Agenda

[black_dog]

Whatever gods there be act through man's mind and perceptions and are revealed in (1) his intelligence, (2) his ethical sense and his thirst for perfectibility, (3) his power to love (amo ergo sum), (4) his perception of beauty (to kalon), (5) his sense of mystery, (6) his power and urge to be a maker (in music, painting, sculpture, poetry, prose

Comments

[bookshop]

Never did i think my attempts to reckon with Ezra Pound in English class would be so newly relevant.

[black_dog]

Dealing with his difficulty is educational, I think -- even transformative. He once said he realized that no one was equipped, by their background, to just sit down and read the Cantos through, but he hoped the poem would gradually create its own audience, its own set of competent readers. The process is not always rewarding in terms of coming to love (or not love) his own poetry -- it's a lot of work, for a few undeniable flashes, and a lot of nonsense (especially later on). But for thinking about the process of making poetry -- the elements, the inspirations, the techniques, some of the possible aims -- there's no one like him.

[lapin_agile]

So, I'd be happier with this if it were stated in reverse: Whatever gods there be act through [the human] mind and perceptions and are revealed in (1) hatred of injustice and tyranny over people, (2) disgust with moneymongers and those who lust for possessions ("hoggers of harvest are the curse of the people"), and (3) revulsion from the ooze of the material hell many men create and happily wallow in. [Additional cues include] (1) intelligence, (2) ethical sense and thirst for perfectibility [however unlikely], (3) the power to love (amo ergo sum), (4) perception of beauty, (5) the sense of mystery, (6) the urge to be a maker (in music, painting, sculpture, poetry, prose), and (7) an aspiration to create a paradise on earth.

I do really like 'hoggers of harvest are the curse of the people'.

[black_dog]

It's an interesting question about which side of the coin to emphasize. I sense that for Pound, creativity and its associated joys were primary, at least at first -- god knows what happened to him to distort his personal development so grotesquely. The rage and disgust would then emerge as they were recognized to be barriers, obstacles, subversions of the positive vision

[black_dog]

And now I'm thinking of Blake, too:

Isaiah answer'd. 'I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded, & remain confirm'd, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God,'