THE EZRA POUND SOCIETY LITTLE MAG
EDITORIAL
This issue of Make it New will have the winner of the first society article award in focus and honor his lifetime achievement in Pound studies: Professor Ron Bush. The society website features his article, “Young Willows” the latest in a long string of contributions derived from his large-scale project on the Pisan Cantos. In our little mag we have included a research report and a longish interview showing both the story of Professor Bush’s interest in Pound’s work as well as his more immediate concerns and future projects.
Our readers may take a particular interest in a controversial book published in 2013—Matthew Feldman’s Ezra Pound’s Fascist Propaganda, 1935-1945. The book brings to our attention many archive materials that have been hitherto neglected, showing Pound as a much more active and “creative” propagandist than we have known. Our little mag is publishing three new reviews on the book, thus illuminating it from three points of view. In this way we can reach a better evaluation of what we know on the darkest part of Pound’s life and career.
The Music Column in this issue draws our attention to what is, arguably, Pound’s most beautiful instrumental melody: his piece for violin designed on the text of Dante’s “Al poco giorno.” In her article, Margaret Fisher argues the ways in which the genre of the poem (a sestina) and its prosody scheme determine the structural coordinates and the detail features of the music. Her text is innovative in the sense that it is structured as a possible template for teaching Pound’s music. This format has never been attempted before; since our little mag is now the only place where Pound’s music receives continuous attention, the article will hopefully assist our readers not only in the better understanding of Pound’s music, but also in developing methods of teaching it to our students.
In this issue we are launching a new series, which we hope to be of interest to our readers—The World in Pound’s Work. In the series we focus on places to which Pound refers in his poetry—we will show new photos and maps together with short articles on the significance of the particular place in Pound’s work. We start with a journey that Professor Zhaoming Qian has recently taken to the Na-Khi region.
Our Poet’s Corner showcases two poems from John Gery’s latest collection, Have at You Now! (February 2014). John has often shown his interest in Pound’s aesthetics, especially Imagism. His poetry improves on the concept—it is visceral, a mode of vision that entails not just the eyes, but the whole body. It is painfully sincere, holding the reader in a tight imaginary embrace.
Roxana Preda 20 July 2014