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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Trial of Ezra Pound

15:20 / 18.07.08

Radio 3's Sunday Feature has a programme that I'm damn sure has to interest some of you good people.

Quick egg-sucking recap in case anyone doesn't have the background.

During WWII Pound made broadcasts on Italian radio decrying American Imperialism and railing against the banking cartels he saw as driving the conflict. While some of his points do resonate today (credit crunch, Iraq etc)they were sadly wrapped up in unhealthy doses of anti-semitism.

Pound was arrested for treason, held for 12 days in an open cage in a square in Pisa and brought back to the states for trial. The trial never happened and Pound spent 13 years in an asylum. His artistic output of this period speaking against his insanity.

The programme's been made by a colleague of mine Sean Street (behold my vested interest) and he's had access to recordings of Pound's speeches and poetry as well as a rare interview with his daughter. He also speaks with Bernard Kops a Jewish playwright who wrote about Pound in a struggle to reconcile his love for his poetry with his political views.

There's a lot to say on this subject from separation of author/text, freedom of speech, notions of insanity, the actions of the State in times of war and obvious major parallels with now.

If anyone fancy's a chat about this, or about Pound in general...

The programme is on Sunday 20th at 21.30 and I'm assuming will be on the BBC's Listen Again feature

All Acting Regiment

14:03 / 21.07.08

All the Pound recordings are made availabe on, I think, Princeton's website. I'll check and post later, if I can find them.

I had an interesting discussion about this recently - the person I was talking to howled blue murder at me for enjoying the poetry, but was quite happy to use a Siemens computer (and to drink Fanta). Also, Winston Churchill was anti-semitic too, yet we rarely hear about it.

It's distressingly easy for a figure like Pound, with a reputation for writing 'difficult' poetry, to get all the flack for his political connections while household names get away free; also, for the poetry to be judged as if it is the politics, which strikes me as just as dangerous as judging politics as if it is poetry.

01:35 / 22.07.08

Starts about 4 minutes in.

Available only until July 27. Am listening now, but will have to listen to the rest tomorrow. Will take notes for the benefit of those unable to access it before it expires.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:23 / 22.07.08

I had an interesting discussion about this recently - the person I was talking to howled blue murder at me for enjoying the poetry, but was quite happy to use a Siemens computer (and to drink Fanta). Also, Winston Churchill was anti-semitic too, yet we rarely hear about it.

I think one notable difference there is that Winston Churchill did not go on the state-controlled radio of a nation at war with the nation of which he was a citizen and decry its involvement. Put another way, probably the best reason that Pound risked trial for treason and Churchill did not was that Pound, regardless of his personal qualities, committed treason, and Churchill did not. Our comparison points are probably PG Wodehouse and Lord Haw-Haw on that front. Separation of author and text is a more profitable avenue, I think. Will have a listen.

All Acting Regiment

10:06 / 22.07.08

Absolutely, but still - people like Churchill, occupying similar positions of power to Churchill, were as anti-semitic and otherwise racist as people like Pound, and what seems to happen is that the Pounds (and Eliots) get held up as aberrations when actually they're symptomatic. It's a sort of displacement which, even though as you say Pound was actually committing treason and this partly explains the different treatment, strikes me as dangerous.

Still can't find that site with the recordings on it, which is a shame.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:38 / 23.07.08

OK, let's try again. Nobody is denying that a culture of anti-Semitism that pervaded Europe. Some have even suggested that such attitudes contributed to the acceptance of anti-Jewish laws in Germany, and ultimately the rounding up and murder of European Jews in many European countries under German occupation. One can look at, for example, the Beaverbrook press protesting at the influx of Jews into Britain and demanding the borders be closed.

However. Some people are in the set of people who were running countries which did not institute laws under which Jews were persecuted. Churchill is in that set. Then there are people who were running countries which did institute laws under which Jews were persecuted. That's Mussolini, among others. Ezra Pound was a personal friend and political ally of one of these people. He made radio broadcasts in support of one of these regimes - the one that persecuted Jews. To demand precise equivalency because neither Churchill or Ezra Pound held the political views of a 2008-model liberal Englishman is not really coherent - certainly, I think, one has to pick between this or the importance of appreciating the poetry independent of the politics as the argument for Pound's place in the canon.

All Acting Regiment

13:21 / 24.07.08

the importance of appreciating the poetry independent of the politics as the argument for Pound's place in the canon.

^ This, basically.

I'm not actually trying to argue against any of what you're saying, Haus, and as you say there's a huge difference between Churchill and Pound. Ergo, Pound was a bad example, but I'm sure you agree that the displacement, of blame for atrocities, from real systems (which we the observers are vulnerable to/potentially contribute to) on to mythical 'figures of evil' (who are safely othered) is a serious problem (namely because I seem to recall you saying something similar a couple of years ago).

03:04 / 25.07.08

Is this the site with recordings you were looking for?

http://www.ubu.com/ (which links to Penn Sound)

museum in time, tiger in space

03:33 / 25.07.08

the displacement, of blame for atrocities, from real systems (which we the observers are vulnerable to/potentially contribute to) on to mythical 'figures of evil' (who are safely othered) is a serious problem

I think this is certainly true, but I agree that Pound is probably a bad example - I'm far from convinced that he has been especially 'othered', let alone being seen as a 'figure of evil'. From what I've read, he's generally portrayed as a problematic, difficult figure with serious flaws; I'm not sure I've ever seen him seriously referred to as 'evil'. It's also possible to write about him, or at least about some aspects of his work, without mentioning the fact that he was anti-Semitic (this rather good article about his translations of Chinese poetry would be an example of that). I don't think it would be possible to say the same thing about, for example, Otto Weininger.

the person I was talking to howled blue murder at me for enjoying the poetry, but was quite happy to use a Siemens computer (and to drink Fanta). Also, Winston Churchill was anti-semitic too, yet we rarely hear about it . It's distressingly easy for a figure like Pound, with a reputation for writing 'difficult' poetry, to get all the flack for his political connections while household names get away free; also, for the poetry to be judged as if it is the politics, which strikes me as just as dangerous as judging politics as if it is poetry.

I think this is at least partly because we don't see a computer made by a racist as being a racist computer, although we might choose not to buy it because we dislike its creator. With art, I think there's a fear of contamination - the fear that the racist views may have somehow permeated the product (the poem or painting or whatever), possibly in a way that we can't even detect, and consuming the tainted end result may actually damage us in some way.

Now, I wouldn't say that this is a rational fear, or one that holds up to any kind of detailed examination; however I think it does exist. Personally I've found that if I enjoy an author's work and then read a biography of that author in which he or she appears to have been a not terribly nice person, it is then much harder for me to go back and enjoy the work in the same way. The books themselves, of course, have not changed at all.

15:05 / 01.08.08

Am just now getting back to listening to this, sorry for the delay. Haven't gotten too far into it but was struck by his daughter's Italian accent. It's perfectly reasonable, of course, but still striking.