I thought I was in the clear when Sunday turned out to be 26° C (80° F). Alas, this morning I woke up to a pronounced layer of snow all over everything. This has been, by far, the worst winter in years. I need to move somewhere warmer.
Not much has been brewing since I published “Dusk,” which I found to be entertaining. I’ve been reading Ezra Pound’s “Homage to Sextus Propertius” and “Hugh Selwyn Mauberly.” Apparently, the two are meant to be fitted side-by-side and is done so in Diptych Rome-London. These poems are a bit much for the casual reader, as “Homage” includes a lot of lesser known historical figures such as Sextus Propertius and “Mauberly” uses a ton of imagery. That’s not surprising, as Pound was the developer of Imagism.
There is a very moving section, as noted in the introduction of the book, where Pound strikes hard at the cost of world war.
There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization…
– (“E. P. Ode Pour L’Election de Son Sepulchre, V”, 1-4)
This really puzzles me, as he aided and abetted the Axis powers in the Second World War. One would think he’d remember what it felt like to go through it the first time. Even though I’ve gone through the poems once, I’ll have to read them a few more times to really “get it.” As of right now, I only consider this an “experience” of Pound.
Corvidae in the Fields 