[lit-ideas] Poundiana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2015 07:16:42 -0500
I have heard a wee wind searching
Through still forests for me;
I have seen a wee wind searching
O'er still sea.
Through woodlands dim have I taken my way;
And o'er silent waters night and day
Have I sought the wee wind.
--- The reference, as E. W. F. notes is to the Wee Wind 16, which is made
by Airstream -- and air stream is air in motion, i.e. 'wee wind'. As E. E.
F. also suggests, there may be a self-referential autobiographical quote
here. A pound (and this is a poem by Pound) is, after all, a unit of weight.
"Even in the Scottish usage wee is simply a circular reference to Ezra
Pound."
Interesting post, too, by R. Paul, "Pound's Treason" on the Wikipedia entry
for Mullins.
Uninterestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Pound yet again quotes 'treason'
but in a more qualified, and correct way: being charged with reason is quite
different from being convicted for treason.
"[Pound] was arraigned in Washington D.C. on CHARGES of treason on the
25th of that month."
"The charges included broadcasting for the enemy, attempting to persuade
American citizens to undermine government support of the war, and
strengthening morale in Italy against the United States."
But as R. Paul's note shows, one can be _arraigned for a charge_ but not be
condemned or convicted for it.
So I double-checked R. Paul's link which reads, inter alia:
"The framers of our Constitution, aware that they might all have been
hanged out of hand for TREASON against the King of Great Britain if they had
lost the Revolutionary War, had taken great pains to make sure that those
ACCUSED OF TREASON against the United States would get a fair trial."
"Specifically they demanded two witnesses to every overt TREASONABLE act."
"The overt acts in the Pound case were radio broadcasts."
"Though tens of thousands of people in America had heard the broadcasts and
hundreds could testify that they recognized the voice of Ezra Pound, the
only witnesses who could truthfully swear that the man speaking into the
microphone on any particular day three to five years previously was an
American citizen named Ezra Pound were the Radio Roma studio technicians, and
they
had other things to do in the studio than commit to memory the features
and intonations of a bearded weirdo sputtering in what was to them a totally
unknown tongue."
-- as W. W. Bartley, III would say, 'controversial' and 'criticisable'.
"There were other legal technicalities. There were some seven thousand
documents, detailing all the transactions between Pound and the Italian
authorities, which had been seized in his house in Rapallo by an FBI agent in
May
1945, and since there was a war on and this might be considered enemy
territory, it had never occurred to the agent to ask for a search warrant."
"A punctilious court might decide that this whole mountain of damning
evidence was inadmissable."
As per that play, that Popper perhaps saw, 'Inadmissible evidence'.
The jury "reach[ed] a verdict that the respondent was "of unsound mind",
rather than a traitor.
"Pound told Julien Cornell on one occasion that if he had to stay in
America - and the U. S. Government seemed in no mood. to let a man ACCUSED OF
TREASON [even if NOT PROVEN A TRAITOR] quit its shores - St. Elizabeth was as
good a place as any. Indeed, it had certain advantages."
"Years passed, ... and there was increasing discomfort and embarrassment in
America and the world about the whole situation. People who had been
actually CONVICTED OF TREASON [as Pound never was] were being led out of
prison
one after the other."
"The trouble was that as long as Dr. Overholser kept sending in annual
reports that Pound was still insane, he could not legally leave the walls of
St. Elizabeths. He could have asked at any tie for a new hearing to prove
that he was quite capable of understanding the charges against him."
And thus indeed get convicted for treason.
"But then he would have to go on trial for treason."
And the jury would have to decide whether to convict him ("or not", as one
might otiosely put it).
Meanwhile, Pound kept writing, "now a deep genuine grief for the fall of
Benito Mussolini, "the twice-born, the twice-crucified," whose head hung
down like a bullock's from a butcher's stall in a Milan square."
Twice-born is Pound's reference to Dionysius, according to some
mythographers. Twice-crucified is Pound's own invention.
"It was Dr. Overholser who .. found the practical solution. He prepared an
affidavit saying that Pound was permanently and incurably insane."
Again, to quote from W. W. Bartley, III -- controversial -- critisable.
Overholser went on to say that Pound "was not dangerous and it would be a
needless expense for the taxpayers to keep him indefinitely in a government
hospital."
"The government having no objection, on April18, 1958 the District Court
DISMISSED THE INDICTMENT [never conviction] FOR TREASON, and ... Ezra Pound
was a free man, charged with no crime."
His case, No. 58102, was officially closed with the notation, "Condition
upon discharge: unimproved."
Soon enough, he "sailed for Italy", and settles in Venice, but would visit
Rapallo often -- "pointing out the beautiful spots he had loved so well".
and also Rome.
As for the Pound ancestry, indeed the pound is, to quote E. W. F., "great
currency among Scots" -- and England I will add.
Ezra Pound was the son of Homer Loomis Pound and Isabel Weston. He was
called Ezra because his parents liked the name.
Both parents' ancestors had emigrated from somewhere in England in the 17th
century.
On the Weston side, Pound was descended from William Wadsworth, a Puritan
who emigrated from somewhere England on "The Lion" (a ship -- not an actual
mammal) in 1632 (The Wadsworths had married into the Westons of
Manhattan.).
If you must know: Isabel Weston's parents were Harding Weston and Mary
Parker.
On the Pound side, the immigrant ancestor was John Pound, a Quaker who
arrived from somewhere in England slightly after Wadsworth, in 1650.
Ezra's grandfather was Thaddeus Coleman Pound, a fortunate man who made a
fortune -- I owe the alliteration to Geary. (The biographer goes on:
"Unfortunately, Thaddeus later lost his fortune", but I'm on a positive note
today).
As the events disclosed, Pound's mother took the poet with her to
Manhattan in 1887 when the poet was 18 months old -- that is, one year and six
months. Pound's father, Hoomer Loomis to friends, soon followed. By 1889 the
Pounds were happily living in Jenkintown, to move, "happierly", in 1893 to
picturesque Wyncote.
Wyncote has a good number of nice Victorian-era homes.
The All Hallows Church (constructed 1896–1897) was designed by a firm
founded by Frank Furness.
Wyncote also has a number of classical stone revival homes.
Notable among them is Beechwood, designed in the style of Brognard Okie,
the architect responsible for the reconstruction of Pennsbury Manor on the
upper Delaware River, and Appleford in Villanova, Pennsylvania.
The Pounds' house had six-bedrooms.
Since Ezra was the only child of Homer Loomis and Isabel, the arrangement
was easily enough arrived at.
Isabel used one bedroom.
Homer Loomis used the bedroom next to it (connected to Isabel's bedroom by
a door).
Ezra was naturally given the remaining four bedrooms. They were
collectively referred to as "Ezra's bedrooms" -- and confessedly, it triggered
the
wrong implicature every time Isabel asked, and Homer replied, "He is in his
bedroom". Ezra's bedrooms were called "Ezra's bedroom I", "Ezra's bedroom
II", "Ezra's bedroom III" and "Ezra's bedroom IV". He would sleep in Bedroom I
on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then move to Bedroom II on Wednesdays and
Thursdays. Bedroom III was used only on Fridays, while Bedroom IV was
'week-end'
(i.e. Saturday and Sunday) bedroom. They were all decorated the same way --
in the same style, but with different toys.
The house still stands -- and _may_ be visited.
Cheers,
Speranza
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