tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86975406761571561592024-03-05T06:46:27.481-08:00Ezra Poundgusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-48567501033859882382012-06-04T20:53:00.002-07:002012-06-04T20:53:40.456-07:00"And all this is folly to the world" - A Girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-26936489049318781392012-06-04T20:50:00.002-07:002012-06-04T20:51:07.313-07:00Ezra Pound Poems<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3c605b;">The Garden<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>by
Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">En
robe de parade.<br />
Samain<br />
<br />
Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall<br />
She walks by the railing of a path in </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kensington</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Gardens</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">,<br />
And she is dying piece-meal<br />
of a sort of emotional anaemia.<br />
<br />
And round about there is a rabble<br />
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.<br />
They shall inherit the earth.<br />
<br />
In her is the end of breeding.<br />
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.<br />
She would like some one to speak to her,<br />
And is almost afraid that I<br />
will commit that indiscretion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3c605b;">The Seafarer<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>by
Ezra Pound</b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 8.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">(From
the early Anglo-Saxon text)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
May I for my own self song's truth reckon,<br />
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days<br />
Hardship endured oft.<br />
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,<br />
Known on my keel many a care's hold,<br />
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent<br />
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head<br />
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,<br />
My feet were by frost benumbed.<br />
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs<br />
Hew my heart round and hunger begot<br />
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not<br />
That he on dry land loveliest liveth,<br />
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,<br />
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast<br />
Deprived of my kinsmen;<br />
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,<br />
There I heard naught save the harsh sea<br />
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,<br />
Did for my games the gannet's clamour,<br />
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,<br />
The mews' singing all my mead-drink.<br />
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern<br />
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed<br />
With spray on his pinion.<br />
Not any protector<br />
May make merry man faring needy.<br />
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life<br />
Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,<br />
Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft<br />
Must bide above brine.<br />
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,<br />
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then<br />
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now<br />
The heart's thought that I on high streams<br />
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.<br />
Moaneth alway my mind's lust<br />
That I fare forth, that I afar hence<br />
Seek out a foreign fastness.<br />
For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,<br />
Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;<br />
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful<br />
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare<br />
Whatever his lord will.<br />
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having<br />
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight<br />
Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,<br />
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.<br />
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,<br />
Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,<br />
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,<br />
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks<br />
On flood-ways to be far departing.<br />
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,<br />
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,<br />
The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not --<br />
He the prosperous man -- what some perform<br />
Where wandering them widest draweth.<br />
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,<br />
My mood 'mid the mere-flood,<br />
Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.<br />
On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,<br />
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,<br />
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,<br />
O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow<br />
My lord deems to me this dead life<br />
On loan and on land, I believe not<br />
That any earth-weal eternal standeth<br />
Save there be somewhat calamitous<br />
That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.<br />
Disease or oldness or sword-hate<br />
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.<br />
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after --<br />
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,<br />
That he will work ere he pass onward,<br />
Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,<br />
Daring ado, ...<br />
So that all men shall honour him after<br />
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,<br />
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,<br />
Delight mid the doughty.<br />
Days little durable,<br />
And all arrogance of earthen riches,<br />
There come now no kings nor Cæsars<br />
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.<br />
Howe'er in mirth most magnified,<br />
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,<br />
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!<br />
Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.<br />
Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.<br />
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.<br />
No man at all going the earth's gait,<br />
But age fares against him, his face paleth,<br />
Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,<br />
Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,<br />
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,<br />
Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,<br />
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,<br />
And though he strew the grave with gold,<br />
His born brothers, their buried bodies<br />
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">Canto I<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">And then went down to the ship,<br />
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and<br />
We set up mast and sail on tha swart ship,<br />
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward<br />
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,<br />
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.<br />
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,<br />
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.<br />
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,<br />
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,<br />
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities<br />
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever<br />
With glitter of sun-rays<br />
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven<br />
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.<br />
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place<br />
Aforesaid by Circe.<br />
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,<br />
And drawing sword from my hip<br />
I dug the ell-square pitkin;<br />
Poured we libations unto each the dead,<br />
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.<br />
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-head;<br />
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best<br />
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,<br />
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.<br />
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,<br />
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides<br />
Of youths and at the old who had borne much;<br />
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,<br />
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,<br />
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,<br />
These many crowded about me; with shouting,<br />
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;<br />
Slaughtered the heards, sheep slain of bronze;<br />
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,<br />
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;<br />
Unsheathed the narrow sword,<br />
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,<br />
Till I should hear Tiresias.<br />
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,<br />
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,<br />
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,<br />
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.<br />
Pitiful spirit.And I cried in hurried speech:<br />
"Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?<br />
Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?"<br />
<br />
And he in heavy speech:<br />
"Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe's ingle.<br />
Going down the long ladder unguarded,<br />
I fell against the buttress,<br />
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.<br />
But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,<br />
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:<br />
A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.<br />
And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows."<br />
<br />
And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,<br />
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:<br />
"A second time? why? man of ill star,<br />
Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?<br />
Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever<br />
For soothsay."<br />
And I stepped back,<br />
And he stong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus<br />
Shalt return through spiteful </span><st1:place><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">Neptune</span></st1:place><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, over dark seas,<br />
Lose all companions." And then Anticlea came.<br />
Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,<br />
In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.<br />
And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away<br />
And unto Circe.<br />
Venerandam,<br />
In the Creatan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,<br />
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, orichalchi, with golden<br />
Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids<br />
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">A Girl<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">The tree has entered my hands,<br />
The sap has ascended my arms,<br />
The tree has grown in my breast -<br />
Downward,<br />
The branches grow out of me, like arms.<br />
<br />
Tree you are,<br />
Moss you are,<br />
You are violets with wind above them.<br />
A child - so high - you are,<br />
And all this is folly to the world.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">IN DURANCE<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">(1907)<br />
1 am homesick after mine own kind,<br />
Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces,<br />
But I am homesick after mine own kind.<br />
<br />
'These sell our pictures'! Oh well,<br />
They reach me not, touch me some edge or that,<br />
But reach me not and all my life's become<br />
One flame, that reaches not beyond<br />
My heart's own hearth,<br />
Or hides among the ashes there for thee.<br />
Thee'? Oh, 'Thee' is who cometh first<br />
Out of mine own soul-kin,<br />
For I am homesick after mine own kind<br />
And ordinary people touch me not.<br />
And I am homesick<br />
After mine own kind that know, and feel<br />
And have some breath for beauty and the arts.<br />
<br />
Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit<br />
And have none about me save in the shadows<br />
When come they, surging of power, 'DAEMON,'<br />
'Quasi KALOUN.' S.T. says Beauty is most that, a<br />
'calling to the soul'.<br />
Well then, so call they, the swirlers out of the mist of my soul,<br />
They that come mewards, bearing old magic.<br />
<br />
But for all that, I am homesick after mine own kind<br />
And would meet kindred even as I am,<br />
Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret.<br />
'All they that with strange sadness'<br />
Have the earth in mockery, and are kind to all,<br />
My fellows, aye I know the glory<br />
Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide<br />
As I hide most the while<br />
And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles<br />
For love, or hope or beauty or for power,<br />
