It is made for the
multitude
and printed
55,000 copies.
55,000 copies.
Ezra-Pound-Japan-Letters-essays
He willingly promised me that he would immediately arrange to introduce you to the Japanese legation in Rome.
Therefore, the letter of introduction will reach Italy almost at the same time with this letter, and I hope this will come to be an opportunity to you and us Japanese to come nearer with each other.
Has our magazine VOU 13 arrived at you? Following your advice I added certain lines in English, and I want to print some news in English or French hereafter.
It is our sorrow that, as you mentioned in your letter, we have not any foreign poet of first rank in Tokio, and therefore we desire eagerly to communicate with European and American poets, and if possible, to ex- change magazines. Though our ideography and idiom is a great obstruc-
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 33
tion, we will try hard for their appreciating us. Will you please let us know some good magazines of poems?
Very interested, I translated your "Mediaevalism," and published it in our magazine. We shall be very much pleased, if we can have your latest poetical work or some writings for our magazine.
Have you returned from your travel already? What a charm! a painted ceiling, a pine tree, and the cornice of a renaissance church.
Now it is fall in Tokio. The sky is crystalline, blue. The cold wind makes a mosaic of yellow leaves and Ford on the pavement of Ginza.
I am trying to write a poem of steel-like strength by combinating bombard UNKER no. 17 and pendant of Bopoto.
Yours sincerely, Katue Kitasono
38: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: Anno XV 1936, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo. with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 24 November 1936
Dear Mr Katue
New Directions.
In haste//
I am asking Laughlin to send you his anthology
You might send him the VOU containing "Mediaevalism" marking the page/
also send it to Alberto Carocci, La Riforma Letteraria
via XX Settembre 28
Firenze, Italy
marking the page in red/ and
the cover "vide Cavalcanti"
so that his Italian eye will be awakened to what it is about.
Could you send me a short article in English, giving a paragraph to each of the poets who signed that group letter to me. Saying plainly who they are, one by one, and whether they have common aim, or have signed any very brief manifesto, {also paragraph or so about chief writers not in VOU group)
? 34 SECTIONII: 1936-66
And then the individual differences.
I should also like a couple of poems from each with an english transla- tion, but sending also the ideograms of the original, with a comment on the important ones, so that I could emend or intensify the translation if I saw a way of doing so.
I think I could print such an article and that Laughlin could probably reprint it in his next year's collection.
We could call it Tokio 1937
but the Japanese date should be given first.
Tokio in the . . . . year of . . . . 1937.
as I give the Italian Era Fascista XV and the old style 1936 on my stationery.
This would at least help us (over here) to get better acquainted with VOUtai and who sings or paints.
I am asking W. C. Williams and Laughlin to sign a group greeting from America.
Is an UNKER a junker airplane? {or different kind? )
from
Ez" Po"
(debased form of Rihaku) Con espressioni di alta stima
39: Ezra Pound to Japanese Ambassador in Rome
TLS-1 Hotel Italia, via Quattro Fontane, Roma. 26 December 1936
His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, Roma Eccellenza
If a letter from Mr. Ken Yanagisawa has reached Your Ex- cellency, or one of yr/ staff I need only say that I am in Rome and at Your service.
If no such letter has arrived, I should, nevertheless be very glad to meet any member of the Embassy who recollects Umewaka MinoruorErnestFenollosa(whosepapersandstudiesoftheNoh,I have
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 35
done my best to edit) or anyone who is interested in improving the understanding of Japanese cuhure in Europe and America and arranging better methods for mutual cuUural comprehension.
con espressioni di alta stima Ezra Pound
I shall be in Rome at above address until Wednesday the 30th of this month.
40: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 1 January 1937
Dear Mr. Kitasono K/ Happy New Year
Thank you for yr/ Xmas greeting.
Please thank Mr. Yanagisawa for his letter to Rome. I came back here yesterday. InRome1 hadathreehourtalkwithMr. HajimeMatsumiya, Councillor of the Embassy. He has done book in English on Japanese poetry, which 1 shall try to have published in England.
I think we got as far as two strangers could get in one interview. Naturally we had too many things to discuss to do anything very thor- oughly. I shall send him my ABC and perhaps he will approve of it as a text book to introduce Japanese students to western literature.
Or perhaps we shd/ work out a bilingual edition? or at least have a Japanese introduction to emphasize certain omissions.
