Poetry Post: Ezra Pound

I have been a bit slack on the Poetry Posts. Not so Sanjeev. The last three days he has moved across the Atlantic and conversed with six poets. On the 20th, he did Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.  As he closed, he gave an indication for the poets he would be chatting up with on the 21st. This is what he tweeted:

sanjeevn: With those words, I bid au revoir for today. Tomorrow, 2 more giants on whose shoulders modern #poetry stands. Hint: Born in US, Poets in UK

The two poets were Ezra Pound and TS Eliot.

sanjeevn: Speaking of #poetry, Ezra Pound & T. S. Eliot, American expatriate poets, are my 2 poets for the day

In this post, we will discuss Ezra Pound

sanjeevn: EP is considered the giant on whose shoulders such giants as TSE, H.D., and even Yeats (1 of tomorrow’s 2 poets in my series) stand. #Poetry

sanjeevn: Championing imagism, he is most famous for his encyclopedic Cantos – his “tale of the tribe” #Poetry

sanjeevn: Something shorter to enjoy here: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” #Poetry

In this piece, A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste, Ezra Pound writes:

An “Image” is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. I use the term “complex” rather in the technical sense employed by the newer psychologists, such as Hart, though we might not agree absolutely in our application.

It is the presentation of such a “complex” instantaneously which gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.

It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.

Thus we have Sanjeev tweeting “Championing imagism“. He also says, EP is most famous for his encyclopedic Cantos. Let’s see what it is about. Spanning fifty years, The Cantos started with Cantos I in 1925 and finally ended with the complete set in 1972 (the year he died). There was a period in 1939 during the World War 2 when he was held by Italian partisans and then transferred to the Americans. He had written on his anti-Semite opinions and had advocated that America stay out of the war in Europe. The Pisan Cantos as they are called got him the Bollingen Award though he was deemed a traitor by his country, America and had been diagnosed with mental illness (hence a madman).

I found this two liner poem “In a Station of the Metro” which contrasts with the fifty year long The Cantos. Here it is:

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

Tomorrow, we will take up the giant, T S Eliot.

Poetry Posts – Walt Whitman

Yesterday, the post was on Emily Dickinson though the name of Walt Whitman was mentioned. I had promised to keep Walt Whitman for today so as to give full justice to great poet. The entire collection is right here at Bartelby.

I will quote selections from the poem “Passage To India“, a poem written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. It begins thus:

SINGING my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!

The metaphorical allusion to a bridge between modernity (New World) and tradition (Old World) is being made here.

Passage, O soul, to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive fables.

The passage to India is now open, so he calls upon all to sail forth.

(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream!
Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,
The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!)

A reference to the famous Genoese, Christopher Columbus, whose dream is now fulfilled in America, the country he discovered.

Again Vasco de Gama sails forth;
Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass,
Lands found, and nations born—thou born, America, (a hemisphere unborn,)
For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d,
Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish’d.

Allusions to famous explorers and specifically Vasco Da Gama, who sailed round Africa to find India. Like him many others found new lands, including America.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

In the end, he pleads all to go further and further, far beyond they have ever been.  To travel to new lands, to see new things. Could it be a metaphorical allusion to ignorance?

Poetry Posts: Emily Dickinson & Walt Whitman – 1

Today, Sanjeev explored Walt Whitman and one of my favourite poets, Emily Dickinson. Here are his tweets:

WW, the first modern US poet, “broke the new wood” (Pound), freed us from rhymed verse, & of modern men he sung!

Walt embraced “teeming worlds of nature, humanity & self.”  The Whitman Archive

From anonymous 1855 1st ed to hooplah in 1990s as Clinton’s gift to Lewinsky, Leaves of Grass, a seminal book of poetry.

“I am with you, you men & women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence.” – Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

She never met WW, nor likely read his #poetry, but ED crafted her own independent spirit & inner life into ~1800 poems

Though often difficult for me, ED opened up “entire worlds of intense emotion & experience in miniature” in her sparse hyphenated poetry

WW kept adding poetry to later editions of LoG; Public-shy ED published merely 10 poems before her death. 597 poems here

One of her most famous poems “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me.”

Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell  Indeed! ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’

His tweets made me reach out to the two volumes on my shelf – The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. First Emily Dickinson

I have this wonderful volume by Avenel Books – it compiles from three previous publications Poems, 1890; Poems, Second Series, 1891 and Poems, Third Series. The introduction is by George Gesner who narrates the story of the enigmatic and reclusive Emily Dickinson. In 1862, TW Higginson received four poems from Emily – he rejected the poems even though they represented “a new, free and unorthodox style of poetry“. As a result, George Gesner writes

It may very well be that the rejection and criticism of her poetry pushed Dickinson back into obscurity and kept her name as well as her poetry unknown during her lifetime. It may also be true that since there were no publication pressures and restrictions, Dickinson was able to write in an unhampered, intense and original style.

The story goes that her poems were published four years after her death in 1886. Her sister found hundreds of her poems. The same TW Higginson worked with Mary Loomb, wife of a local professor to bring out the various volumes in 1890, 1891 and 1896.

I will quote the poems on the jacket sleeves of the book (as they are meant to attract the potential reader to buy the book)

The Storm

It sounded as if the streets were running
And then the streets stood still
Eclipse was all we could see at the window
And awe was all we could feel.

By and by the boldest stole out of his covert,
To see if time was there.
Nature was in her beryl apron
Mixing fresher air

This is from the backside of the book

Untitled

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, -
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

The classic Simon & Garfunkel “For Emily whenever I may find her” is a tribute to her. I found this excellent post on the blogosphere.

Now, it would be injustice to write about Walt Whitman here. So I will do a part 2 of this post tomorrow.