Ezra Pound

How is Kenner? I have it but haven't read

Yeah, but thats the one i made in Italy skimming through Pounds collected while on various trains. I have a more complete list somewhere.

i feel he spends almost as much time talking about and mentioning Joyce, but Kenner really does try to make the modern conception of language as it appeared (or appears to us) for Pound and Joyce cohere. There is a good investigatory treatment of these authors to convey these ideas to the reader (I am trying to say it is not a very good, or even wholly accurate, biography, it holds this title in the loosest sense if at all). Extremely interesting read so far, definitely luminary on the modernist project and the kinds of ideas, contexts, and influences Pound and his posse were dealing with. If you're at all interested in the Modernist conception of language, expression, poetry, etcetc then it is worth a pick up, just get through the first chapter that is mostly about Henry James. Very solid stuff in it.

Neat, thanks a lot I will start reading it. I have that and "Secret Germany," a biography of George, staring me down.

sooooo black softcover or tan hardcover?

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Black softcover has more content.

how does the spine hold up? it's like 800 pages, seems too big for a softcover

It seems pretty sturdy. See pic rel. Which book do you think has more pages? They are roughly the same: Pound book has 824 pages while the Poe book has 841. It's all in the materials used and the page size and font size.

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The Pound Era is excellent. I think I got more out of reading it than any of Pound’s poetry by itself. The book takes Pound as a subject but is as much about the nature of language and modernism as a whole as it is about Pound in particular. It also does a good job explaining what drove Pound to fascism, though I think it is a little bit too quick to forgive him for this.

What is there to forgive? The man was imprisoned and later regretted his past actions. Just let it go. All he did was having a fascist radio show in Italy, ffs.

They psychologically tortured him as revenge. The Allies did a lot of weird shit like that. Some really dark people making some oddly specific decisions to prolong the torture and humiliation of a defeated enemy.

What they did the William Joyce still gets me. That was murder.

What did they do to Pound exactly?

>The Pound Era is excellent. I think I got more out of reading it than any of Pound’s poetry by itself.
This says it all. Pound is no good as a poet. No one enjoys him without reading a book telling them why he's good. BUT he's an important and fascinating figure, his ABC & Kulchur are worthwhile but overrated by novices, but his letters are excellent, and the transcripts from his WW2 podcast are PURE KINO.

He's pretty good as a poet. Some guy's personal experience won't change that.

Now that's POETRY

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Pound wouldn't have been able to hold onto a Twitter account for a single day.

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tried starting the cantos again, damn it is not very good.

lmao

Pound's essays are the best thing he ever did.

why?

Based crackhead. I wonder how many guys his crazy ass cucked.

like most Pound, it's extremely hit or miss, he has a number of gems amongst a bunch of meh or terrible work

>he has a number of gems amongst a bunch of meh or terrible work
that's pretty much every poet. there's not a poet with just banger after banger.

Rumi Hafez and Al maari.

Eliot is all bangers

6ix9ine

I feel like I've been the only person shilling Pound here for ages, this thread brings a tear to my eyes.
>This says it all. Pound is no good as a poet.
Why do people hold this opinion? What about his poetry says "this is no good without reading up on it endlessly??" literally all good poetry is like that. Cathay isn't avant garde at all, he has lots of traditional and lyrically beautiful poems and sections. His literary criticisms are second to none in the first half of the 20th century. If he was so average, someone like Hugh Kenner would not have books devoted to how good his poetry is.

One of my favorite bits from the Cantos (LXXIV):

See that the sun or the moon bless thy eating
Κορη, Κορη, for the six seeds of an error
or that the stars bless thy eating

O Lynx, guard this orchard,
Keep from Demeter’s furrow

This fruit has a fire within it,
Pomona, Pomona,

No glass is clearer than are the globes of this flame
what sea is clearer than the pomengranate body
holding the flame?
Pomona, Pomona,

Lynx, keep watch on this orchard
That is named Melagrana
or the Pomegranate field
The sea is not clearer in azure
Nor the Heliads bringing light

if youre a complete midwit maybe

>"this is no good without reading up on it endlessly??" literally all good poetry is like that
maybe if youre used to reading mediocre poets like pound propped up because they were culturally relevant rather than great writers.
im sitting here enjoying the romantics without reading a single essay on their ass

also, what exactly do you get out of this passage.

Yes. It's almost like the romantics tended to be poets of shallow themes, and are very easily understood. Further reading of a poet is never a slight against the poet. Think about how many great poets from even further back in history were about the times, but still wrote timeless poetry (Dante comes to mind, so does Milton). Not all of Pounds works require further reading on the subject, you can just enjoy pretty words on the paper.

I'm not one of those people that shits on the romantics or anything either, I fucking love Keats and I read a lot of Shelley.

It's purrty. All I got. I truly don't know much about this poem, I'm sure it relates to his time in Pisa but I do not know what the Lynx represents. I remember from one of my Greek myths that pomegranates have to do with the underworld.

Part of the fun is reading more about Pounds works, and reading mythology in general, and piecing everything together. I do it because it's fun, and will spend more time with this passage when my finals end

>Be Shelley
>Write heavily about all the things that were culturally relevant in your day
>Die in relative obscurity
>Write in cliches and infantile rhymes, and get panned by most of the world post WWII
What did he mean by this

well yeah, the romantics are understandeable because they actually had something to say. Same with milton and dante.
I like a few of Pounds poems but calling the romantics shallow is rich when you compare them with pound or eliot who were hardly puddles of anything.
>and get panned by most of the world post WWII
every critic or poet that I know of who panned Shelley are also coincidentally far worse than Shelley. Not my problem people in post modernity have fucking backwards ideas of what good poetry and literature is and think the romantics are cliche, when theyre clearly a high quality era of literature to anyone with taste.

