imagine that
pent up with two women who love me
whom I love
and who coldly hate each other
oh
well
how could this tragic situation have been avoided
mm
like trains on a senseless track
we speed toward our fates
speeding
helplessly
and speedily
see I feel like
forcing your wife and your mistress to live with you at the same time
if it’s not directly a cause
you could at least
this was foreseeable, is all I’m saying
oh
so where was I supposed to put my mistress, then
if not with my wife
with one of my OTHER mistresses?
no
I didn’t mean –
because that would be ridiculous
you can’t keep two mistresses in the same house
well, she could –
where else could I send her?
to live with our secret daughter?
listen, I don’t even visit our secret daughter
except during my semi-annual hiking trip to tell her about my other secret families
I guess you’re right
no one ever thinks about how hard this is on me, you know
right
being in love with so many women at one time
and then having to come up with stories when they find out about each other
that sounds like a lot
it IS a lot
it’s exhausting
I barely have time to convince my favorite mistress to abandon her promising career as a violinist in order to play nursemaid to me and head archivist to my legacy
i can see how that would get
taxing
and that’s without all the anti-Semitism, even
sure
which also takes up a lot of my time
the virulent, even taking the attitudes of the time into account, anti-Semitism that I enjoy so much
it’s a very important legacy, you know
I do know
I mean, what do you think people will remember me for
my all-consuming devotion to fascism and for choosing the wrong side of the most important moral conflict in the entire twentieth century?
or the fact that i am VERY good at describing what branches look like when they are wet?
hard to say
VERY GOOD
perhaps the best wet branch describer there has been in a hundred years
fair point
not everyone can describe a wet branch you know
no, hardly anyone
i bet you couldn’t
i wouldn’t even know where to begin
are you making fun of me?
no
absolutely not
you’d better not be
it’s not everyone who can translate a bunch of Chinese poetry into English
using some other fellow’s notes he’d already done on it
you know someone called me “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time,” when they saw the Chinese poems I had written in English out of those old Chinese poems
was it
was it someone Chinese who said that?
don’t be ridiculous
it was T.S. Eliot
why would anyone ask a Chinese person what they thought about Chinese poetry
you want to know about Chinese poetry, you ask T.S. Eliot
The facial hair pretty much says it all.
That photograph is such a perfect example of A Man Who Wants You To Think He’s Taller Than He Actually Is.
If you can find a copy of Pound’s correspondence with E.E. Cummings at a library somewhere, it is WELL WORTH IT for the dirtbaggery alone.
oh no, don’t tell me e.e. cummings was a dirtbag too! I will cry.
Unfortunately he was at least partly a dirtbag. In, admittedly, very interesting ways. See http://rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com/420937.html for a bit of a rundown.
I have nothing constructive to add, just that when I read these I thought “these are the best thing” and then followed that thought up with “I think that about literally every thing that I read on this site” and then I had an existential crisis.
“[Pound] loved New York but felt the city was threatened by commercialism and vulgarity, and no longer felt at home there. He found the New York Public Library, then being built, especially offensive. According to Paul L. Montgomery, Pound visited the architects’ offices almost every day to shout at them.”
Best wiki find of the day! Who doesn’t love a man who makes time to yell at architects about libraries?
this is one of those secrets of success they don’t tell you about in the self-help books, isn’t it. picking some poor schmuck you have nothing to do with and making it part of your daily routine to show up to their office and shout at them. this is definitely a thing that like bill gates and george clooney and whoever’s running merrill lynch right now do.
Can you imagine how the architects felt about him? They’re just trying to do their jobs, building a library, and “oh God there’s that angry poet again, can’t I throw something heavy at him this time? Like HE’S ever done an honest day’s labor that helped anyone.”
I was forced to read Pound in my Poetics class. This post is some consolation for my suffering. The bit about fascism and wet branches…it’s just too accurate.
I was about to say something about The Wasteland ( a couple good lines, could’ve used editing), but no, that was T.S. Eliot.
I am so sorry I did not have access to this (indeed, this entire series) while I was doing my literature undergrad degree at Very Good University being taught 20th century lit by a pair of painfully self-satisfied dudes who wouldn’t let me write about Brideshead Revisited, because it wasn’t “proper literature” like Ezra Pound, and told my friend Sarah to do joined up handwriting so people would take her seriously.
Hmm. Bit more came out there than I thought.
Wait, cursive makes people take you seriously? I should get on that if true
hahahahahahaha
Also, ugh
Those guys sound like wankers. I can only hope their objection to Brideshead Revisited is the same as mine – that you have to completely disregard the second half and just read the first half and enjoy it for the queer love story. But it probably wasn’t.
Oh that’s good, I only ever read the first half of Brideshead. I went to see the film with my mother, whose main comment on it was that it’s nice to see English Catholics in popular culture (she is a Catholic).
From Wikipedia: “He loved New York but felt the city was threatened by commercialism and vulgarity, and no longer felt at home there. He found the New York Public Library, then being built, especially offensive. According to Paul L. Montgomery, Pound visited the architects’ offices almost every day to shout at them.”
