Poetry, January 1916

Just a few quick observations on Poetry:

Alice Corbin, here without her married surname "Henderson" that usually appears (if memory serves), contributes a set of poems in dialog with London imagism. She indicates the dialog in a poem, "Music," through an epigraph from Richard Aldington's "Chorikos" from November 1912's Poetry (the second issue, and in the first month of my blog project). Corbin follows Aldington's ode to Persephone with a poem about visiting the grave of Pablo de Sarasate. For H.D., "The Pool" responds to "The Pool," with Corbin's following the pattern established in "Music" by doing a more specific, real-world poem than H.D.'s. This one is an account of Corbin's visit to Nimes, France, and perhaps the ancient Garden of the Fountain there. In the poem, Corbin's younger sister dives into the forbidden pool. This is a metaphor of H.D.'s fearless, innovative poetry. Poetry loves H.D. so much. Here's part of the tribute, sorry for the low image quality (mine, not Corbin's! And for the jokes).

The next poem is a two-part sequence labeled "Apparitions," this one likely going to Ezra Pound, with his "apparitions in the crowd" from "In a Station of the Metro." I might pair "Color Note" with either John Gould Fletcher or Amy Lowell.

I noticed that, according to her Wikipedia bio, Alice Corbin is going to move to Santa Fe this year (1916) to treat her tuberculosis.

Quick Notes:

Pound contributes an obituary for Remy de Gourmont. It contains the germs of Poundian intellectual elitism, already spotted elsewhere in this blog project, but perhaps never so clearly. Translating de Gourmont, he continues:

"Yet the phrase is so plain and simple: 'to permit those who are worth it to write frankly what they think.' That is the end of all rhetoric and of all journalism. By end I do not mean goal, or ambition. I mean that when a nation, or a group of men, or an editor, arrives at the state of mind where he really understands that phrase, rhetoric and journalism are done with. The true aristocracy is founded, permanent and indestructible."

The aristocracy can be incarnated in a single editor, if necessary. This will not end well. A revealing moment, though.

And this note, joyous in its moment, tragic in the light of Seeger's eventual death in July of this year:

This does close a loop for me, though. Alan Seeger's brother, Charles, collected songs that helped fuel the 60s folk revival, and was Pete Seeger's father. That now links back to Poetry, if in a roundabout way.