A couple, who appear to be on intimate terms, converse at the bus stop.
The man (wearing a Cradle of Filth t-shirt) tells the woman: “Suicide Girls is art–not pornography.”
The woman (smokes her second cigarette in ten minutes): “No. The guy who takes photos of a thousand nude people in Mexico is an artist. Suicide Girls is pornography.”
The man: “Some pornography is art. Suicide Girls is art because they perform to music.”
Bus arrives.
Rest my head in
hand near the table
where a small black
radio plays an
instrumental I
have never heard but
know it… know its
emotional
audio content.
Notes plucked
from guitar strings
weave and release
a story that
resonates deep
within my soul
and makes me want
to cry and hope.
The announcer
says his name is
Ottmar Liebert
but does not share
the name… the name
of the song that
makes me want to cry.
The latest volume of The American Poetry Review arrived in my mailbox Friday afternoon. So I tucked under my arm and drove off into the rain to the Fellowship Hall feeling very smart and silly at the same time. I don’t consider myself academic. So the act of trying to look smart in a room full of academics is a foolish charade on my part. Nevertheless, I did read the first few selections while waiting for the reading to begin. I’m still not sure what I think of Mary Kinzie’s poem.
Anyway, Jennifer Grotz, a poet, began the evening by reading two translations by a French poet. She reads slowly, deliberately pronouncing each word as if reading role call for a high school home room or like the Economics Teacher in the movie Ferris Bueller: “Bueller?… Bueller?… Bueller?” She bridged each poem with a bubbly, conversational introduction which the audience seemed to appreciate. Maybe her poems are better read on paper. Her work just didn’t resonate with me at all.
Danzy Senna, a novelist, read from her novel Autobody and read with drama; shifting narrator voice to character voices. She has a subtle lisp when pronouncing “innocence” and “success” and “stare.” Her narrative is captivating and populated with warm approachable characters and full of tense lines like: “the conversation went from ironic to earnest.” I really enjoyed her reading.
Brooks Haxton, poet, began with a humoristic, absurd, controversial (you had to be there to enjoy it) poem about the planning of a large mall in Syracuse. That poem pleased the audience greatly and they responded to all the right lines with loud laughter. Haxton presents his work as recitations, more or less, with the expert use of eye contact; makes one feel like each poem is a conversation or gift to listeners. I like this approach. He delivers the poems to the listener, not the pages on the lecturn.
Kevin McIlvoy read a delightful short fiction monologue from the point of view of a kid playing little league baseball. His animated presentation, complete with humming, singing, raising his left hand to catch a ball, revealed his master storytelling ability.
A quick review of last night’s Warren Wilson College public reading at the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel. I arrived early and chatted with a local poet who is enrolled in the MFA program. He let me read some of his poems as we discussed future Flood Fine Art Center poetry readings–more on that later.
I don’t remember the first reader. She is a novelist and, with all due respect, I couldn’t really get into her prose. It didn’t interest me in the least. I’m sure she is a good writer, but her story just didn’t engage me at all.
The highlight of the evening for me was Mark Jarman’s reading. He read from a forth coming book titled “Epistles” that evoked such lines as: “to some, bliss is when the body becomes words…” and “God has committed you to memory…” Jarman read each line as if delivering a homily; consistent, calculating the gravity of each word, line, poem. This is my first exposure to Mark Jarman so I don’t know if he always reads in that manner or not. But he reminded me of the way a clergyman reads a creed or prayer or scriptures. He doesn’t look up from his text until he is done. And in that case it is a quick glance to where his chair is located. I’m drawn to his new material and look forward to reading his book when it is made available.
I anticipated hearing Stephen Dobyns but there was a change in schedule. I notice Mr. Dobyns isn’t reading at all. I hope he is still doing his lecture on “The Nature of Metaphor.”
Anyway, it was a pleasure to listen to Percival Everett read from a new manuscript–a non sequential novel. Mr. Everett displays a keen wit with ideas and words and reads through his work rather quickly–almost in a manner that suggests he is reading it more for himself that the audience–that sometimes I felt like I missed essential parts of his story. So it was profound when he stumbled over a word, paused for an long silence, and announced “sorry, I just found a typo and I don’t have a pencil to correct it.” He laughed and continued reading at the same pace as before the discovery of a typo. I’ve only recently been introduced to his work and am interested in reading more of it.
