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Tag Archives: Ezra Pound
“Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
“A certain provincialism of feeling is invaluable. It is the essence of individuality, and is largely made up of that crude enthusiasm without which no great thoughts are thought, no great deeds done.” — Thomas Hardy That quote above from … Continue reading
“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Camille Paglia, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Frank O'Hara, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Hart Crane, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Baldwin, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams
5 Comments
“Is there any virtue, for literature, for poetry, in the simple continuity of a tradition? I believe there is not.” — Thomas Kinsella
The Dolmen Press, operated out of Dublin, was founded in 1951 by Liam Miller, and played a crucial part in the development of Irish poetry in the mid-20th century. It was a strictly nationalist operation; before The Dolmen Press, poets … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austin Clarke, Ezra Pound, Ireland, Irish poetry, John Montague, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kinsella, W.B. Yeats
2 Comments
“Too many poets delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well, the mind is dangerous, and must be left in.” — Robert Frost
“[The poem] begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life–not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Harold Bloom, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens
5 Comments
“The people must grant a hearing to the best poets they have, else they will never have better.” — Harriet Monroe
“I started in early with Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, with Dickens and Thackeray; and always the book-lined library gave me a friendly assurance of companionship with lively and interesting people, gave me friends of the spirit to ease my loneliness.” – … Continue reading
“Omissions are not accidents.” — poet Marianne Moore
“I disliked the term ‘poetry’ for any but Chaucer’s or Shakespeare’s or Dante’s.” — Marianne Moore T.S. Eliot felt Moore’s poetry was probably the “most durable” of all the greats writing at the time. Sadly, I have no idea how … Continue reading
“Writing. Love is writing.” — poet H.D., HERmione
“Words were her plague and words were her redemption.” — H.D. HERmione It’s H.D.’s birthday today. First up: I wrote a gigantic piece about H.D.’s film criticism for Film Comment. Turns out, it was the final piece I wrote for … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Ezra Pound, H.D., Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Michael Schmidt, poetry, William Carlos Williams
21 Comments
“Good friends, let’s to the fields.” — Edgar Lee Masters’ epitaph
Edgar Lee Masters (born on this day) was a lawyer (one of his law partners was Clarence Darrow!) and a poet. He published a couple of books and biographies (one of Walt Whitman, a poet he admired). He was no … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Edgar Lee Masters, Ezra Pound, poetry, Radu Jude
2 Comments
“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde
He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets. – T.S. Eliot It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, Ellen Terry, England, Ezra Pound, George Orwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Ireland, Jeanette Winterson, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
11 Comments