No real son of that Homer,
Ezra Pound needed to trounce
foes, to conceal his
fails; like H. S. morbidly,
Cantos light as an ounce.
Kyakuchuu
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
Notes to this tanka: Pound's father was Homer Loomis pound, sharing with the great Greek poet a name only. Fails is here used as a noun to echo foes. H. S. morbidly is derived from Pound's poem about poetic failure, Hugh Selwyn Mauberly; the final line presents a shameful pun in opposition to Pound's surname.
During my freshman year in high school, during which Pound died, our English teacher compelled us to read his poetry. That very nearly closed my mind to the concept of poetry.
The editorial damage Pound did to the manuscript of T. S. Eliot's long poem, The Waste Land, was almost criminally extreme; and turned the poem away from Eliot's intention (an extended nightmare) to a fertility ritual based upon Jessie Weston's recently published monograph, From Ritual To Romance.