Updated schedule
As stated, the schedule is subject to change. However, Amy Grimm, of Warren Wilson College, just e-mailed me an updated schedule for the next two weeks.I’ll post something about last night’s reading later today.
The public is welcome to attend the morning lectures and evening readings in fiction and poetry offered during the Warren Wilson College Master of Fine Arts Program for Writers’ winter residency. Events last approximately one hour. Admission is free. For more information, call the MFA Office:
(828) 771-3715.
Readings will begin at 8:15 pm in the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel unless indicated otherwise.
The schedule is subject to change.
READINGS – 8:15pm
by MFA faculty and graduating students
Friday, January 5
Jennifer Grotz, Kevin McIlvoy, Brooks Haxton, Danzy Senna
Saturday, January 6
Victor LaValle, Betty Adcock, Megan Staffel, Steve Orlen
Sunday, January 7—in Gladfelter, Canon Lounge
Rick Barot, Adria Bernardi, Marianne Boruch, Robert Boswell
Monday, January 8, 5:30-7:00pm
Reception and faculty reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood Street, Asheville
Tuesday, January 9
Charles D’Ambrosio, Tony Hoagland, David Haynes, Ellen Bryant Voigt
Wednesday, January 10
Maurice Manning, Debra Spark, Martha Rhodes, Peter Turchi
Thursday, January 11
Graduating student readings: Leslie Blanco, Thad Logan, Anna Clark, Kathy Alma Peterson,
Jason Githens
Friday, January 12 (4:30pm, followed by Graduation Ceremony)
Graduating student readings: Jeneva Stone, Catherine Brown, Catherine Williamson, Bora Reed
Friday, January 5, 10:30am
DEBRA SPARK: Size Matters
Feel like you’re writing little stories—domestic dramas or workingman’s woes—when you should be attempting something…ahem…bigger? Something more in keeping with your political outrage and general horror when you read the daily newspaper? After all, isn’t the great fiction of our day about the great crises of our day? Or shouldn’t it be? Well, holy Mrs. Dalloway, maybe the problem isn’t your lack of ambition, but how you’re thinking about size. This will be a lecture on magnitude in fiction, on three, maybe four, novels in which the principal characters intersect with something significantly larger than their selves, and not in the way that all fiction does this—the individual as a representative of the whole, the world globbing itself in a drop of dew—but through a true intersection. How do the novels incorporate the big world and its big concerns, while avoiding the obvious pitfalls of a historical or overtly political novel?
Saturday, January 6, 10:30 am
ELEANOR WILNER: “Like a piece of ice on a hot stove,
a poem must ride on its own melting….” (Frost)
A talk about the crucible of the imagination, its transforming powers, how a poem finds its own way as it goes, and the different ways that poets may conceive of that “melting.”
Sunday, January 7, 10:30am
KEVIN McILVOY: Making, Masking, and
Gladfelter Hall, Canon Lounge Unmasking “God” in Fiction
In this lecture we’ll take up the uniquely challenging methods of portraying “God” as a figure in fiction. Leo Tolstoy’s “Master and Man” will be our primary focus, but we will also refer to “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
Tuesday, January 9, 10:30am
RICK BAROT: The First Herbert
At the January 2006 residency, Jen Grotz presented a wonderful primer on Zbigniew Herbert and his poetry of “stratagems” and “crimes.” In this lecture, I’ll discuss the work of George Herbert—the ingenious formal stratagems which are signatory of his poems, and the passionate crimes of doubt that is the subject of those poems. Herbert lived from 1593 to 1633, deep in the metaphysical current of English Poetry. He has often been thought of as the minor poet among the metaphysicals. He is not minor. The poems are feats of engineering, as inventively modern as microchips. And they seem modern, too, in their unruly interiorities. The believer in the full flush of his belief feels a “strong regard and awe,” Herbert says. We’ll look at how that “strong regard” led to Herbert’s rigorous, beautiful poems.
Wednesday, January 10, 10:30am
BROOKS HAXTON: Else Lasker-Schüler
This lecture will locate the German Jewish poet, Else Lasker-Schüler in her time and place, present details of her biography, in its cultural and political context, discuss her vision, and offer new translations of a number of her poems.
Thursday, January 11, 10:30am
STEPHEN DOBYNS: The Nature of Metaphor
Friday, January 12, 9:30am
JENNIFER GROTZ: Flung Speech
Emily Dickinson wrote: Prayer is the little implement
Through which men reach
Where presence is denied them.