I mean you’ve got to admire his commitment.
It’s not like he went /every/ day though.
> you want to know about Chinese poetry, you ask T.S. Eliot
Please tell me this means dirtbag T.S. Eliot is coming forthwith.
So many dirtbags, so little time.
Or… Dirtbags copiosi, vita brevis.
Well, this has my vote for inclusion in the next round of Toast merch. Embroidered pillows, tote bags, pot holders, those “inspirational” vinyl wall stickers–I don’t care, I’m here for it.
Please. “The Hollow Men” gave me a huge existential crisis because someone thought I should read it when I was twelve. *Twelve,* for God’s sake.
Did you read the thing that came out recently about the discovery of some really creepy sex poetry he wrote about his second wife? Urrggggh.
How can you not love Ezra Pound, though? He’s a little like Galliano. I think you can’t satirically call him a dirtbag, like Hamlet or something, he is a dirtbag already. That’s part of the joy of his existence. His existing dirtbagness is so thorough as to slip through the yoke of the joke.
(I also wonder why we don’t castigate French poets like Rimbaud or Valery for being virulent anti-Semites but Pound gets so tarred; I think there’s some bigotry of low expectations for English speakers. As Luc Menand notes, that his and Eliot’s anti-Semitism flowed directly out of the French poets and anti-Dreyfusards like Maurras is well established, but everybody loves the French poets without thinking about their politics.)
I mean, I think in Pound’s case, it’s not just that he was your standard-issue anti-Semite, he was sending people copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and literally stumped for Hitler during WWII. Rimbaud was anti-Semitic, but he was more casual about it. You felt like he loved some things more than he hated Jewish people, he had outside interests; I don’t think Pound loved anything as much as he loved being anti-Semitic.
And, you know, he left recordings of himself, so I think it’s fresher in our minds than with Rimbaud or someone else from the 19th century. Have you ever listened to his radio broadcasts during the war? They’re unbelieeeevable.
“You felt like he loved some things more than he hated Jewish people, he had outside interests; I don’t think Pound loved anything as much as he loved being anti-Semitic.” This. Totes fair.
I’m wishing I remembered more about him now; I remember reading him and Eliot and knowing things about them back when I was in poetry classes, and thinking that they were both amazingly bonkers, in that really special so-awful-it’s-funny way.
Herman Melville! Have you done him yet?
I second this. More specfically you should make a post about he and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s strange, one-sided (b)romance. This is from an actual letter Melville wrote to Hawthorne:
“P.S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand — a million — billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question — they are One.”
You can’t make that stuff up.
Brb writing some Melville/Hawthorne fic right now and I don’t know anything about either of them so I’ll just have to make it up
That sounds more like “Stalker Melville.”
“speeding
helplessly
and speedily”
I am laughing,
loudly,
and helplessly
I mean, “Dirtbag Ezra Pound” pretty much translates to “Dirtbag Dirtbag” in the manner of “The Los Angeles Angels.”
98% of male poets are dirtbags; this is well known
Ezra Pound deserves to be singled out for his excessive dirtbagginess because he is a paradigm dirtbag, an uber-dirtbag against whom all others are measured and fall short
98%? That seems a low figure!
Il miglior dirtbag.
good one!
I can totally picture Stephen Root saying this in “NewsRadio” and it’s giving me the giggles.
Bazinga!
EVerything I know about Ezra Pound I learned in this post and from Timothy Findley.
why would anyone ask a Chinese person what they thought about Chinese poetry
you want to know about Chinese poetry, you ask T.S. Eliot
Snort-laughed tea all over my keyboard.
My favorite Pound fact, which I have probably already mentioned in Toast comments at some point, is that while his wife was pregnant he took off, with their car, to vacation/write/cheat on her, and when she went into labor ERNEST HEMINGWAY had to drive her to the hospital. Ezra Pound was such a dirtbag he made Hemingway look like a stand-up guy.
That is amazing because in A Moveable Feast Hemingway just gushes over Pound, says he’s such a good buddy and a loving bro, look one time we went to go feed an ailing poet who was raving with addiction and sadness, those were good times, etc.
ALL OF THIS. Plus, Pound was the Ur-Teabagger: “Let’s base our whole government on Shit I Just Made Up about All The People I Hate.”
Can we have an Ezra Pound/H.P. Lovecraft mash-up?
This is too perfect.
Has there been a dirtbag Coco Chanel yet? Can we submit requests?
I watched “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” not too long ago and I feel like the filmmakers wanted it to be a sweeping romance, but it is really just “two dirtbags bone a lot: the movie.”
that movie was the worst. “Let’s have sex while my extremely ill wife is still in the house and can probably hear us!” Just goes to show that straight people can sometimes get away with anything if you call it *romantic*.
HOLY SHIT, could Gary Oldman be the reincarnation of DB Ezra Pound? http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/2445377/894full-ga…
(edit grr html fail)
I was thinking more Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I had to google, but I can see the resemblance there too.