The ABC takes Shakespeare for granted but anyone starting free frompresentWesternschooltrainingmightnotknowthat1 havene- glected certain authors in the ABC because they are already over empha- sized, or obscure other elements.
Will you please call Mr. Yanagisawa's attention to A New American History
by W. E. Woodward,
pub/ Farrar and Rinehart. New York.
This is the first general history {of the U. S. A. ) with the new historic con- sciousness. It wd. be a great joke if you started using it in your schools and giving a better teaching of U. S. history than is given in American schools.
? 36 SECTIONII: 1936-66
The book is just out [not perfect, but contains a great deal of truth not easily available elsewhere in so short a compass).
Cordially Ez Pound
41: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 29 January 1937
Dear Mr. Katue
Here is the description of the first television transmission of Suma Genji, from my version based on Fenollosa's notes and study.
You v^ill see that the Dancer enjoyed the play, how^ever
transmuted,
and that at any rate some of the Beauty has been brought over to the Occident.
ever yours Ezra Pound
42: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-2 1649 Nishi 1-Chome, Magomemachi, Tokio, Japan. 30 January [1937]
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
I am very much obliged to you for your two letters of 24 Nov. 1936, 1 Jan. 1937, and sending me your brilliant four books.
By the Active Anthology I can know accurately about the contemporary poets of an activity and further development. I find them also writing actively in the New Directions which Mr. James Laughlin iv sent me by your request.
The critical essays Make it New promise to make me aware of the essential values of European literature.
It is delightful to us Orientals that such splendid books like The Chinese Written Character and Ta Hio were brought out to the world. I am going to write an introductory essay on these books.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 37
A great excitement and encouragement to us that the English transla- tionofourpoemsmaybeprintedbyyourkindness. I don'tknowhowfarwe can succeed, but we do our best. They will be soon sent to you.
The other day I received from Mr. D. C. Fox Das L/rbiJd, Die Umschau and a pamphlet on Frobenius' Paideuma, the last of them, one of the members of our club is now very interested translating to print in VOU no. 16.
Bopoto is the name of natives living in west Africa. I wrote it without a deep meaning.
Please excuse the misprint of Junker.
I am pleasant to hear of the interview of you and Mr. Hajime Matsumiya in Rome. I don't know Mr. H. Matsumiya at all but I wish his book will be published in England.
Mr. Yanagisawa has gone to Belgique for his new post in the Embassy. I hope you will meet him someday.
As soon as I find a proper person, I will introduce him [to] A New American History.
I think in Japan those who read the ABC oj Reading have already got the outline of the Western literature, and they cannot misunderstand the om- issions in the ABC.
I enjoyed your beautiful letter paper. The white Q ^5- in the white paper.
Please send my good wishes to Mr. D. C. Fox, Mr. J. Laughlin iv, and Mr. H. Matsumiya at your convenience.
43: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-2 [n. p. ] 26 February 1937
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
Thank you for your letter and the description of Suma Genji. By Miss Margaret Lenoa's detailed letter I could imagine, very well, the stage of it. I think the elegant and mysterious atmosphere of that play was brought abouttotolerableextent,and1 expressmysincererespectforyoureager- ness and effort to do such a hard task as to reproduce the beauty of the symbolical Noh play. It is a great regret that I cannot see the stills of that fascinating play, Europeanized and modernized.
. ^.
^\
Yours very sincerely, Katue Kiiasono
38 SECTIONII: 1936-66
I am going to print Miss M. Lenoa's interesting report in VOU no. 17. fear tliat you may need her letter, so I return it to you.
I have sent you the translation of our poems and my brief note.
We are eagerly looking forward to your views about them.
I am also sending you my first anthology. You will see my portrait about
ten years ago. The velvet cap is the same as the uniform cap of MeierhoJd Theater at that time.
Appendix 1
MARCH 13th, 1936
In the night least expected, it sleets
Among pasonia-trees, and
As if to say "You are, prepared like primrose in
the garden-frame,
Yearning for the green field? "
Such a gentle wind refreshing is born there.
Appendix 2
THE WILD LILY
When your awakening spakening sparkles pearly with the morning dew for necklace,
When like a whiff of Houbigant
Smells your youthful breathing,
I can bear your speckled face.
When you open the curtains green
With the ancient pride slightly betrayed
In your lips obliquely turned, and
Look down the Century for Solomon's glory In the shady hill-side from your window,
I could knock off your head.