They fling their speech
By means of it in God’s ear;
If then He hear,
This sums the apparatus
Comprised in prayer.
“If then He doesn’t hear,” one could add, “This sums the apparatus /Comprised in poetry.”
My lecture will consider some similarities in the construction of poetry and prayer. There is no advanced reading required; a handout will be provided.
Friday, January 12, 10:45am
ADRIA BERNARDI: The China Night-Light and the Bottle-Tree: Visual Image and Noise in Eudora Welty
“. . . I know equally well that the bottle-tree appearing in the story is a projection from my imagination; it isn’t the real one except in that it is corrected by reality. The fictional eye sees in, through and around what is really there.”
“Finding a Voice,” in One Writer’s Beginnings
The movement between the inner and the outer, and the primacy of the visual image, are central to the poetics of Eudora Welty. The title of her collection of essays, The Eye of the Story, places the visual image and the act of seeing centrally to her creative process.
I’ve been considering Welty stories in terms of this progression from a Rilke poem, “And I would like to listen in and listen out into you, into the world, into the woods.” The progression, from “To Say Before Going to Sleep,” involves movement from the internal to the external on the behalf of the other. In the case of Welty’s stories, the progression involves a narrator looking into a character, looking out through that character, into the world, or into the metaphorical woods of that character. Rapidly, sometimes in the course a single paragraph, the reader will listen into the depths, only to then shift into or perceive an active world: maybe little gestures of kindness or bravery, more likely pettiness, half-truths, lies, mockery, cowardliness, cruelty—variations of behavior by, as Katherine Anne Porter called them, “Miss Welty’s ‘little human monsters.’” With another quick shift, the story may then enter that same character’s metaphorical woods. Welty’s narrators see and listen into in all of these four places on behalf of a wide spectrum of others.
I’ll be considering the visual images at the transition points where the point of view or level of consciousness shifts. I’m exploring whether the Rilke progression may be useful in considering one’s own work, and how it is that the visual image offers the opportunity to move into another way of seeing, thus finding another place within the story. I’ll be talking about the sensory images of sound in the Welty stories, specifically, those that relate to noise. As in the Rilke poem, visual and aural images sometimes occur together in the stories at key points. Primarily, I’ll be talking about “Death of a Traveling Salesman.” I’ll also refer to “No Place for You, My Love,” “A Memory,” “June Recital,” “Where is the Voice Coming From?” and her essay, “Place in Fiction.”
The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College
Public Schedule – Winter 2007
The public is welcome to attend the morning lectures and evening readings in fiction and poetry offered during the Warren Wilson College Master of Fine Arts Program for Writers’ winter residency. Events last approximately one hour. Admission is free. For more information, call the MFA Office: (828) 771-3715.
Readings will begin at 8:15 pm in the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel unless indicated otherwise.
The schedule is subject to change.
READINGS – 8:15pm
by MFA faculty and graduating students
Wednesday, January 3
Maud Casey, Debra Allbery, Alexander Parsons, Eleanor WilnerThursday, January 4
Stacey D’Erasmo, Mark Jarman, Danzy Senna, Stephen DobynsFriday, January 5
Jennifer Grotz, Percival Everett, Brooks Haxton, Kevin McIlvoySaturday, January 6
Victor LaValle, Betty Adcock, Megan Staffel, Steve OrlenSunday, January 7—in Gladfelter, Canon Lounge
Rick Barot, Adria Bernardi, Marianne Boruch, Robert BoswellMonday, January 8, 5:30-7:00pm
Reception and faculty reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood
Street, AshevilleTuesday, January 9
Charles D’Ambrosio, Tony Hoagland, David Haynes, Ellen Bryant VoigtWednesday, January 10
Maurice Manning, Debra Spark, Martha Rhodes, Peter TurchiThursday, January 11
Graduating student readings: Leslie Blanco, Thad Logan, Anna Clark, Kathy
Alma Peterson,
Jason GithensFriday, January 12 (4:30pm, followed by Graduation Ceremony)
Graduating student readings: Jeneva Stone, Catherine Brown, Catherine
Williamson, Bora Reed
Faculty Lectures
by Warren Wilson MFA faculty follows:
The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College
In the Fellowship Hall behind the College Chapel unless indicated otherwise.