Modernists are just 3deep5me, I guess. This doesn't even seem like poetry to me. Just awkward prose with bad formatting. No rhyme, meter, alliteration. Nonsensical imagery. Is there a point at all? Or just showing off his Greek?

I imagine there's some fun and satisfaction to be had solving the crossword puzzle of his references, but I don't see anything aesthetically pleasing.

>counter currents
Jesus Christ

>later regretted his past actions
According to Ginsberg, not to Pound himself. He never repented, and it remains a testament to his integrity and his ignominy.

>i refuse to read competent essays on important topics if they're posted on a website that also hosts a view or person i dislike
- post made on Yea Forums, 2022

>well yeah, the romantics are understandeable because they actually had something to say. Same with milton and dante.
This is what you said:
>mediocre poets like pound propped up because they were culturally relevant rather than great writers
When, most great writers are culturally relevant to the era in which they live, and write about it. Saying Pound has nothing to say is extremely ignorant, every aspect of his personal life, philosophy and the economic and social theories he believed in are present in his writing. He has a lot to say, just because its complex and requires a breakdown for the layman doesn't mean he isn't saying anything.

> Not my problem people in post modernity have fucking backwards ideas of what good poetry and literature is and think the romantics are cliche, when theyre clearly a high quality era of literature to anyone with taste.
You are clearly very young. a "backwards" idea of poetry is saying that it has to be "metrical and or rhyme!". Its just ignorant to say "anyone with taste thinks they're high quality", when people who spend their entire lives studying poetry break down in detail why they don't care for most of the Romantics (Early Wordsworth and Keats always excluded). If you had read Pound, and Eliots and others analysis of why they do not like that kind of poetry, you'd probably be able to comment something more than "but they said they were bad :("

>No rhyme, meter, alliteration.
Which have nothing to do with good poetry. All good poetry is RHYTHMIC. Which this poem is.
>Nonsensical imagery.
All of the imagery means something. Just because you do not know what its about doesn't make it nonsensical.

Why do both of you think that its bad, when you haven't even read the entire Canto lol. I'm just posting an excerpt, go read it.

>not to Pound himself.
"But the worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism."

Again, that is as reported by Ginsberg after his visiting Pound in Italy. We do not know whether those were Pound's actual words, his actual sentiment, or if that was Ginsberg trying to save Pound's legacy from himself. I myself feel more inclined to believe it was the last one.

No different from you fags you complain about a post being "reddit" or whatever. I've read stuff from Counter Currents, actually, and it always veers into some ideological shit, which is fine if you're into that.

>metrical and or rhyme
no, it has to be enjoyable
>(Early Wordsworth and Keats always excluded)
this is fair, i can understand not liking shelley or blake, but i think theyre alot better than eliot or pound. Pounds rhythms kinda are weak man and just not evocative.

to be fair, i havent read eliot or pound analysis cause i dislike their poetry and what ive read of eliots criticism i disliked even more

>All good poetry is RHYTHMIC. Which this poem is.
Sorry, I'm probably a brainlet, but I can't get any rhythm from this at all.

>All of the imagery means something. Just because you do not know what its about doesn't make it nonsensical.

Again, I'm prepared to admit that I'm a brainlet. Explain what it means for a pomegrante to have a fire inside it and be clearer than the sea. Why would an orchard, a man-made cultivation, need to be guarded from Demeter's furrow?

>Why do both of you think that its bad, when you haven't even read the entire Canto lol. I'm just posting an excerpt, go read it.
I freely admit I know nothing about Pound and I'm trying to understand why you like him. But if I can't appreciate your favorite extract, I'm not likely to bother reading the whole thing.

It is fairly different. Who cares if it veers into ideology? It's an online magazine for right wing thought. Of course it's ideological. Pound was a fascist, Bolton and Bowden are fascist or fascist adjacent. Still good essays.

It's like complaining that Jacobin, which is not only leftist but also bad at being leftist lately so even other leftists should hate it, hosts some good and informative articles on interesting leftist intellectuals.

>It is fairly different.
Sure thing it is.

Are you addicted to making worthless replies? Respond with substance or don't bother.

Let me try posting in your style. INDEED, IT IS DIFFERENT. Now you contradict me, and we'll start the cycle over. Am I doing it right?

It is the orchard of pomegranates in the underworld, from which persephone (kore) ate 6 seeds condemning her to live 6 months of every year in hell. Pomegranates are the fruit of death and and pound is charging the lynx to guard the fruit from demeters furrow i.e. persephone. It's also why he says let the sun or moon bless thy eating i.e. not to taste the fruit of death in the underworld. Of course persephone did eat the seeds though which led to the unfolding drama of the eleusinian mysteries.

I can't make full sense of the passage either but I'm sure you'd need to read the full Canto for context. Pound says that beauty appears to us first as mystery and wonder and that through perception and realization we can learn to appreciate it.

Poundchads, it feels good to be us.

aight

>Yes. It's almost like the romantics tended to be poets of shallow themes, and are very easily understood.
Based.
>To be considered a great poet, it is necessary to address the masses and to act upon them; the great poet must treat general ideas that the vulgar may understand; everyone likes to find an idea he has had expressed in a more refined manner within a poem.
>The most celebrated verses are those that express banalities. Take ten from Byron, for example, that talk about love, the brevity of life, or any other common subject.
>Naturally, this appeals to the masses who have experienced the joy of falling in love or the pain of falling out of love; who still fear death etc etc.
>But how many of them have seen or even dreamed of the fantastical silhouettes emanating from the works of Medieval poets?

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