Across the Centuries
Li Po was an important part of the modernist revolution Pound engineered. –David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Li Po, 125
Tag: Ezra Pound
Today’s One-Liner (#266)
[Samuel Johnson] used the conventions and mechanisms of Grub Street—writing rapidly, writing to order, writing in a standard genre—to generate literature, happily defined by Ezra Pound as “news that stays news.” –Paul Fussell, Samuel Johnson…
Confronting Mystery
Obviously great art must be an exceptional thing. It cannot be the sort of thing anyone can do after a few hours’ practice. It must be the result of some exceptional faculty, strength, or perception….
Today’s One-Liner (#67)
Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency either to acknowledge the debt outright, or to try to conceal it. –Ezra Pound, Make It New
Books Inspected This Afternoon
Arthur Waley, Confucius: Analects Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited Ezra Pound, New Selected Poems and Translations Ai Weiwei and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Ezra Pound, Confucius:…
Problematizing My Faves: A Conservative Remembers Allen Ginsberg
Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel & Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer In a recent post, I acknowledged finally paying closer attention to the second precept of Thich…
Not Flustered, Not Melancholy, Not Anxious
James Laughlin, Ezra Pound’s publisher, observed that “Pound’s translations of Confucian texts, beautiful as is their language, are seldom applauded by Sinologues.” But we common readers may appreciate such versions from the Analects, when they…
Readers
Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A…
Mentshes/3
What You Understand Depends on Where You Stand For Brent Fernandez and Brett Schrewe Night Flight to Hanoi is an account of Jesuit Daniel Berrigan’s odyssey in late January and early February 1968, when…
We, Unsubsidized and Unbridled
And it is my firm conviction that a man can learn more about poetry by really knowing and examining a few of the best poems than by meandering about among a great many. Language is…