Thursday, January 4, 11:15am
MARIANNE BORUCH: Is and WasFriday, January 5, 10:30am
DEBRA SPARK: Size MattersSaturday, January 6, 10:30 am
ELEANOR WILNER: “Like a piece of ice on a hot stove, a poem must ride on its own melting….” (Frost)Sunday, January 7, 10:30am
KEVIN McILVOY: Unmasking “God” in FictionTuesday, January 9, 10:30am
RICK BAROT: The First HerbertWednesday, January 10, 10:30am
BROOKS HAXTON: Else Lasker-SchülerThursday, January 11, 10:30am
STEPHEN DOBYNS: The Nature of MetaphorFriday, January 12, 9:30am
JENNIFER GROTZ: Flung SpeechFriday, January 12, 10:45am
ADRIA BERNARDI: The China Night-Light and the Bottle-Tree: Visual Image and Noise in Eudora Welty
Traveling Bonfires Show at Malaprop’s.
Nov 18 2006, Saturday, 7pm to 9pm, downtown Asheville, NC.The Traveling Bonfires presents UNCA-based poets Arielle Carlson and Brian Sneeden, graphic artist and writer Matthew Mulder, Bonfires founder and editor-publisher Pasckie Pascua, and Paul DeCirce, leader and lead vocalist of the Asheville-based band, Peace Jones.
[ ] ARIELLE CARLSON (poet) – 7:00pm to 7:20
[ ] MATTHEW MULDER (poet) – 7:20 to 7:40
[ ] PASCKIE PASCUA (poet) – 7:40 to 8:00
[ ] BRIAN SNEEDEN (poet) – 8:00 to 8:20
[ ] PAUL DeCIRCE (singer-songwriter) – 8:20 to 8:50
Awhile back Edgy Mama put out a request for some edgy gear and I couldn’t resist an edgy design project. So I submitted design and it was voted on and won thanks Edgy readers like Ptaak, fringes, naughty drawdy, Lightning Bug’s Butt and Autumn. Check out Edgy Mama’s blog and find out when the enviro-friendly Edgy T-shirts are available.
This week’s Write Stuff post: Lit–the Drug.
Excerpt:
I’d rather be down at the Flood Gallery (in the River Arts District) listening to emerging writers… or sitting on the floor of the kitchen reading Soft Skull Press’s Tear Down the Mountain on a windy Saturday afternoon.
Tags: [writing, creative, writers, Write Stuff]
Earlier this week I got an email newsletter from .ISM Quarterly. If you are not familiar with .ISM it is self-described as “An artistic democracy created under the banner of free suggestion and national exposure for anyone with the talent, regardless of experience. ‘For the people, by the people’ comes close. ‘For the artist, by the artist” comes closer.'”
Anyway, last summer I submitted at least six poems and hadn’t heard from the editor in almost nine months; that is until this week. The email newsletter featured a block of names that included yours truly. The poem “Loneliness Visits” is published on page twenty-two and follows a story about Found Magazine. If you are in the Asheville area, run to Downtown Books & News and pick up a copy of the Autumn 2006 issue of .ISM Quarterly, or buy it online from the .ISM online store.
Those who missed Liquefaction: A Geek and Artist Mixer last night at The New French Bar Courtyard Cafe, sponsored by The Media Arts Project, missed a big event. The place packed in as much creative energy as the bar could hold. For the first 30 minutes I nibbled free food, drank draft ale and watched in amazement the many geeks and artists connecting. Much networking transpired and much craft discussed and much adult beverages consumed.
Now, back to work.
Lunch time update: I left Liquefaction with a handful of cards, brochures and flyers from the following places: Tolleson Design, Creative Inc., The Map, Bid Bridge Advertising and TopFloorStudio.
The Mountain Xpress blog (arts & entertainment, news and letters) joins the Asheville blogging community.
Over a year ago, Steve Shanafelt wrote a feature story [that I blogged about here] about the Asheville blogging community. Now the Xpress wades into the blogosphere which Jon Elliston trumpets in his post Blogs to match our mountains.
[T]he Mountain Xpress news department plunges headlong into the blogosphere. Our News Blog is here to offer Xpress readers, writers and editors a forum for sharing up-to-the-minute news and views.
So welcome aboard! Y’all come see us in cyberspace, where our door is always open …
This week’s Write Stuff poem is based on a writing prompt–write from a child’s perspective: My Father’s Promise.
Comments so far:
As usual … you’ve said a lot in just a few words.
This shows absolute trust – I hope the father doesn’t let him down.
—KarenThis is loaded! I love it.
