure, it's indexed and what not, but it is not accessable. >so much is either overly (psudo)intellectual, or incredibly >> reactionary. and there is so much of it. pound is not hard to understand so >> much as the stigma surrounding pound is hard to get thru. > >Uh... I've been reading the Cantos for seven years now, and there's still >a lot of it I don't understand. what is there not to understand? the first time i read the cantos i was in high school and was completely blown away. the last five or six times i've read it i was just as blown away. but i really don't think that understanding the cantos has anything to do with getting every little reference, and i seriously doubt that pound himself even cared if anyone got every reference. his work (as has been said so many times) is like sculpture: you don't look at the eye of a figure by rodin to understand the piece, you stand back and take it as a whole for it's emotional impact, etc. ("only emotion endures"). (but, of course, you -do- want to look at just the eye to see the beauty of the craftsmanship, but that is not the same as understanding.) >> so much of what i have read concerning pound has been the same things stated >> over and over again in what seems to be a vast hope to prove that the author >> is -also- an intellectual because -they- can write about pound. but no new >> ground is broken. > >Sounds like you aren't reading much. People like Leon Surette, Tim >Redman, Jean-Michel Rabate, Robert Casillo and others have done a ton of >really useful and original work. The best Pound criticism (with the >exception of Hugh Kenner's work) has come out in the last five to ten >years. i don't think i've seen any of this. now -this- is the stuff that should be easily found on the internet. i've searched and searched (maybe not in the right places) for new things. thanks for the names. >> it's disgusting. the fact that poetry going into the 21st >> c. is incresingly stagnant proves that there is more need for pound now than >> ever. but us youngins are not given the help we need because there are too >> many pound scholars fucking around instead of thinking. > >What poets are you reading? There's a buttload of really exciting poetry >out there, but you're not going to find it in mainstream journals -- and a >lot of it is influenced by Pound. Instead of ranting, go read. i don't think i've found a poet that started writing after 1970 that i really enjoy. (as for what i am reading... got zukofsky and creeley right here in my bag. and, as my sig will attest, there is olson. anne waldman, amiri baraka, ... what poets don't i read would be an easier question to answer.) =) jeff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are no hierarchies, no infinite, no such many as mass, there are only eyes in all heads to be looked out of -charles olson, from "letter 6" (of the maximus poems)