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. 

Poetry, January 1915

This issue of Poetry isn't as well stocked as some from late last year that I haven't gotten around to posting on, but I'm trying to get back on track before backtracking, so, here goes:

My favorite piece is Frances Gregg's poem to H.D.:

Gregg and H.D. were lovers a few years (+100) ago, and I find this poem very sweet in its description of the effect that H.D. poems can have on people.

Quick Notes:

Remy de Gourmont writes about French authors and the war, translated by Richard Aldington.

Alice Corbin Henderson writes scathing criticism of university professors who do not read modern poetry. This is very delightful. She discusses a reading by Vachel Lindsay held at Princeton as a very unusual phenomenon. Page 175, if you are interested in how poetry was institutionalized circa 1915.

There's a kind of measured assassination of German modern poetry, too. I won't go into it here.

Harriet Monroe's own book is reviewed and advertised. The review wonders why she isn't more modern in her own work. See also Richard Aldington's review of the same book in one of last month's Egoists

Lastly, Madison Cawein's death is mourned. You may remember him for his semi-prophetic "Waste Land," covered in a post above.

Poetry, October 1913

The headlining Yeats poem is the most interesting part of a more-tepid Poetry. Yeats' The Two Kings is the sort of magical Irish mythology that he's so famous for in 1913. The story hinges on the husband-king forgiving the queen-wife for magically-induced infidelity, and has some really great lines in it.

Harriet Monroe's essay about the Panama Canal is very excited, but not particularly exciting to me.

Alice Corbin Henderson reviews Child of the Amazons by Max Eastman of The Masses, her verdict: meh.

Ezra Pound has the guts to summarize his essays on Paris and mention the originals in The New Age, which of course has been panning each one as it appears. His apparent lack of concern over the combined efforts of the editors of TNA is striking.

Boring post, sorry.