29th Ezra Pound International Conference 

University of Kyoto, Japan, 24-26 June 2022

Ezra Pound and Friendship

While COVID denied the Pound community the pleasure of being in Kyoto, the opening plenary admirably brought Kyoto to Pound scholars around the world. With Mary de Rachewiltz in attendance, the ceremony highlighted Professor Sanehide Kodama’s service to Pound studies. Professor Kodama spoke about his relationship with Pound, whom he met as a young scholar when Pound was 83, and his life-long study of Pound’s work. The opening demonstrated the strength of Pound studies in Japan, continuously fortified by a multigenerational team of scholars working across the archipelago – as evinced by this photo of some of the organizing team shown during the opening ceremony:  

One report cannot do justice to the conference. Parallel sessions stand between even the most ambitious attendee and complete knowledge of a conference. What follows is a brief overview of the conference’s themes and notable strengths, referencing apposite papers wherever possible. The conference theme of “friendship” was evident in numerous presentations. VOU poet Kitasono Katsué’s connection to Pound was well-explored in Giovanna Epifania, Miho Takahashi, and Justin Kishbaugh’s panel. There were papers on Pound’s friendly working relationships including those with Basil Bunting (Diana Collecott, Yoshiko Kita, and Alex Niven), T.S. Eliot (John Gery and Vasily Tomatchoff), Ernest Hemmingway (Roxana Preda), W.B. Yeats (Youngmin Kim, Akiko Manabe, and Courtney Ruffner), James Joyce (Krista Rascoe), Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (Jo Brantley Berryman), HD and Iris Barry (Paul Camacho), Gwendolyn Brooks (Anita Patterson), Robert Lowell (Grzegorz Kosc), Marshall McLuhan (Panayiotes Tryphonopoulos), and Carl Schmitt (Sean Mark). The roundtable on Pound’s friendships to conclude the second day was a delectable treat, with Marjorie Perloff, Zhaoming Qian, Robert von Hallberg, and Akitoshi Nagahata channeling the roundtable subject of Modernist literary friendships through their own sustained scholarly friendships.

The conference broadened Pound Studies’ reach to relatively unexplored terrain in the east and south. Mark Byron’s paper delved into Pound’s brief but significant reference in Canto 74 to the Wanjina of Australian Aboriginal folklore. Duncan Poupard explored Pound’s interest in the Nakhi language and people of the Eastern Himalayan foothills. This kind of research is crucial for expanding our knowledge of the roots Pound’s poetics to parts of the world that have so far received little attention, but that were instrumental for Pound’s later poetry.

Pound’s prodigious archive and publication record also received sustained attention across several panels: Michael Coyle spoke on Pound’s Third Folio, Giuliana Ferreccio appraised the role of Pound’s Italian publisher Vanni Scheiwiller, and Michael Kindellan presented work by himself and Richard Taylor (†) on editing Pound’s Cantos. Another session dealt with Pound’s Chinese archive: Andrew Houwen discussed Mori Kainan’s lectures in the Fenellosa Notebooks, Ryan Johnson evaluated how the Notebooks synthesize Chinese literary history, and Yuxin Zhang provide an impressive account of the Confucian notebooks preparatory to an edition of the Odes / Shijing that never saw light. Wenting Li discussed these materials too, demonstrating the rich and largely untapped well of materials held in the Beinecke Library pertaining to the Odes. Asa Chen Zhang’s paper took the Ling character in Canto 85 as a focal point for a larger discussion of Pound and Chinese.

Several papers addressed Pound’s enduring influence on writers, artists, and scholars globally: Seda Şen provided a fascinating account of Pound’s reception in Turkey, Felix Marzillier spoke on the influence of the Women of Trachis on West German Avant-Garde composers, Matthew McLaughlin evaluated Pound’s postwar reception in Japan, and Kent Su explored Pound’s influence on Kenneth Rexroth.

There were two sessions of poetry reading. One delightful special session showcased Japanese poetry inspired by Pound. Kit Kumiko Toda (Université de la Réunion) presented her fascinating translations of Katsué Kitasone’s Pound-inspired verse. Shuri Kido of Kamakura gave a reading of his captivating work, translated by Tomoyuki Endō (Wako University). Kido is an important translator of Pound’s and Eliot’s work into Japanese, as well as a renowned critic and poet in his own right. Head of the Senryū Family Taira Senryū, the 18^th Senryū, read an exquisite selection of Aota Senryū’s poetry, translated and interpreted by Andrew Houwen (Tokyo Woman’s Christian University). As an interview between Taira and Houwen on Aota’s work graced the pages of Make It New 5.2-3, the reading was an excellent opportunity to learn more about this compelling part of modern Japanese poetry. The session’s importance lay both in its introduction of significant modern and contemporary Japanese poetry to a wider audience, and in its evidencing of Pound’s lasting influence on poetry outside of English. 

The English poetry readings were equally engaging. Regular MIN readers will need no introduction to many of the poets who read: Ron Smith, Biljana Obradovic, Christian Bancroft, Silvia Falsaperla, Rhett Forman, Jeff Grieneisen, Chengru He, Justin Kishbaugh, Mary Maxwell, and Joe Survant. Little could compensate for missing the opportunity to hear these poems on a warm Kyoto’s summer evening. Yet Zoom provided a global forum that was, in its own way, scintillating.

Even in virtual form Kyoto provided singular opportunities to learn much more about the Japanese texts and cultural sources of such significance to Pound. Akiko Manabe hosted a special event in which Teiichi Iba demonstrated the making of a Noh mask. Iba-sensei’s technical and pedagogic skills had the audience transfixed – we shared a truly special moment during his presentation. The final day saw a second special event chaired by Akiko Manabe, in which Toshiaki Yoshinami gave a detailed introduction to Noh drama. Yoshinami-sensei is a Master of the Kanze School – we were extremely fortunate and greatly honoured to receive his expertise based on a life of learning and living with Noh.

EPIC29 was expertly convened by Walter Baumann, John Gery, and Akitoshi Nagahata. Akitoshi deserves immense credit for steering the conference committee through delayed schedules and changed plans, from an in-person to an online conference, and for setting the perfect tone for an authentic sense of community and learning despite the distances and timezones involved. The committee worked assiduously to ensure the smooth running of the conference, and thanks go to Andrew Houwen, Yoshiko Kita, Akiko Manabe, Matthew McLaughlin, Miho Takahashi, and Aya Yoshida. This really was an experience that will remain long in the memory, and from which new perspectives on Pound, Modernism, literature, cultures across the globe, and matters of transnationalism and translation will long prosper, not least in Edinburgh at EPIC30 in June 2023. We hope to see you there!

Ryan Johnson and Mark Byron