Probably the most important, poignant and pivotal poem of the last 100 years. Seriously, Pound is the Nietzsche of poets. Few have superseded his work, for he has set the stage of the current world.
That voice! His was the voice of a prophet, half crazed and half visionary. God, what I would give to be able to go back and meet him in the flesh, though I've learned one doesn't always want to meet one's heroes.
It's a revelation to hear Pound read this poem. It's always struck me as a too relentlessly bitter diatribe, in need of leavening, but as spoken by Pound, there's a degree of vituperativeness I'd never heard before in the mere words on the page (or screen). He was an astonishingly gifted poet, but because he was so unfailingly historical in his outlook and saw the world as moving along a continuum to doom, he often comes across as a humorless crank. Thanks for posting this.
I honestly revere this man and it's so rare to hear his voice. There's so much emotion in his readings and it makes me see poems with which I'm already very familiar in a whole new light. He truly was a great man and one of the most underrated and neglected poets of the 20th century simply because he was unapologetic even after utter defeat. They broke his mind but they could not break his indomitable spirit. Ave camerata.
His Pisan Cantos are especially moving..beaten down and villified.. near to being executed, he still wrote. Later in St Elizabeth Hospital.. there for 13 years... he almost taught day school and disciples gathered round him. took his reading lists..He still had his awful prejudices but underneath that was this incredible creative.. He also.launched many artists and writers.. supported Elliot,, Co- produced the Waste Land. A leaking volcano of a man
Is this Pound? It sounds like Basil Bunting. Not like an American. Maybe an American of his time. This is one of my favourite poems. I like his shift later to the 'siftings on siftings' which is nearly as beauty as Waller's poetry. His friend Gaudier Brzeska died int he war et al and I think this was the beginning of his interest in economics and his drift towards fascism.
Beautiful, beautiful poetry....not taught in universities nearly enough these days....to bad. Still the phenomenon of cultural criticism's embargo on Modernist Poetics can't last forever, it will wain when the next big theoretical thing comes into vogue...
Wilfred's poem 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' and the poem by Horace must have been what Pound "took off" from. Owen is also quite bitter about WWI and the "old lie"... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_patria_mori
'Tis an ear-opener to hear his voice. I read this poem rather differently; e.g., I don't roll my 'r's like a Scotsman. Also, he doesn't pronounce the Attic Greek properly. Other than that, a nice find.
Edward Moore there is NO "properly pronounced Attic Greek".....nobody knows how "Attic Greek" sounded like...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology#History_of_the_reconstruction_of_ancient_pronunciation
Don't trust Wikipedia. I've been to, and spoken at, enough academic conferences to know that one can certainly mispronounce Greek, Attic, koine, patristic, etc...
why do so many American poets of his era read in English-type accents? is it to lend some air of credence, thinking perhaps American English to be the mired tongue of brainless brutes? it just feels a bit frustrating to experience the paged version of American greatness complicated by some shame or insecurity of homeland heritage...
+dale cooper I think it's a combination of things. In the early 20th Century, the American upper-class accent was closer to British than it is today. Pound and Eliot both went to private schools and Ivy League universities and probably had British teachers and professors. They both moved to the UK or Europe as soon as they could and lived there for most of their lives. So you wouldn't hear the same accent from Langston Hughes, for example. It's not an "American" accent, whatever that is. It's a rich, white, ex-pat American-based accent.
@Matthew, no. Eliot didn't have the vision of Pound. Had it not been for Pound, Eliot would have spent his life as a bank clerk...he liked the stability.
Probably the most important, poignant and pivotal poem of the last 100 years. Seriously, Pound is the Nietzsche of poets. Few have superseded his work, for he has set the stage of the current world.
That voice! His was the voice of a prophet, half crazed and half visionary. God, what I would give to be able to go back and meet him in the flesh, though I've learned one doesn't always want to meet one's heroes.
"all things are a flowing
sage heraclitus says
but a tawdry cheapness
shall outlast all our days"
It's a revelation to hear Pound read this poem. It's always struck me as a too relentlessly bitter diatribe, in need of leavening, but as spoken by Pound, there's a degree of vituperativeness I'd never heard before in the mere words on the page (or screen). He was an astonishingly gifted poet, but because he was so unfailingly historical in his outlook and saw the world as moving along a continuum to doom, he often comes across as a humorless crank. Thanks for posting this.
