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Showing posts with the label Ezra Pound

The Gnawing Mouse

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 Poem by Ezra Pound. Even when I forget the exact wording (my mind always changes "full" to "long"), the gist is there. I think I also connected (long ago) the field mouse to Michelangelo's gnawing mouse. Anyway ... #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #ezrapound #mouse #fieldmouse #gnawingmouse #poetry #reading

T. E. Hulme: "The Embankment"

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FROM THE POETRY FOUNDATION

Recinto XI: Evangelico: The Graves of Ezra Pound and Joseph Brodsky

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The girls were more interested in the other islands, so the clock was ticking. Had a map but still I had to look at almost every marble face. Pound was hiding under a chopped salad and a fallen flower; Brodsky was behind a rose bush and beneath Cyrilic.     *                   ***                   

Olga Rudge (1895 - 1996)

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Olga Rudge (13 April 1895, Youngstown , Ohio  – 15 March 1996) was an American-born concert violinist , now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound , by whom she had a daughter, Mary. A gifted [1] concert violinist of international repute, her considerable talents [2] and reputation were eventually eclipsed by those of her lover, in whose shade she appeared content to remain. In return, Pound was more loyal, not to say faithful, to her than to any of his many other mistresses. He dedicated the final stanza of his epic The Cantos to her, in homage and gratitude for her courageous and loyal support of Pound during his 13-year incarceration in a mental hospital after having been indicted for treasonous activities against the United States and in support of Benito Mussolini 's Fascist regime. She also defended Pound against the accusation that he was anti-Semitic . During the last 11 years of Pound's life, Rudge was his devoted companion, secretar

Brodsky on Ezra Pound

They're buried in the same graveyard (took their marble portraits -- but that's down the blogal road), so I'm paying homage to both. Read Eliot on Pound; read Cathay ; and recently finished rereading Brodsky's Watermark (a quick read, not as great as I remembered, but the target was out of this world: Venice). * From Brodsky's Watermark :      What woke me from my reverie was the sound of Susan's voice, which meant that the record had come to a stop. There was something odd in her timbre and I cocked my ear. Susan was saying, "But surely, Olga, you don't think that the Americans got cross with Ezra over his broadcasts. Because if it were only his broadcasts, then Ezra would be just another Tokyo Rose." Now, that was one of the greatest returns I had ever heard. I looked at Olga. It must be said that she took it like a mensch. Or, better yet, a pro. Or else she didn't grasp what Susan had said, though I doubt it. "What was it, then?

Pound's Translations from the Chinese: "The Beautiful Toilet"

I have a collection of Pound's earlier poems, including the translations, and so I downloaded the whole of Cathay ($0.99) to reacquaint myself with the poems. (I don't believe all of the poems were in the volume I read so many years ago.) Are they as monumental as Eliot makes them out to be? Well, he's the expert, not me. * The Beautiful Toilet Blue, blue is the grass     about the river And the willows have     overfilled the close     garden. And within, the mistress,     in the midmost     of her youth. White, white of face,     hesitates, passing     the door. Slender, she puts forth     a slender hand, And she was a courtesan in the old days, And she has married     a sot, Who now goes drunken- ly out And leaves her too     much alone.           by Mei Sheng                  B.C. 140 [NB: The line breaks are mine, as the Kindle version leaves you guessing in terms of  Pound's.]

Night Train to Venice

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Sleeper. Some sleep for 3 out of 4 of us. I did it years ago and had to do it again ( Nostalghia ). I reread Death in Venice last summer so had to find something else: I turned off Leskov temporarily and switched over to Eliot's propaganda on Pound (I'm on my way EZ Ton!). Arrived at 6-something a.m. Had breakfast in the station (shared it with the pigeons). Hopped a vaporetto to Bienale. Vanni met us and we walked down Garibaldi. *             

Rome: Leskov, T.S. Eliot, and Uncle Ezra

Eliot and Ezra are of course connected in Eternity. But Leskov -- how is he connected to the other two? Answer: all three kept me company in Italy. Leskov (whether he knows it or not) was my exclusive companion in Rome. In Venice I broke with Leskov (temporarily) to read (reread?) Eliot's "Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry." *** A few quotes from Eliot's salute to Pound: "Ezra Pound has been fathered with vers libre in English, with all its vices and virtues. The term is a loose one -- any verse is called "free" by people whose ears are not accustomed to it -- in the second place, Pound's use of this medium has shown the temperance of the artist, and his belief in it as a vehicle is not that of the fanatic. He has said himself that when one has the proper material for a sonnet, one should use the sonnet form; but that it happens very rarely to any poet to find himself in possession of just the block of stuff which can perfectly be modelled in

Pound's "In a Station of the Metro"

In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals  on a wet, black bough.   

"And the Days Are Not Full Enough"

A quiet lazy day. The coolness and the silvery marine layer (the sun keeps trying to come out but hasn't yet) add to the sense that it's still morning (when it's nearly 1:00 P.M.). Anyway, don't know why Uncle Ezra came knocking (he's far from my fave and I only remember this one--though my mind wanted "long" not "full"--and "In a Station of the Metro"). And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse                        Not shaking the grass.