Editorial

‘Across the River of Time on the Bridge of Style’

As the year draws to a close we are precisely a century from the December book publication of The Waste Land by Boni & Liveright. The poem was first published in Britain in October 1922 in The Criterion and the following month in The Dial in the United States, and the Hogarth Press published the British edition in book form in September 1923 … indicating how landmark dates are themselves fungible currency on closer scrutiny. Pound’s hand in shaping Eliot’s text is one of Modernism’s legends. It’s worth remembering that this experience coincides with his revisioning of his Cantos project from the three Ur-Cantos to the opening cantos as we more or less have them. 1922 was a watershed year for Pound too, then, even as history tends to shine a brighter light on Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf, as well as Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cocteau’s Antigone, Rilke’s Duino Elegies, and F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. The long-anticipated centenary year – one of several Modernist centenaries, to be fair, but really, the big one – took on a different complexion as the world sputters to a restart. There were numerous events, exhibitions, performances, and publications over the year, including EPIC 29 in Kyoto – easily the best online conference I’ve ever attended, a verdict which reflects the consensus. The organizing committee led by Akitoshi Nagahata deserves all our thanks for putting on a brilliant event in fiendish circumstances. In my corner of the world here in Australia, colleagues collaborated on 1922-themed events in Adelaide (April, The Waste Land), Melbourne (June, Ulysses), Sydney (July, ‘Modernism Upside-Down’), and Brisbane (August, ‘The Women of 1922’). This has been a generative year, perhaps the better for not being overshadowed by the weight of round numbers, but instead opening out to opportunities to rethink what Modernism means, and as well as what it means to commemorate landmark events and artworks.

We remember our people though.

This issue of Make It New commemorates the passing of Bob Hughes: composer, musician, and virtuoso bassoonist (Pound’s instrument of choice). As a music educator Bob is best known to us in Pound Studies primarily for his tireless work in bringing Pound’s opera Le Testament de François Villon back into critical and popular circulation, and, with Margaret Fisher, for the series of scholarly studies of Pound’s music published with Second Evening Press: on the operas Le Testament, Cavalcanti, and Collis o Heliconii, as well as on Pound’s violin works, and two e-books on Villon in The Cantos and Pound’s theory of Great Bass. These distinctions contributed to a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ezra Pound Society. Bob’s contributions to modernist music scholarship far exceeds even these formidable achievements, as Roxana Preda recounts in her moving tribute to this great musician, composer, music scholar, and friend of Poundisti around the world.

Two major figures in Pound Studies and Modernism Studies have also walked on this year: Hugh Witemeyer and James Longenbach. Both made very substantial contributions to our knowledge of Pound’s poetry. Hugh’s Poetry of Ezra Pound: Forms and Renewals (1969) remains foundational reading in Pound’s pre-Cantos career, and a scholarly through-line editing the letters of Pound and William Carlos Williams (1999), Pound and Bronson Cutting (1995), and, with Lee Bartlett, Pound and James Dickey (1982) has proved essential for so many scholars and biographers over the last several decades. Hugh’s scholarly work extended far beyond this formidable contribution to Pound Studies, to further editions of letters (most notably those of William Carlos Williams) as well as major contributions to scholarship on W. B. Yeats, George Eliot, and the expansive landscape of Modernism Studies. James Longenbach too wrote essential studies for anyone interested in getting to the heart of Modernism and its most prominent practitioners: Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats and Modernism (1988), Modernist Poetics of History (1987), a central role as co-editor of the monumental 10-volume Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals (1991), as well as an incredibly productive career working on Wallace Stevens, mid-century and contemporary poetry, poetics – including How Poems Get Made (2018) – not to mention a distinguished career as a poet that saw the publication of a clutch of very highly regarded volumes of poetry and critical reflections on the craft of making poetry. Hugh’s passing was sudden; James’s followed a battle with cancer; both leave an enormous legacy and will be widely missed. We are indebted to Edward P. Walkiewicz for Hugh’s obituary and to the News Center at the University of Rochester for James’s remembrance, and as ever to Archie Henderson for assembling comprehensive bibliographies for both scholars.

We also commemorate the passing in 2016 of Pound’s Czech translator Petr Mikeš, who spent decades bringing Pound and other central figures of Modernism into the Czech literary conscience. I never had the opportunity to meet Petr, unfortunately, but as a frequent contributor to Paideuma, Sagetrieb, and a close contact of the National Poetry Foundation, he was known widely on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly as travel became possible following the Velvet Revolution. Sincere thanks to Václav Paris for his wonderful appreciation of Petr as a scholar and as a poet, and to Massimo Bacigalupo for conveying it to Make It New.

This issue is rich in other commemorations: Maximilian Werner’s reflections on Hugh Selwyn Mauberley; David Moody’s fascinating account of the draft of Pound’s early prose and verse sequence ‘The Dawn’ – long presumed lost but emerging in the papers of D. D. Paige of Selected Letters fame; and Moody’s evaluation of the files pertaining to Pound’s mental capacities at the time of his arraignment in 1946, located in the archive of Dr Wendell Muncie. Each of these pieces induces a revaluation of critical and historical verities, and in the case of unearthed archival material, may revise considerably the prevailing account of Pound’s life and work. Walter Baumann’s account of the history behind Pound’s Blue Plaque at 10 Church Walk in Kensington, first proposed in September 1977 and unveiled on 11 August 2004, is essential reading: the early inquiries, the wrangling with English Heritage including letters of protest, and eventual success in having the plaque installed is a story befitting a short film. Robert Richardson, Bill Pratt, Mary de Rachewiltz and David Moody spoke at the unveiling (carried out by Mary), and we are extremely fortunate to have a record of David’s speech preserved here, along with several photographs of the event.

The current issue also includes the second instalment (of three in total) of the letters of Marshall McLuhan and Ezra Pound, illustrating their friendship between September 1948 and June 1951, and tracing out McLuhan’s fascination with the personalities of High Modernism and the interplay with their mid-century works. McLuhan’s persistent curiosity spans literature, the visual arts, music, friendships and rivalries, and the recordings and fate of Pound’s Harvard Vocarium readings in 1939.

A cornerstone of the current issue is Ron Smith’s poem ‘Rome Unrhymed,’ accompanied by Pound’s poem ‘Rome’ with which it shares a genealogy. My thoughts shot straight to the Rome EPIC meeting of 2009, and to how much I miss that city. To Rome, we are all newcomers.

To those fortunate enough to be at the San Francisco MLA Convention in a couple of weeks, please consider attending the Ezra Pound Society session on the topic of ‘Reading Ezra Pound’s Cantos, or, How Work is Manifested in the Poem and to What Ends.’ We convene on Friday 6 January at 3.30pm in the Marriott Marquis Hotel, Moscone West 3024. See you there!

Finally, it is with gratitude that I thank Ryan Johnson for his enduring work on Make It New, without whom the journal would not have anything like its production qualities, nor would it have appeared in time for Christmas this year.

Speaking of which, a very happy holiday season to all! May the New Year bring peace, inspiration, and happiness.

Mark Byron

Sydney, 20 December 2022