Then smoulder, with the lids half closed<br />
And are untouched by echoes of the world.<br />
<br />
Oh ye, my fellows: with the seas between us some be,<br />
Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts<br />
Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows;<br />
And some the hills hold off,<br />
The little hills to east of us, though here we<br />
Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.<br />
<br />
And yet my soul sings ‘Up!' and we are one.<br />
Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin<br />
To whom my breast and arms are ever warm,<br />
For that I love ye as the wind the trees<br />
That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure<br />
And calls the utmost singing from the boughs<br />
That Hhout him, save the aspen, were as dumb<br />
Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how<br />
'Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies . . .'<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">In Tempore Senectutis<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">When I am old<br />
I will not have you look apart<br />
From me, into the cold,<br />
Friend of my heart,<br />
Nor be sad in your remembrance<br />
Of the careless, mad-heart semblance<br />
That the wind hath blown away<br />
When I am old.<br />
<br />
When I am old<br />
And the white hot wonder-fire<br />
Unto the world seem cold,<br />
My soul's desire<br />
Know you then that all life's shower,<br />
The rain of the years, that hour<br />
Shall make blow for us one flower,<br />
Including all, when we are old.<br />
<br />
When I am old<br />
If you remember<br />
Any love save what is then<br />
Hearth light unto life's December<br />
Be your joy of past sweet chalices<br />
To know then naught but this<br />
"How many wonders are less sweet<br />
Than love I bear to thee<br />
When I am old."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">Alf’s Twelfth Bit<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">BALLAD FOR THE TIMES' SPECIAL SILVER NUMBER<br />
<br />
Sez the Times a silver lining<br />
Is what has set us pining,<br />
Montague, Montague!<br />
<br />
In the season sad and weary<br />
When our minds are very bleary,<br />
Montague, Montague!<br />
<br />
There is Sir Hen. Deterding<br />
His phrases interlarding,<br />
Montague, Montague!<br />
<br />
With the this and that and what<br />
For putting silver on the spot,<br />
Montague, Montague!<br />
<br />
Just drop it in the slot<br />
And it will surely boil the pot,<br />
Montague, Montague!<br />
<br />
Gold, of course, is solid too,<br />
But some silver set to stew<br />
Might do, too. Montague!<br />
With a lively wood-pulp ‘ad’.<br />
<br />
To cheer the bad and sad,<br />
Montague, Montague!<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">And the days are not full enough<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">And the days are not full enough<br />
And the nights are not full enough<br />
And life slips by like a field mouse<br />
Not shaking the grass<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">Song Of The Six Hundred M.P.'S<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">‘We are 'ere met together<br />
in this momentous hower,<br />
Ter lick th' bankers' dirty boots<br />
an' keep the Bank in power.’<br />
<br />
We are 'ere met together<br />
ter grind the same old axes<br />
And keep the people in its place<br />
a'payin' us the taxes.<br />
<br />
We are six hundred beefy men<br />
(but mostly gas and suet)<br />
An’ every year we meet to let<br />
some other feller do it.'<br />
<br />
I see their 'igh 'ats on the seats<br />
an' them sprawling on the benches<br />
And thinks about a Rowton 'ouse<br />
and a lot of small street stenches.<br />
<br />
'O Britain, muvver of parliaments,<br />
'ave you seen yer larst sweet litter?<br />
Could yeh swap th' brains of orl this lot<br />
fer 'arft a pint o' bitter?'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f88000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;">‘Phasellus Ille’<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">1 his papier-mâché, which you see, my friends,<br />
Saith 'twas the worthiest of editors.<br />
Its mind was made up in 'the seventies',<br />
Nor hath it ever since changed that concoction.<br />
It works to represent that school of thought<br />
Which brought the hair-cloth chair to such perfection,<br />
Nor will the horrid threats of Bernard Shaw<br />
Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions;<br />
Nay, should the deathless voice of all the world<br />
Speak once again for its sole stimulation,<br />
Twould not move it one jot from left to right.<br />
<br />
Come Beauty barefoot from the </span><st1:place><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">Cyclades</span></st1:place><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">,<br />
She'd find a model for St. Anthony<br />
In this thing's sure decorum and behaviour.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 10.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-14910207328346374762012-06-04T20:20:00.003-07:002012-06-04T20:20:49.067-07:00Ezra Pound in 1958 at William Carlos Williams' house<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.ricecracker.net/files/blog_images/avedons_pound_1958.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://www.ricecracker.net/files/blog_images/avedons_pound_1958.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-91655126698374877472012-06-04T20:19:00.002-07:002012-06-04T20:19:34.896-07:00Pound by Wyndham Lewis, 1939<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzeYxLUDbEQCLeRD3XP7b1mKeoQUZsAgr5aAb6cLfpV4d_5na10GREFONKewe44hPZs8Jw78aIrnU3ArowsAeXv9BJ8pLT1j6AJ6LyC1mgLGAaCsZ93Sa7QOrE4pt_yMUMXmjZFZeukAO/s1600/Pound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzeYxLUDbEQCLeRD3XP7b1mKeoQUZsAgr5aAb6cLfpV4d_5na10GREFONKewe44hPZs8Jw78aIrnU3ArowsAeXv9BJ8pLT1j6AJ6LyC1mgLGAaCsZ93Sa7QOrE4pt_yMUMXmjZFZeukAO/s320/Pound.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-88799234947714005672012-06-04T20:15:00.001-07:002012-06-04T20:16:18.155-07:00Ezra Pound reading CANTO XLV<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/D3IpkOZjyVw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-59433272515378179822012-06-04T20:14:00.000-07:002012-06-04T20:14:00.615-07:00Analysis of "The Seafarer" by Ezra Pound<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Before Ezra Pound wrote his “The
Seafarer,” a poem with the same name was written, serving as one of the four
surviving manuscripts of Old English Poetry. This poem is about a seafarer
expresses his sadness over the lonely lifestyle of a sailor while out at sea.
