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Ezra Pound: A close-up
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 14, 2010
Illuminating hero drool
May 28, 2018
A fascinating insight into one of the great wordsmiths of the 20th century, written by a personal acquaintance of Ezra Pound.
Michael Reck was a friend and student of Pound, and visited him many times during the last fifteen years of the poet's life, both at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital (where Pound was a prisoner) and in Italy, where he returned after his release. In this biography he outlines Pound's life, though the main focus of the work remains his literary contributions, both as an editor and promoter/supporter of literary talent (Joyce, Frost, Eliot, Hemingway amongst others) as well as his accomplishments as one of the foremost poets of the last century. In fact the former point bears emphasising, the Western literary canon just wouldn't have been the same without Ezra Pound. The aforementioned titans were unknown talents before contact with Ezra, and who can really say if they would've become as widely known and respected as they have without his patronage? Irrespective, Ezra's eye for literally talent is unparalleled, and is touched upon in Reck's work.
Pound has always struck me as being the acme of prosody in the Western canon, and in this brief biography, Reck pays attention to that aspect of his genius. Additionally, as a multi-linguist (Reck studied 10 languages) the author is in a unique position to comment on Pound's multi-lingual, poetic escapades, as indeed, this great and misunderstood man straddled East and West, and incorporated a diversity of linguistic and cultural themes in his works.
All told this is an excellent biography, with my only complaint being that it was too brief. Treating a multifarious character like Pound is a daunting task, but I imagine that double the word count of this synopsis would be required to do the subject justice.
(As a sidenote, there are some thoroughly ignorant reviews on Goodreads about this book, which attest to nothing more than the remoteness of Pound's genius from the comprehension of common minds. Grab the pearls and ignore the swine, if you are a true litearti then you will enjoy this commentary by Michael Reck).
Michael Reck was a friend and student of Pound, and visited him many times during the last fifteen years of the poet's life, both at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital (where Pound was a prisoner) and in Italy, where he returned after his release. In this biography he outlines Pound's life, though the main focus of the work remains his literary contributions, both as an editor and promoter/supporter of literary talent (Joyce, Frost, Eliot, Hemingway amongst others) as well as his accomplishments as one of the foremost poets of the last century. In fact the former point bears emphasising, the Western literary canon just wouldn't have been the same without Ezra Pound. The aforementioned titans were unknown talents before contact with Ezra, and who can really say if they would've become as widely known and respected as they have without his patronage? Irrespective, Ezra's eye for literally talent is unparalleled, and is touched upon in Reck's work.
Pound has always struck me as being the acme of prosody in the Western canon, and in this brief biography, Reck pays attention to that aspect of his genius. Additionally, as a multi-linguist (Reck studied 10 languages) the author is in a unique position to comment on Pound's multi-lingual, poetic escapades, as indeed, this great and misunderstood man straddled East and West, and incorporated a diversity of linguistic and cultural themes in his works.
All told this is an excellent biography, with my only complaint being that it was too brief. Treating a multifarious character like Pound is a daunting task, but I imagine that double the word count of this synopsis would be required to do the subject justice.
(As a sidenote, there are some thoroughly ignorant reviews on Goodreads about this book, which attest to nothing more than the remoteness of Pound's genius from the comprehension of common minds. Grab the pearls and ignore the swine, if you are a true litearti then you will enjoy this commentary by Michael Reck).
October 14, 2015
I was interested to read more about Pound after encountering that line from Josh Charles in the HBO series In Treatment, when his character says, so snidely, "No one really understands Pound, they just pretend to." Brave literary type that I am, I was like, "Huh. Well, I'm going to understand him." But after reading this book...I still don't.
Sorry, Pound, you fascist freak. You are not the superior craftsman. Not to Elliot, or anyone. In fact, I will call you a full-of-yourself nutbag who bought into your own hype. So there.
Seriously, Pound is utterly incomprehensible on a good day. It's okay to write him off as not worth pretending to understand. Why is Pound even included in a serious discussion of the Modernists? He was just nothing special. Sort of the like the Jorie Graham of the Lost Generation. Entirely obscure, and not someone I'm inclined to waste anymore time trying to 'decipher.' There is nothing at the end of that effort.
Sorry, Pound, you fascist freak. You are not the superior craftsman. Not to Elliot, or anyone. In fact, I will call you a full-of-yourself nutbag who bought into your own hype. So there.
Seriously, Pound is utterly incomprehensible on a good day. It's okay to write him off as not worth pretending to understand. Why is Pound even included in a serious discussion of the Modernists? He was just nothing special. Sort of the like the Jorie Graham of the Lost Generation. Entirely obscure, and not someone I'm inclined to waste anymore time trying to 'decipher.' There is nothing at the end of that effort.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews