Ah, well I got it, Stephen.

How we, all who owe so much  to Pound's formal teachings, deal with  
those aspects of his politics which can barely, if at all, be  
forgiven, is soemthing each one of us must face on her/his own.

I will say, given where your meditation took you, that as a poet he  
had great power, but as a political figure, very little; he is not  
responsible, as say Bush/Cheney & Co are, for the deaths of so many;  
that's part of what I took from your comments....

It is necessary, as Guy Davenport pointed out in his moving little  
memoir, that Pound admitted, shortly before his death, that that mid- 
western anti-Semitism had corrupted much of his character throughout  
his life (& so how did he overcome it at least in personal relations  
with a few?).

But, as a writer, I learned so much from the poetry, I have  
compartmentalized the various Pounds I've learned about in order to  
continue to admire the poet alone (which may be a kind of political  
blindness, I admit).

Doug
On 14-Feb-08, at 2:32 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:

> Anny: I am not trying to undo the impact of Pound's literary  
> influence. If they took the skin off many of a torso on this list,  
> there would be, at least, one rib named "Pound". I understand the  
> compassion to forgive for many on the basis of his literal  
> generosity and gifts.
>
> However, I think it remains important to not rug over the other  
> points I made. It - the consequences - lets too much off the hook,  
> in my opinion.
>
> By the way, my message never came up on 'received' messages.
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
>
> Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I respect your  
> positions.
>
> With this introduction I would like to say that I did study Pound  
> and I met
> his daughter several times, she lives something like 40 minutes from  
> here.
> My father was in the Bulge in the 2nd World War.
>
> I think my position is quite delicate when talking of antisemitism,  
> Pound
> and the 2nd WW, also because I live here, and my grandfather was  
> sent to
> Siberia as a prisoner of the First World War when his ideas were  
> simply
> poetic and humanitarian.
>
> Pound was a close friend of Zukofsky, he helped Marianne Moore,  
> Joyce -by
> taking away from himself, and the entire company. Without Pound we  
> would not
> have T.S. Eliot, nor many others.
> I respect the man and kneel in front of his knowledge. He has to be  
> read
> in-between the lines and lived on Italian soil, better if on  
> European soil,
> and even here with a lot of imagination since by now over half a  
> century has
> passed by.
>
> He paid for what can be at best defined a 'delirium of power.'
>
> I love his daughter and have come to love his poetry.
> Poets like Charles Olson, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams,  
> Zukofsky,
> Guy Davenport, and the same Ginsberg have forgiven him. Pasolini  
> interviewed
> him when he finally reached Italy after being released from St.  
> Elizabeth.
>
> Contradictions persist but they are the binding element of our human  
> nature.
> Besides that I am sure that Ezra Pound was no tame lamb.
> Here is what I thought I should say in this moment.
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:55 PM, Stephen Vincent
> wrote:
>
>> It is interesting (I think) to consider what would have happened to
>> Pound's work if he had not been determined to be insane, and that  
>> he had not
>> have received the Bollingen prize for consequences of his war time
>> actions.(?) Jung & Bollingna's somewhat twisted relationship with  
>> the Nazis
>> chez Switzerland - is it also a factor here??  By Eliot et al  
>> insisting on
>> the work's aesthetic pre-eminence (like pre-what? Pre-genocide  
>> support?),
>> did they manage to subvert the consideration/valuation of politics  
>> as an
>> implicit part of a genuine poetic practice and criticism. (The  
>> 'apolitical'
>> - albeit conservative new critics - in ascendance in the late  
>> forties were
>> certainly happy when the court's ignored the politcal tragedy of  
>> Pound, as
>> well as their own willful ignorance of  anti-semeticism, and  
>> royalism of
>> Eliot.     Somehow, aren't these same folks that would ignore,  
>> Zukofsky,
>> Reznikoff, Niedecker and Oppen - no doubt for the presence of  
>> 'political
>> dirty wash'???
>>
>> Then, how long is it going to take to this country's justice system  
>> to
>> face the 'pre-emptive war crimes', including the practice of  
>> Torture,  of
>> Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, & etc??  Yes, they have been behaving, too,  
>> as if
>> "insane" - and many, many have died as a consequence, etc.
>>
>> In the meantime, Happy Valentines Day & Love to all!
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Gabriel Gudding  wrote: On this day (for me here at -6
>> GMT it's still "on this day") -- On this
>> day in 1946 Ezra Loomis Pound, who, in worldwide radio broadcasts,
>> advocated killing "big kikes" in a "pogrom from the top" and said "it
>> might be a good thing to hang Roosevelt and a few hundred yidds," was
>> declared insane by a jury and sentenced to reside in St. Elizabeths
>> Hospital.
>>
>> Two years later he would be awarded the first annual Bollingen  
>> Prize, on
>> whose ten person panel T S Eliot served, who said of himself, "I  
>> have no
>> objection to being called a bigot myself."
>>
>> The jury made this statement: "The fellows are aware that  
>> objections may
>> be made to awarding a prize to a man situated as is Mr. Pound.... To
>> permit other considerations than that of poetic achievement to sway  
>> the
>> decision would destroy the significance of the award and would in
>> principle deny the validity of that objective perception of value on
>> which civilized society must rest." (quote from Richard Sieburth's
>> fulsome introduction to /The Pisan Cantos/)
>>
>> Jed Rasula writes, "What was crucial was the preservation of the
>> administrative security system that had assumed custodial control of
>> poetry (not just Pound's poetry)...." (APWM, 114)
>> --
>> --
>> http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com/
>> http://rhodeislandnotebook.blogspot.com/
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a  
> dancing
> star!
>

Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]

http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/

Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664

Drive right past that lady, that’s
St. As Is.

                         George Bowering