Ezra Pound’s poem seems to be his own modern version of the very same poem; his
begins with a disclaimer in parentheses that reads “From the early Anglo-Saxon
text.” “The Seafarer” by Ezra Pound is told from the point of view of a
seafarer, who evaluates his life while chronicling the desolate hardships he
has faced on the cold sea and describes his anxious feelings and evaluating his
life as he has lived it. The seafarer communicates the anxious feelings and the
solitude of life on the wintry sea in relation to the more tempered life lived
by those on land. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Pound’s
interpretation of the Old English poem was first published in 1911, and then
again in <i>Ripostes </i>in 1912. Notable elements of the poem are frequent
alliteration, old English diction, and themes of life, death, and struggle. The
seafarer expresses his despair and isolation at being out at sea, which is cold
and eerie – “Coldly afflicted,/ My feet were by frost benumbed./ Chill its
chains are; chafing sighs/ Hew my heart round and hunger begot./ Mere-weary
mood.” In this passage we see the alliteration, which runs frequently
throughout the poem about every 5 lines, and the way in which the seafarer has
been beaten down by the extreme and taxing nature of the sea. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Talking about
himself, the seafarer compares his state to that of the people on land. Others
who are not in his situation are “on dry land loveliest liveth” and act
ignorantly to how much worse off the seafarers are. They “weathered the winter”
and are “deprived of [their] kinsmen.” The use of the word “kinsmen” here by
Pound is similar to the usage of the word in another of Pound’s poem titled “In
Durance.” In that poem, Pound repeats the line “I am homesick after mine own
kind” and uses the word “kin” to describe people he sees as similar to him, or
perhaps just the speaker, though he somewhat explicitly writes that he is
homesick for his own kind that “have some breath for beauty and the arts.”
Because “In Durance” was also one of Ezra Pound’s early poems, it is possible
that Pound was referencing his other poem when writing that the seafarer was
deprived of his kinsmen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Throughout the
middle of the poem, there is frequent imagery of a ship stuck in a stormy, cold
sea and the way that the speaker sees life as filled with death and dreariness
– “My lord deems to me this dead life/ On loan and on land.” The speaker then
begins to talk about wealth and rich men, and how although during their
lifetime they may be powerful and influential, when they die their wealth
cannot aid their state of lifelessness. When rich men die of disease, they make
promises in their last word so that “all men shall honour him after.” However,
when they finally go to rest in their tomb, all of the gold strewn around their
bodies doesn’t make them any less dead. This segment at the end seems to be a
thought that the seafarer might be using to make him feel better about his own
state of being and, make him realize that even though he may be out at sea and
separate from his kin, he is still filled with life, unlike some of the great
men of history who have to lay dead in their lavish tombs. <o:p></o:p></div>gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-31122300384331290622012-06-04T20:13:00.002-07:002012-06-04T20:13:26.475-07:00Comparison of Ezra Pound’s “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” to T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” was written
between 1910 and 1911, while Ezra Pound’s “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” was written
afterwards in 1920. Ezra Pound actually helped Eliot’s poem get published after
he saw Eliot’s ability in the June 1915 issue of <i>Poetry: A Magazine of Verse</i>,
marking the first time that Eliot had been published. Although Pound’s career
had been going on for about 10 years at the time that Mauberley was published,
Pound’s poem is considered a turning point in his career. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The first section
of Mauberly is concerned with a poet who finds his life to have lost
significance and is considered to be autobiographical. The poem seems to
express Pound’s shock at the horrors of World War I and has themes of despair
and materialism. Through the third person, Pound criticizes his past works as
having the sole goal of gaining fame and recognition, but then shifts the focus
to his defense. Eliot’s poem is written in the first person, and uses the
character of Prufrock, which Pound likely thought of when titling his poem with
a similar name. Prufrock is also characteristic of stream of consciousness, and
presents themes of frustration, embarrassment, and decay. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Eliot’s “Prufrock”
and Pound’s “Mauberley” are similar in that they are both representative of
modernist poetry. Together, Eliot and Pound were two significant figures in the
advancement of the modernist movement, and they both lived in <st1:country-region>England</st1:country-region>
around the early 1900s and 1920s. Eliot’s poem begins with an excerpt from
Dante’s “Inferno,” written in Latin, which, when translated, has the message of
not being fearful of embarrassment. Pound’s “Mauberley” also uses samples from
other languages, including a line from the song of Homer’s <i>Sirens </i>in
Greek and a quoted epigraph in French signed at the bottom by Caid Ali, which
might be a persona that Pound, or Mauberley, is using. In the first part of
Mauberley Pound describes his outrage at World War I – “There died a myriad/And
of the best, among them,/For an old bitch gone in the teeth,/For a botched civilization.”
“Prufrock” has a similar sense of despair and negativity in the first stanza
“restless nights in one-night cheap hotels /And sawdust restaurants with
oyster-shells…Of insidious intent,” showing the dreariness of Prufrock’s
surroundings. Later in the poem, Prufrock seems to be debating internally about
talking to a woman – “And indeed there will be time /To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’
and, ‘Do I dare?’” and worrying about the possible embarrassment. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The second part of
“Mauberley” begins in the third person and describes what Mauberley is thinking
through clever analogy – “Unable in the supervening blankness/To sift TO
AGATHON from the chaff/Until he found his seive.../ Ultimately, his
seismograph.” Although both Ezra Pound’s poem and T.S. Eliot’s poem have been
found to have some sort of message, this message is nearly impossible to
discern by just a close reading. Because Eliot uses stream of consciousness, it
is difficult to determine if something is meant to be interpreted literally or
symbolically. It might be said that these poems, similar in their style and the
eclectic nature of their stanzas, should be read as if all of the descriptions
are unconnected symbols, which together could be interpreted to produce some
sort of feeling – decay or angst – that might then be felt by the character –
J. Alfred Prufrock and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-52561818391470927732012-06-04T20:12:00.005-07:002012-06-04T20:12:52.878-07:00Found Poem T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and Ezra Pound’s “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Let<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>us go then, you and I,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">home to old lies and
new infamy;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">For I have known them
all already, known them all:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">walked eye-deep in hell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Bent resolutely on
wringing lilies from the acorn;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Capaneus; trout for
factitious bait:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Like a patient
etherized upon a table; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Caught in the unstopped
ear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">I have measured out my
life with coffee spoons;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Subjectively. In the
stuffed-satin drawing-room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">For I have known them
all already, known them all:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">laughter out of dead
bellies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">In the room the women
come and go<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">All things are a
flowing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">In a minute there is
time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">For a botched
civilization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">I have heard the
mermaids singing, each to each<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">At the autopsy,
privately performed --<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Arose toward Newman as
the whiskey warmed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Talking of
Michelangelo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">The sky-like limpid
eyes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Licked its tongue into
the corners of the evening,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Level across the face<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Pinned and wriggling on
the wall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 13.0pt;">Let us go and make our visit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">In the cream gilded
cabin of his steam yacht<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Beside this
thoroughfare<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #000020; font-size: 13.0pt;">Of Pierian roses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8697540676157156159.post-25832446545168046352012-06-04T20:12:00.002-07:002012-06-04T20:46:36.306-07:00Biography of Ezra Pound<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Ezra
Pound is considered one of the most prominent literary figures in the
advancement of modern poetry. More than just an artist, he actively expressed
his opinions – politically and artistically – and rubbed shoulders with some of
the most influential poets in the early modernist movement, of which he was a
large component. He supported fascism and lived in <st1:country-region>Italy</st1:country-region>
from 1924 through the 40s where he wrote anti-American publications. This and
his support of Mussolini and Hitler led to his arrest by the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
for treason, and during his detention in a steel cage he experienced a mental
breakdown. His most well-known works are Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and the
unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos. As signature of modernist poets, Pound’s
poems were commonly filled with allusion, phrases from other languages, and
abrupt changes from one thought to another. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Ezra
was born in <st1:place><st1:city>Hailey</st1:city>, <st1:state>Idaho</st1:state></st1:place>
