Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry | Page 6

his attention.
May I for my own self song's truth reckon,?Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days?Hardship endured oft.
But we can notice in "Ripostes" other evidences than of?versatility only; certain poems show Mr. Pound turning to more modern subjects, as in the "Portrait d'une femme," or the?mordant epigram, "An Object." Many readers are apt to confuse the maturing of personality with desiccation of the emotions. There is no desiccation in "Ripostes." This should be evident to anyone who reads carefully such a poem as "A Girl." We quote it entire without comment.
The tree has entered my hands,?The sap has ascended my arms,?The tree has grown in my breast--?Downward,?The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,?Moss you are,?You are violets with wind above them.?A child--so high--you are,?And all this is folly to the world.
"The Return" is an important study in verse which is really quantitative. We quote only a few lines:
See, they return; ah, see the tentative?Movements, and the slow feet,?The trouble in the pace and the uncertain?Wavering!
"Ripostes" belongs to the period when Mr. Pound was being?attacked because of his propaganda. He became known as the?inventor of "Imagism," and later, as the "High Priest of?Vorticism." As a matter of fact, the actual "propaganda" of Mr. Pound has been very small in quantity. The impression which his personality made, however, is suggested by the following note in "Punch," which is always a pretty reliable barometer of the English middle-class Grin:
Mr. Welkin Mark (exactly opposite Long Jane's) begs to?announce that he has secured for the English market the palpitating works of the new Montana (U.S.A.) poet, Mr. Ezekiel Ton, who is the most remarkable thing in poetry since Robert Browning. Mr. Ton, who has left America to reside for a while in London and impress his personality on English editors, publishers and readers, is by far the?newest poet going, whatever other advertisements may say. He has succeeded, where all others have failed, in evolving a blend of the imagery of the unfettered West, the vocabulary of Wardour Street, and the sinister abandon of Borgiac?Italy.
In 1913, someone writing to the New York Nation from the?University of Illinois, illustrates the American, more serious, disapproval. This writer begins by expressing his objections to the "principle of Futurism." (Pound has perhaps done more than anyone to keep Futurism out of England. His antagonism to this movement was the first which was not due merely to unintelligent dislike for anything new, and was due to his perception that Futurism was incompatible with any principles of form. In his own words, Futurism is "accelerated impressionism.") The writer in the Nation then goes on to analyze the modern "hypertrophy of romanticism" into
The exaggeration of the importance of a personal emotion. The abandonment of all standards of form.?The suppression of all evidence that a particular composition is animated by any directing intelligence.
As for the first point, here are Mr. Pound's words in answer to the question, "do you agree that the great poet is never?emotional?"
Yes, absolutely; if by emotion is meant that he is at the mercy of every passing mood.... The only kind of emotion worthy of a poet is the inspirational emotion which?energises and strengthens, and which is very remote from the everyday emotion of sloppiness and sentiment....
And as for the platform of Imagism, here are a few of Pound's "Don'ts for Imagists":
Pay no attention to the criticisms of men who have never themselves written a notable work.
Use no superfluous word and no adjective which does not reveal something.
Go in fear of abstractions. Don't retail in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose.
Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as the average piano teacher spends on the art of music.
Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency either to acknowledge the debt outright or try to conceal it.
Consider the definiteness of Dante's presentation as?compared with Milton's. Read as much of Wordsworth as does not seem to be unutterably dull.
If you want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid, or if yon have not the tongues seek out the?leisurely Chaucer.
Good prose will do you no harm. There is good discipline to be had by trying to write it. Translation is also good?training.
The emphasis here is certainly on discipline and form. The?Chicago Tribune recognized this as "sound sense," adding:
If this is Imagism ... we are for establishing Imagism by constitutional amendment and imprisoning without recourse to ink or paper all "literary" ladies or gents who break any of these canons.
But other reviewers were less approving. While