—Tammi
“He saught tautness, compactness, the hard image that both conveyed and … was the meaning the poet was after,” wrote critic Thomas Lask (Nov. 2, 1972) in his obituary of Ezra Pound (reprinted in Alan Levy’s book Ezra Pound: The voice of Silence). “Every word that was not functional in the line was eliminated.”
That is what I am striving toward–“tautness, compactness, the hard image.”
Crafting the poem My Father’s Promise took more than a week. It was a process of subtracting or distilling toward a dense yet simple five lines or eight words.
My wife and I debated the last word; “wait.” Initially, I used “waited” to fit a two-syllable line, but I changed it after much discussion to “wait.” She helped me turn the line with a voiceless alveolar fricative stop–word ending with a “t.” Using “waited” added voiced alveolar fricative stop which, when read aloud, sounded like I ran over a speed bump. When the last line is read aloud, the “t” in “wait” explodes of the alveolar ridge and ends the poem with gravity and urgency.
Tags: [writing, creative, writers, Write Stuff]
It’s been awhile since I’ve been downtown to soak up the poetry scene. Not that I’ve been slacking off, but I’ve been spending some long hours preparing manuscripts for press and that cuts into writing, reading and listening to poetry.
When my wife and I entered the café we were pleasantly surprised to find the publisher and editor of The Indie reading at Blind Date with Poetry. THE INDIE October issue hit the streets this week and features banner stories by Michael Hopping and Gaither Stewart. I contributed a small, no pun intended, chapbook review of RedLine Blues.
The featured poet last night was Jaye Bartell, author of Makes a Bird and contributor to As/Is and Malaprop’s employee. Last time I heard Jaye read was at Bobo’s. It was the first time my wife heard him read and she was impressed.
We had previously attended a poetry reading a couple months ago that featured two poets with multiple books and academic degrees between them and, well, it was a tepid reading. Actually, “tepid” is far too polite . . . I will not repeat the comments I made to my wife after the reading, but I do not think it is too much to expect celebrated poets with such credentials to read with authority and authenticity. However, the tepid reading was mere sloganeering and sophomoric. My wife thought the two poets were pandering to the Asheville crowd, or what they thought the Asheville audience would enjoy. As someone from Asheville, I felt insulted.
But last night, Jaye read his poems with self-conscious authenticity. It is my impression he wasn’t expecting to read. I don’t know if there was a cancellation, but he stepped in and he did a fine job. There is a quick wit and nice precision to his short poems. One can tell he enjoys playing with words, both how they look on the page and how they sound on the lips. I remembered his poem about Vermont from Bobo’s and my wife and I both enjoyed his final poem about cardinals.
Hearing Jaye read last night encouraged me to return to my stack of neglected poems and reconsider submitting them to pulishers. Recently, I have felt I should give up on poetry, but it seems it hasn’t given up on me. Still, later last night when asked to read some of my poems, I couldn’t do it. I can’t explain it, but I just couldn’t.
As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t bring myself to contribute a comment to a well intentioned post. You see, I am often irked by the misuse of language. The request was to “use three words to describe their philosophy.” Seems relatively simple, but philosophy literal means “love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means.” Though to accommodate connotation (i.e. secondary meaning) the word has also come to mean “a system of values by which one lives.” Still, to use three words to describe one’s love and pursuit of wisdom is quite a heady request. I suspect the writer meant to express three words that characterize lifestyle choices. For example, if I were to suggest that my philosophy of life is to eat well, live well and do good deeds that may sound well. But it is not philosophy. It is, however, a lifestyle strategy–even a personal precept. Ah, but you see, if I were to say that my life’s precept is to eat well, live well and do good deeds, you might think I am delivering a lifestyle doctrine. And that won’t do because doctrine has an emotional connotation that is not positive to most readers. So, I just can’t play along, because in our post-literate culture readers attribute emotional gravity to words rather than pursue truth by intellectual means.
Blind Date with Poetry with host Matt Moon.
Free to Public
Okay, is it “open mic” or “open mike”? I’ve seen the term represented both ways.
If you’ve missed the Beanstreet open mic events of previous years, then head on down to Walnut Street for a free-for-all of lyrics and poetry and eclectic vibes at Courtyard Gallery & Studio. Can’t find the gallery? Find your way to Scully’s and follow the steps downstairs or take a walk down Carolina Lane and look for the sign pointing you to a weekly event featuring singer/songwriters, poets and writers. The open mic is hosted by Jarrett Leone (pictured playing the didge). Also, check out their podcasts, “True Home,” on Apple iTunes.
