The Cantos of Ezra Pound

Phew. This is something. I feel like I've run a marathon.

This is a wholly absorbing set of poetry. Approximately 120 cantos which start off reminiscing about the Renaissance, going through all eras and ages of history, citing letters, missives, pamphlets, rages. History as poetry, a grand tour. Chinese characters, intricate, representing ideas and names and figures.

The chant, USURA, elicits rage and greed and war, and the titanic struggles against corruption and ideology which have consumed this past century and which still rage in this one.

As much I find Pound the man abhorrent and mad, but as for Pound the poet, he is a force. I will reread this.

Is it worth reading, or is it a load of horseshit?

Yes.

In my opinion there was a strong strain of horseshit in old Ez, and this is not just because he was at certain points of his life a lousy anti-Semite. When he bothered to leave his ear ON, he had one of the more exquisite ears of any poet; however, he often chose (at least to me it "feels like" he chose) to turn his ear OFF, and leave whatever poetry was coming out of him slathered with blubs and slubs of undigested ... stuff. And the stuff chokes out whatever music there might have been (no, I don't think all poetry has to strive for a quality of music, but ...). In The Cantos, this gets really bad in the "Adams" sections of the work.

More to come -- I'm going to start through this show more again soon. show less

Easily the most complicated poem I have ever read. Enjoyable but a guide is necessary to reading if you wish to maximize the experience. Very original and raw.

For all its maddening qualities, the foundation stone of modern American poetry. "These are the Alps. What is there to say about them?" (Bunting)

One of the inescapable works of the Twentieth Century, for all of its difficulty; it left poetry as a field permanently changed and enriched, even if Pound's own approach was so specific to himself that he has no true successors, but only a vast field of those whom he influenced.

How even approach this master work? From the SIDE, is the answer. Attempt a vertical reading. The Grandpa will brook no pussies. Be ready to not be ready. He WILL slay. It's absolutely worth the trouble, if you're interested in poems. If not, you're not needed.

The Cantos. Ezra Pound. The very mention of those names send shudders down even the most well-read literary snob. T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” seems like a small indentation in comparison. The only work with comparable difficulty and lit crit caché is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Reading these works carries along serious bragging rights. “I saw the new Terrance and Philip movie. Now who wants to touch me?” Eric Cartman said in the South Park movie.

Review continues here: http://driftlessareareview.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/the-cantos-by-ezra-pound-a-c...