Because we compared him to a Fascist like Pound!
1) COMPRESSION/staccato brevity
2) Inclusion of/engagement with HISTORY (inc. POLITICS, ECONOMICS, usw.)
3) Deployment of PERSONAE: distance between poet and words
4) CONDENSARE of existing language, rather than pure soul invention
5) Rethinking of TRANSLATION & its function: Dante
6) PARATACTIC organization of materials (“paratactic clown act”)
7) Composes in rhythm of MUSICAL PHRASE (hip hop?) vs. symmetrical metrical structures
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4 days ago
2 comments:
Ha!
I wonder too if Pound eventually disappeared into his persona, accidentally became the mask. The artist become the art(ifice). It's always been unclear to me whether Pound actually belonged in St. Elizabeth's, I mean clinically really went nuts, and wasn't just there as:
1) a way to dodge the treason charge;
and
2) a way to get the American government to pay a poet's room and board. Then as now, a nearly impossible feat!
Anyway, something clearly went haywire. His life in Italy through the '50s and '60s was a sad one; the great thunderer wouldn't speak for days at a time, though he squeezed out some very impressive Cantos (the Thrones section esp.) in those last fifteen years.
"under half-watt rays" is just a magnificent image: showily contemporary and yet completely right, precise, at the same time. Glad you called it out.
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