This week’s Write Stuff piece is directly related to the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival: Notes from a Poetry Workshop.
Tags: [writing, creative, writers, Write Stuff]
Weird. I wrote a first draft fictional story for Write Stuff based on actual events. The working title is Career Mistake and relates a story about a civil rights attorney defending Native Americans in the 1970s.
So this morning I just heard Daniel Kraker’s report on NPR’s Morning Edition: Navajos Protest Violence Against Tribe.
September 12, 2006 · The Navajo Nation is concerned about three recent incidences of violence against Navajos in Farmington, N.M. The Navajo community is rallying to draw attention to the problem.
Woah. I thought I had picked an obscure subject matter; you know, not like newspaper headline story.
This week Write Stuff is publishing posts based on the writing prompt: making a mistake. I sat down and spent an hour and a half writing the following short short story: Career Mistake. It is a first draft fictional account of actual events.
Tags: [writing, creative, writers, Write Stuff]
Karen asks two good questions, here at Write Stuff, regarding writing career aspirations:
“What did you first want from your writing career when you began? What is your writing dream today?”
Fill in the blank:
In my personal writing career dream, I see myself …
The least it would take for me to feel successful is …
It challenges me to read about poets and their work. I read with notebook in hand. Here are notes and quotes from Ezra Pound: The Voice of Silence by Alan Levy
Pound was a “political prisoner” of the U.S. from 1945 to 1958 for comments made “on his wartime broadcasts for the fascist radio in Rome.” Interesting in light of current events and policies. I doubt he’d even be noticed.
Peter Russell on Pound’s silence: “He can say yes and no with so many shades of inflection that it becomes a language in itself. The rest … is that he’s entered a period of meditation and contemplation.”
Pound’s “official” wife was Dorothy Shakespear though his companion was Olga Rudge. Olga, who remained with him until his death, explained why she was so protective of Pound: “We get hippies … They have embraced the wisdom of Ezra Pound, but they haven’t read him.”
Further she said: “Others come to read him their poetry. They don’t know his poetry, but they want him to praise theirs. And their craftsmanship is so poor. There is no oral tradition anymore. It’s all publicity.”
Among the hippies was Allen Ginsberg whose ‘first question to Pound was … bourgeois: “Do you people need any money?'”
“Olga Rudge was appalled to read an interview in which Ginsberg chided Pound for his bourgeois background and values–and told of his own good deeds, including buying Pound $75 to $85 worth of Dylan records. ‘It was all about money, not about time or poetry,’ Olga Rudge observed.”
Ezra “didn’t enjoy” the Bob Dylan recordings.
Pound’s stay in Venice in 1908 allowed him to “publish, at his own expense, his first collection of poems, A Lume Spento.”
From Thomas Lask’s obit.: “‘Make it new’ was his cry as he went into battle. He sought tautness, compactness, the hard image that both conveyed and, in a sense, was the meaning the poet was after. Every word that was not functional in the line was eliminated. His poetry … had a lyrical and delicate talent, a skillful sense of rhythm and music and a nervous energy that give the poetry a propulsive vigor.”
Pound from P’atria Mia: “With the real artist there is always a residue, there is always something in the man which does not get into his work. There is always some reason why the man is always more worth knowing than his books are. In the long run nothing else counts.”
Pound in a letter to William Carlos Williams he lists his creative goals:
“1 To paint the thing as I see it.
“2 Beauty
“3 Freedom from didacticism
“4 It is only good manners if you repeat a few other men to at least do it better or more briefly.”
Richard H. Rovere: “He believed with Whitman that American experience was fit and even glorious material for poetry, and what he was at war with when he left this country was that spirit that denied this … ‘Make it new’ Pound kept saying, from his colloquial rendering of Confucius, and ‘Make it American,’ as if he were a booster of home manufactures at a trade fair.”
Pound on Walt Whitman from Selected Prose: “I see him America’s poet….
“He is America. His crudity is an exceeding great stench, but it is America. He is the hollow place in the rock that echoes with his time….
“Mentally I am a Walt Whitman who has learned to wear a collar and a dress shirt … Whitman is to my fatherland … what Dante is to Italy …”
“Tching prayed on the mountain and
wrote MAKE IT NEW
on his bath tub
Day by day make it new.”
–From Canto LIII
Coffeehouse Junkie 