I enjoyed this a lot, thank you! Your notes on Pound and the reflections on the systemic nature of his anti-semitism, in particular. Also the comment that "the revenge of the universe on proud men is one of my favorite themes. Pound perhaps lets himself off the hook at the end? Perhaps I misunderstand ..." reminded me of Matte Robinson's comments on Pound himself/his engagement with the occult at the end of his monograph THE ASTRAL HD (which I really loved fwiw): " ... the idea of an elitist secret society helped fuel Pound's need to be special, but that does not mean that the occult was anything like the way Pound imagined it to be (he was known to misunderstand how science and economics worked as well, and he distorted them for his own purposes.)"
Also your comments on reading Buddhist texts and the exasperating experience of encountering Americanized versions of them reminded me of an interesting person in the field that seems to have annoyed literally everyone on every side but whose book I found myself enjoying nonetheless: Daniel Ingram's 600-some page MASTERING THE CORE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA is available online for free and has become something of a cult classic for practicing magicians within current traditions of Western esotericism but is nothing like the Shambhala-published dharma guides or western Buddhist texts that many of the mindfulness generation turn to these days. Still, Ingram's work with jhanic states and his claims to awakening have been a source of controversy for over the last decade or so, for both theravedan schools of Buddhist thought and securalized American versions of the practice, too. Anyways, thanks for this newsletter!!
This is really good, you've nailed Pound I think. For convoluted reasons he was the first modernist I really read, and actually one of the first poets I read w/ real attention (although I haven't read the Cantos front to back -- has anyone besides maybe Hugh Kenner?) and that sort of totalizing aesthetic vision is very attractive when you're younger. It does have that authoritarian bent but at the time it was incredibly mind-expanding for me -- ancient China, the Troubadours, Dante, Homer, Anglo-saxon epics -- there's just so much *stuff* in this beautiful world. It feels like something that separates it from modern academic poetry, where even if they do write an epic poem based on Mayan mythology or jazz or whatever it tends to feel more like a walled garden. In James Laughlin's memoirs of him in his last years he's walking around Venice like a ghost, frail and silent, convinced his whole life was a failure. He probably deserved it, but it's sad nevertheless.
"This is partly what I mean when I said that I find “modernism, again” a somewhat baleful aesthetic development in our time, even if I happen to really like some of the art!" - What are you referring to here? Having a hard time thinking of recent stuff that straightforwardly continues modernism rather than incorporating it into a 19thc lineage.
Thank you! I think I had in mind something like early Valeria Luiselli, but "Modernism, Again" is more a political than aesthetic phenomenon imo, and you're quite right that most recent stuff influenced by modernism-including Luiselli's more recent work!-combines it with 19th century stuff somehow.
I enjoyed this a lot, thank you! Your notes on Pound and the reflections on the systemic nature of his anti-semitism, in particular. Also the comment that "the revenge of the universe on proud men is one of my favorite themes. Pound perhaps lets himself off the hook at the end? Perhaps I misunderstand ..." reminded me of Matte Robinson's comments on Pound himself/his engagement with the occult at the end of his monograph THE ASTRAL HD (which I really loved fwiw): " ... the idea of an elitist secret society helped fuel Pound's need to be special, but that does not mean that the occult was anything like the way Pound imagined it to be (he was known to misunderstand how science and economics worked as well, and he distorted them for his own purposes.)"
Also your comments on reading Buddhist texts and the exasperating experience of encountering Americanized versions of them reminded me of an interesting person in the field that seems to have annoyed literally everyone on every side but whose book I found myself enjoying nonetheless: Daniel Ingram's 600-some page MASTERING THE CORE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA is available online for free and has become something of a cult classic for practicing magicians within current traditions of Western esotericism but is nothing like the Shambhala-published dharma guides or western Buddhist texts that many of the mindfulness generation turn to these days. Still, Ingram's work with jhanic states and his claims to awakening have been a source of controversy for over the last decade or so, for both theravedan schools of Buddhist thought and securalized American versions of the practice, too. Anyways, thanks for this newsletter!!
This is really good, you've nailed Pound I think. For convoluted reasons he was the first modernist I really read, and actually one of the first poets I read w/ real attention (although I haven't read the Cantos front to back -- has anyone besides maybe Hugh Kenner?) and that sort of totalizing aesthetic vision is very attractive when you're younger. It does have that authoritarian bent but at the time it was incredibly mind-expanding for me -- ancient China, the Troubadours, Dante, Homer, Anglo-saxon epics -- there's just so much *stuff* in this beautiful world. It feels like something that separates it from modern academic poetry, where even if they do write an epic poem based on Mayan mythology or jazz or whatever it tends to feel more like a walled garden. In James Laughlin's memoirs of him in his last years he's walking around Venice like a ghost, frail and silent, convinced his whole life was a failure. He probably deserved it, but it's sad nevertheless.
"This is partly what I mean when I said that I find “modernism, again” a somewhat baleful aesthetic development in our time, even if I happen to really like some of the art!" - What are you referring to here? Having a hard time thinking of recent stuff that straightforwardly continues modernism rather than incorporating it into a 19thc lineage.
Looking forward to reading your further thoughts!
Thank you! I think I had in mind something like early Valeria Luiselli, but "Modernism, Again" is more a political than aesthetic phenomenon imo, and you're quite right that most recent stuff influenced by modernism-including Luiselli's more recent work!-combines it with 19th century stuff somehow.