As for Gary Oldman – it was not just the physical resemblence, but GOs dirtbaggery and antisemitism. Which, at least according to wikipedia, JGL does NOT share.
A male literary aiming friend of mine finds these article “unfair” which is nice added humor!
lol bless his heart
love the phrase “literary aiming”
thx! I thought that “literary adjacent” was too mean
Don’t feel that way, it’s one of the best things I’ve read all week. Well done you for coining it!
(Also I know an unemployed libertarian English major guy who this fits PERFECTLY.)
thx! this guy is more bro-calist but I know the type you are describing.
“literary adjacent” is now my new favorite demeaning descriptor.
It’s like the person who complained that the Two Medieval Monks were historically inaccurate! Somehow, it makes these posts all the sweeter when dudes don’t get them.
historic equivalent of The Hot Jerk From AP English Class, who you crushed on before you knew better. proto-litbro. face-buzz and all.
look at his eyes. he is about to talk at you about the antechambers of the soul
I had a terrible boyfriend who loved to read Pound out loud, in Pound’s voice and then yell at me for not “making it new.” I basically dated an Ezra Pound clone who, bonus points, refused to believe me when I broke up with him. Mr. Pound gives me PTSD AND his antisemitism does override his lovely wet branches.
If you are going to clone yourself from a poet why would you choose Pound? Pound made other poets great but he never was a great poet.
Was his name Nick and was he a chaos magician? Please oh please tell me his name was Nick and he was a chaos magician.
Best tag “haha you don’t even have to change anything because he was already a dirtb–yes i know that is why people are selected for the dirtbag series.”
what…what exactly is going on with Ezra Pound’s head in that picture? Is that his hair? Or is he wearing one of those tall Russian furred hats?
I think his hair had a separate identity, like Donald Trump’s.
I know he’s terrible, but I will always harbour a deep love for the way he signed his correspondence with T.S. Eliot: Affy yrs
butting in just to say I LIVED IN ONE OF HIS MISTRESS’ CASTLES IN ITALY FOR A SUMMER AND IT WAS AMAZING. I fell in love with a farmboy and rode donkeys through the vineyards every day and studied Renaissance literature when I felt like it.
His daughter is delightful and still lives there and hikes up a very long hill every morning to get into town, despite being 90 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_de_Rachewiltz (that’s her) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunnenburg (that’s the castle)
It was a bit odd how much in disarray all his papers there were (although the entire place is definitely a shrine to Pound). Anyway, that’s my story.
Would you please write a lightly-fictionalized autobiographical novel, specifically for me to read on the beach? I promise I will read it on at least two beaches. I will sit under a large blue umbrella in a white vintage-styled one-piece swimsuit, sipping iced tea through a right-angled straw, imagining scenes and happenings far distant from my already lovely surroundings.
Wow, that sounds dreamy. How did that come about? annnnnd how can I arrange an identical vacation for myself?
Mr. Howlet had a poetry professor who had studied with Pound and who told this story about him: Introducing himself at a party, Pound said, “I live on Mean Street. The further you go, the meaner it is. I live at the end of the block.”
That’s all I have to say about Pound today.
I have checked my sources and it was actually Tough Street, that gets tougher the further you go. He still lives at the end of the block.
Oh my God
how long did it take him to think of that
how often did he say it
I mean. Pretty much everything Pound says/does is dirtbag style. Have you ever seen his letters to Harriet Monroe? Yeesh.
This would only be more perfect if we went from “you ask T. S. Eliot” to “you ask Tom Eliot.” Every time one of Eliot’s contemporaries refers to him as “Tom” I am unaccountably gleeful. It is somehow especially enjoyable from Virginia Woolf, probably because half the time she also throws a little shade.
(I love Eliot, but I love people’s unfiltered observations in letters and diaries, too.)
Another amazing Ezra Pound tidbit – he visited Hilda Doolittle and her newly born baby daughter in 1919. Doolittle’s father and brother just recently died in WWI, she was totally estranged from her husband because he was suffering from PTSD (both of them had affairs with other people), and she and her baby nearly died from the influenza going around at the time.
So in the middle of all this miserable fuckery, Pound visited her for the first time in four years and remarked: “My only real criticism is that this is not my child.”
EFF OFF, EZRA POUND
dickbag Ezra Pound amirite
The following is a real REAL quotation from a letter by Eliot to Richard Aldington.
” And I have been invited to lunch by Israel Gollancz. It will be kinder to conceal these events from Ezra.”
Eliot, [March 1927], Letters Vol 3, p.436.
(Israel Gollancz was a distinguished Shakespeare scholar who published an article by Eliot in a journal he edited.)
Dirtbag Alexander Hamilton. Art demands that must be done.
Special love for the tags on this one, which describe almost to the letter the reaction I had as I first clicked on the link to Dirtbag Ezra Pound.
Dude could write one hell of a wet branch description, though.
Do Percy Shelley next! He was pretty horrific too
My parents used to live with his secret daughter in Italy! She sent me a postcard once