I honestly revere this man and it's so rare to hear his voice. There's so much emotion in his readings and it makes me see poems with which I'm already very familiar in a whole new light. He truly was a great man and one of the most underrated and neglected poets of the 20th century simply because he was unapologetic even after utter defeat. They broke his mind but they could not break his indomitable spirit. Ave camerata.
How true! And yet he was always so kind and praised almost all others, no matter how inferior.
I don't think I've ever heard his voice before! Thank you very much!!!
His Pisan Cantos are especially moving..beaten down and villified.. near to being executed, he still wrote.
Later in St Elizabeth Hospital.. there for 13 years... he almost taught day school and disciples gathered round him. took his reading lists..He still had his awful prejudices but underneath that was this incredible creative.. He also.launched many artists and writers.. supported Elliot,,
Co- produced the Waste Land.
A leaking volcano of a man
so cool to hear poets read their own poetry! the old American accent is interesting
PERHAPS HIS GREATEST POEM
I don't EVER want to die.
'In the case of sonic attack.....use your wheels it is what they are for....' Lol.
No 813 in The New Oxford Book of English Verse😊
Extract of Verses 3, 4 & 5 starts at 1:54.
Is this Pound? It sounds like Basil Bunting. Not like an American. Maybe an American of his time. This is one of my favourite poems. I like his shift later to the 'siftings on siftings' which is nearly as beauty as Waller's poetry. His friend Gaudier Brzeska died int he war et al and I think this was the beginning of his interest in economics and his drift towards fascism.
There was a program on YT where Bunting recites his work (think it's still there). They are remarkably similar in how they speak.
Great to hear him reading, but miss the rest of the poem, particularly Mr. Nixon and the Envoi
Yes sections 1 - 5 only😊
Beautiful, beautiful poetry....not taught in universities nearly enough these days....to bad. Still the phenomenon of cultural criticism's embargo on Modernist Poetics can't last forever, it will wain when the next big theoretical thing comes into vogue...
His voice puts me in a trance. I have to really concentrate to understand what he's saying, and when I do , it isn't funny.
Can someone please translate the Greek lines.😊
I know modernist poetry is meant to be hard and elusive but to learn a new alphabet is over the top!
Wilfred's poem 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' and the poem by Horace must have been what Pound "took off" from. Owen is also quite bitter about WWI and the "old lie"...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_patria_mori
This guy should've been in Hawkwind :)
Him and Eliot
USA should be proud of finally Having Poetry, Frost and Robinson Were just imitators of the British Poetic conventions.
Durrr who are Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson durrr
'Tis an ear-opener to hear his voice. I read this poem rather differently; e.g., I don't roll my 'r's like a Scotsman. Also, he doesn't pronounce the Attic Greek properly. Other than that, a nice find.
Edward Moore there is NO "properly pronounced Attic Greek".....nobody knows how "Attic Greek" sounded like...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology#History_of_the_reconstruction_of_ancient_pronunciation
Don't trust Wikipedia. I've been to, and spoken at, enough academic conferences to know that one can certainly mispronounce Greek, Attic, koine, patristic, etc...
Edward Moore to a consensus...but it's far from agreed on and it's still a fact that we dont know how greeke sounded
sounds like Gandalf
sounds like a lithurgy
Is he trying to copy Sorley MacLean who sounded like this in both English and Gaelic?
+Lorna Nicholson he apparently adopted Yeats (Irish) accent for his pubic readings - as an influence; he was a massive icon and friend to him
This is how English was spoken in upper class Philadelphia in the late 19th century.
Luciano Mezzetta it no it was not....Ezra is affecting his accent. It sounds good though
What kind of accent is that specifically?
Idahoian
definitely, even if he was a fascist lol
why do so many American poets of his era read in English-type accents? is it to lend some air of credence, thinking perhaps American English to be the mired tongue of brainless brutes? it just feels a bit frustrating to experience the paged version of American greatness complicated by some shame or insecurity of homeland heritage...
dale cooper he was with Yeats for some years and if youve ever heard yeats read you can feel the influence.
+dale cooper I think it's a combination of things. In the early 20th Century, the American upper-class accent was closer to British than it is today. Pound and Eliot both went to private schools and Ivy League universities and probably had British teachers and professors. They both moved to the UK or Europe as soon as they could and lived there for most of their lives. So you wouldn't hear the same accent from Langston Hughes, for example. It's not an "American" accent, whatever that is. It's a rich, white, ex-pat American-based accent.
Eliot>Pound
Deal with it.
@Matthew, no. Eliot didn't have the vision of Pound. Had it not been for Pound, Eliot would have spent his life as a bank clerk...he liked the stability.