Territory as an only child in 1885. With his father Homer and his mother Isabel
they moved to <st1:state>Pennsylvania</st1:state> when
Ezra was 18 months old. Ezra attended a series of “dame schools” and also went
to military school for 2 years, although he was keen to become a poet from a
young age. His first poem was a limerick published in 1896 about William
Jennings Bryan, and in 1901 he took up his admission to the <st1:place><st1:placetype>University</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename>Pennsylvania</st1:placename></st1:place> in the <st1:place><st1:placetype>College</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename>Liberal Arts</st1:placename></st1:place>. Partly due to poor
grades, he was shifted to <st1:place><st1:placename>Hamilton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>College</st1:placetype></st1:place>
in <st1:place><st1:city>Clinton</st1:city>, <st1:state>New York</st1:state></st1:place>,
where he studied the Provençal dialect and Old English and graduated in 1905 with
a degree in philosophy. Later, he studied Romance languages at the <st1:place><st1:placetype>University</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename>Pennsylvania</st1:placename></st1:place> and obtained a
masters degree in 1906. <br />
He took a teaching position in
1907 at <st1:place><st1:placename>Wabash</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>College</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
but then was dismissed because the school was too conservative and Pound was
too rebellious, so the next year he went to <st1:place>Europe</st1:place>. He
arrived in <st1:place>Gibraltar</st1:place> with $80 and made money being a
guide to American tourists. He began writing, and self-published his first book
of poetry, <i>A Lume Spento </i>(With Tapers Spent), and sold 100 copies at 6
cents each. He moved to <st1:city>London</st1:city> and
entered the poetry scene, which was mainly characterized by Victorian poets
like Alfred Lord Tennyson, and he met WB Yeats and William Carlos Williams. In
London Pound showed his eccentric side, wearing trousers made of green billiard
cloth, a pink coat, a blue shirt, a tie hand-painted by a Japanese friend, an
immense sombrero, a flaming beard cut to a point, and a single, large blue
earring according to Ford Madox Ford. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Things
began looking up, as in 1909 Personae was published and had great commercial
success, and in 1914 Ezra married Dorothy Shakespeare. He visited the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
for eight months in 1910 and then went back to <st1:place>Europe</st1:place>,
not to return to the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
for another 30 years. While living in <st1:city>London</st1:city>,
Pound made consistent contributions to literary magazines like <i>Poetry</i>
and spent time with other poets and literary figures of the time. Pound wrote
“In a Station of the Metro,” inspired by seeing beautiful faces in a metro
station in Paris, Ripostes, helped T.S. Eliot publish “The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock,” helped James Joyce’s <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man </i>gain attention and be published, wrote “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”, which
was about the struggle of a poet whose life had become meaningless and was seen
as autobiographical, and contributed to the Imagism movement, which was
characterized by writing musical not methodical prose and only including
descriptions as necessary to the subject of the poem. Pound also began writing “The
Cantos” in 1915 and had the first section of it published in 1925. It was
described by Pound as a “poem including history,” including subjects like
economics and the horrors of World War I. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
The
Pounds moved to <st1:city>Paris</st1:city>, where Ezra
edited Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” mixed with people of the Dada and Surrealist
movement, and became friends with Earnest Hemmingway even though he was 14
years younger than Pound. They were unhappy in <st1:city>Paris</st1:city>
and moved to a small town in <st1:country-region>Italy</st1:country-region>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Pound continued
working on “The Cantos” and living in <st1:country-region>Italy</st1:country-region>.
As Benito Mussolini came to power, Pound expressed his support for him and
condemned the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>,
recording hundreds of broadcasts for Rome Radio. Pound was then arrested for
treason and brought back to the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
where he was going to stand trial, but during the process he was declared
insane and placed inside a mental hospital. Pound continued to work, though,
and published the “Pisan Cantos” which was praised as “among the masterpieces
of the century” by the New York Times. Robert Frost helped Pound get out of St.
Elizabeth’s mental hospital, and Pound then returned to <st1:country-region>Italy</st1:country-region>
and published further sections of “The Cantos.” During his lifetime he
published 70 books of his own writing, helped about 70 others become published,
and authored more than 1,500 articles. Ezra Pound died in <st1:metricconverter productid="1972 in">1972 in</st1:metricconverter> <st1:city>Venice</st1:city>
at the age of 87. <o:p></o:p></div>gusshafronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17704847198016127755noreply@blogger.com0