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Modern Is 'Im

Andrew Motion, England's Poet Laureate, is often thought of as something of an anti-modernist - one of those who spools out the nativist English Line movement (from Thomas Hardy, through Edward Thomas, then on via Larkin to the present) - well, maybe - but Motion's sympathies, and intelligence, are wider-ranging than that, and his poetry far more versatile and impressive than is sometimes accepted, especially by hip young next-next-generation types, who should read more, and pose less often.

Anyway, Motion would have been the last person one might have expected to write an enthusiastic review of a new life of Pound, but here it is, in today's Guardian Review. My review of the same book, Ezra Pound: Poet, Volume One, subtitled The Young Genius 1885-1920, will be out in Books in Canada in early 2008. I very much enjoyed Motion's review, but I am not sure he's correct in saying this is the first good study of the poet. I've read several others that, though arguably flawed in places, were worth reading.

Motion is very good at noting Pound's radical frustrations with the London scene (his rise was not triumphant or total) which I understand personally, since not much has changed in London's poetry circles since 1920, or rather, the changes that swept in with the spirit of '22, were mainly broomed out of Bloomsbury by the Possum himself before his death.
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Michael Gunin said…
Todd, thanks a lot for mentioning this book. As a follow-up, would you please clarify and recommend any other Pound biographies? Which books did you like as well?

I've really liked, for example, Hugh Kenner's "The Pound Era", and now I'm looking where to get further.
Wed Nov 21, 07:24:00 am 2007
EYEWEAR said…
Hi

Kenner is good on Pound. Try Tim Redman's Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism; JJ Wilhelm's Ezra Pound in London and Paris 1908-1925; John Tytell's Ezra pound: The Solitary Volcano; Torrey's The Roots of Treason; The Cambridge Companion to Ezra pound, edited by Nadel; and Omar Pound and Robert Spoos' Letters in Captivity 1945-1946. There are others, but these should do, for a start.
Wed Nov 21, 03:58:00 pm 2007
Michael Gunin said…
Hello,

Thanks a lot - this is a good aid for me as a translator. I'll try to find these books on Amazon.

Kind regards,
Michael
Wed Nov 21, 04:24:00 pm 2007
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