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Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.


I came across a photograph of a young Ezra Pound. When he was young, beautiful, and romantic. Before we had to question his work for fascism and anti-semitism.

Around the same time, I brought my copy of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets to read on the Metro. In comparison to his earlier work, the poems disappoint.

We already know how influential Pound was in determining the final form of The Wasteland. But how much of Eliot’s genius evolved from part of the literary circle orbiting around Pound’s artistic generosity? And how much of his genius atrophied in its absence?

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Christopher Hitchens in the London Review of Books


Here is a link to his pieces in the LRB.

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Anis Shivani Points Out That the New York Times Book Review Sucks When It Comes To Poetry


The New York Times’ book reviews have long given short shrift to poetry and it’s something that has been bothering me for a long time. The Huffington Post’s Anis Shivani (who, I admit, I often find to be a little glib) agreed with me during a longish take down of them called The Death of the New York Times Book Review: And Why That Is a Very Good Thing for Books.

He has also noted that they have almost totally eliminated poetry from their pages – implictly saying that poetry is not worth reading. And when they do review poetry, it is only established figures who get the attention (though Anis doesn’t mention it, the only other time they review poetry is on behalf of dead, canonical poets).

It seems that only place to consistently read decent coverage of poetry is by a hit or miss process of scrolling across blogs. It would be nice if the paper that strives to not just be parochial, but of value to national and international readers, would pay some attention in its literary coverage to what is, quite literally, the man’s first literary venture – poetry. Instead, they consistently disrespect poetry in what they omit and what they include.

 

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The Poet’s Chair


Did you know that Crate & Barrel used to have a “Poet Chair?” Yes. You could buy a chair for poetry (writing or reading it, I wonder?) at a reasonably upscale (in a Restoration Hardware kind of way) chain store.

My guess is for reading, because there is no way you could pull this thing up to a desk and write comfortably. And I’m not sure why poetry would be this particular shade of persimmon.

The sad part of all this is… the chair is no longer available.

If Crate & Barrel has no room for poet’s anymore, what hope have we to loved and appreciated? Oh well, I suppose I shall just have to buy my bohemian cred elsewhere. Maybe at Pier One Imports?

At least I still have cool desk for writing poetry.

 

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Bach’s Birthday


Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, so his birthday has already past. Fortunately, Classical WETA in Washington, DC (90.9) has been celebrating all month long. Sadly though, March is almost over. I’ve loved being able to turn on the radio in the car and know that there is a darn good chance of being able to hear some baroque (generally, my favorite period of classical music – love me some harpsichord).

On a vaguely related note, coming up on April 17, the Folger Shakespeare Library is celebrating Shakespeare’s Birthday and for the last three years WETA has sponsored the event and a brass quartet representing the station has played in one of the book rooms.

It’s also a great event for kids (I brought friend’s daughter last year).

Oh, and my father’s birthday is coming up, too.

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Before the Internet


I miss the days before the internet when I couldn’t find everything I wanted. No more searching for an unabridged Count of Monte Cristo or a copy of Richard III. No more days when used bookstores were the only place to find certain books. No more buying copies of Richard Wagner’s overtures to discover that what I was really looking for Carl Orff.

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Horace Walpole’s House Restored


Horace Walpole’s estate, Strawberry Hill, was ground zero for the Gothic Revival craze in architecture in England. Until recently, it was falling apart, but seven years worth of (expensive) restoration work have gotten it into shape. Now, it’s worth visiting again.

Now, I’m not actually that interested in the history of Goth Revival in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But I am interested in the gothic literature of the period.

Walpole gets credit for writing the first gothic novel, a gem called The Castle of Otranto. I first came across it in a volume that had three gothic novels published together, the other two being Vathek and Frankenstein. It was in a now departed used bookstore in downtown Clearwater. I bought it at the same time as I bought Pascal’s Pensées and Thoreau’s Walden. It was good  bookstore and I’m sad it’s gone. In it’s place (at least the last time I was there) is a sort of hippie coffeehouse.

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An Unexpected Impact of the Borders Bankruptcy


The city of Pico Rivera in eastern Los Angeles County used federal grant money to lure a Borders to their community. Unfortunately, this particular Borders is on the list of stores to be closed. This article suggests that the city may have to continue to subsidize either all or part of the store’s rent for another three years (though the shopping center owner is responsible for making a good faith effort to fill the space).

When I worked for a member of Congress, Pico Rivera was in my congresswoman’s district (and I can attest that the Pico Rivera Councilman Bob Archuleta, mentioned in the article, is a good man, as is his son Matthew, who graduated from West Point last year).

Though this may seem like a cautionary tale, I would argue that bringing a bookstore to a community that lacked one is an admirable and important effort. Too many towns and cities are becoming “book deserts,” where citizens have to drive long distances to find a bookstore. This is an especially bad situation for the next generation – children benefit from being exposed to a culture that values books and reading as civic virtues and part of the common good. In addition, until the closure, the city was pulling in more than three times as much in sales tax revenue as they were paying out in subsidies (and that doesn’t event include the benefits that came from having the creation of jobs and other multiplier effects).

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I’m Note Sure What I Think About This


Thanks for the attention, I guess. I am glad she’s promoting poetry and poets. But, I must confess, I don’t really know what I should be thinking when I read this. Do I not have the right clothes for writing poetry? Is that why the New Yorker still hasn’t published me?

But how much of uncertainty is due to a pointless elitism? The silly old punk rock ethos: whatever is popular is no longer worthwhile.

One thinks about the fuss when Jonathan Franzen expressed doubts about his novel The Corrections becoming an Oprah Book Club selection. What was he afraid of? Of more people reading it? Of course, we all understand what he was afraid of – a mixture of sexism and anti-populism. Sexism because Oprah specifically targets middle class (read bourgeois) women and anti-populism because, well, she is insanely popular and most things she endorses also become unreasonably popular. And if the appreciative audience of one’s work extends beyond a certain intellectual and artistic elite, is it still high art or literature?

One could also be reminded of how award winning author Jon Banville, who writes “literary” books under his own name and genre books under a nom de plume as an example of someone who feared that mass appreciation would depreciate the literary value of his other works.

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Eric Foner Wins Bancroft Prize


Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery just won the Bancroft Prize in history. When I studied history at college, I specialized (informally) in the history of slavery in the America and Foner, naturally, came up. His lengthy volume, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution is the best work on Reconstruction out there (though John Hope Franklin’s Reconstruction After the Civil War is the best short history of Reconstruction).

Foner is often characterized as a Marxist historian, but let’s honest. All “Marxist” often means in an academic context is writing books that address the issue of class.