Haruki Sou
Yours sincerely, Katue Kitasono
Tuneo Osada
1
? ? SECTIONII: 1936-66 39
44: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and grifion design. 2 March 1937
Dear Mr. Katue
The most galling part of my ignorance at the moment is that I haven't the original text of the Odes.
Pauthier was a magnificent scholar, and I have his French to guide me in Kung, Ta Hio, The Standing Fast in the Middle and The Analects. I have (also) an excellent english crib with notes for these works. But the English version of the Odes is intolerable and an old latin one un- satisfactory.
Can you find me a cheap edition? I say cheap, I mean good, and clear but not fancy. If it has a translation into some European language that wd. help, and one wd. need to use the dictionary only for the inter- esting words.
Tami Koume had a satisfactory edtn. of the Noh Plays. The kana I can notuse/ButI dorecognizemoreideogramsthanI did.
Impossible to write ideogram with a Waterman pen. I am doing a little essay, starting my next book with a note on
the first very clear, the latter interesting in its context.
Translations of the Odes are so bare one thinks the translator must have missed something, and very annoying not to be able to see what.
With Sordello the fusion of word, sound, movement is so simple one only understands his superiority to other troubadours after having stud- ied Provengal and half forgotten it, and come back to twenty years later.
When I did "Cathay" I had no inkling of the technique of sound which I am now convinced must exist or have existed in Chinese poetry.
Does VOU include a critique of Japanese past poetry as a whole? A position from which you look at Chinese poetry, Japanese poetry gra- dually freeing itself from (? or continuing) Chinese, as we continually sprout from or try to cut away from, or reabsorb, resynthesize, greek, latin?
There are here too many questions.
cordially yours Ezra Pound
? 40 SECTIONII: 1936-66
45: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-4 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 11 March 1937
Dear Katue KITASONO
All right! Kitasono is your family name. We occidentals are very ignorant. You must tell us, patiently, even these de-
tails.
The poems are splendid, and the first clear lighting for me of what is going on in Japan.
The NEW Japan. Surrealism without the half-baked ignorance of the
French young.
I shall try the poems on Giobe. It is not a literary magazine. T
They have printed me on Edward VIII's abdication, and announce that they will print my note on Roman Empire. Then they say my note on Geneva is "too serious for their readers. " That may be because I men- tioned George Tinkham, who kept the U. S. A. out of that sink of hypoc- risy the League of Nations.
"Uncle George" is crossing the Pacific next summer and I hope youwillbeabletomeethim. Heis theAmericaIwasbornin,andthat may have disappeared (almost) entirely by now.
My daughter was shocked at his lack of sartorial elegance, (age eleven) but she decided that "J'uomo pih educato"
had spent too much time on his face massage etc.
"J'uomo piu educato"is a S. American more or less millionaire fop.
Excuse this diffuseness . . .
I don't KNOW that the Globe will print poetry as poetry.
It is made for the multitude and printed
55,000 copies.
Ronald (no relation of Isadora) Duncan is starting a literary magazine in London. If the Giobe won't print poems, he will.
AND the Giobe may very well be kept out of England because I have not put on GLOVES either of antelope skin, emerald or any other material in writing about the swine who are afflicting that country.
so THAT even if the Globe does print the poems, it may be possible and/ or necessary to print them in Townsman also.
:$-iT |
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 41
In any case the Townsman will want more news of VOU. {Which means plastic poetry singing, or what? )
You have not sent the Ideograms of the poems. And in any case I should not touch the translations. Though I would like to see the originals if they are written in ideogram. Perhaps I already have them in VOU? ?
I shall correct only a few typing errors, or what seem such, if the follow- ing errors have been wrongly corrected, will you please write direct to
J. T. Dunn Esq.
Globe, 157V2 West Fifth St. , St. Paul, Minn. U. S. A. and say that I have asked you to do so.
Dear old Satie lived at Arceuil (not Alceuil) In Sasajima's poem.
? vonarates . . . is this a botanical term or error for venerates
speady? ? steady or speedy
To save time I am sending the manuscript to Globe, and correcting the words to
venerates and steady
Nakamura/ glisling? ? I am correcting to glistening
this is pronounced glisning or glissening it means shining and shimmering.
KOIKE// 1 wonder whether he means Aiding or adding or aided. I am putting Aiding (last line Glassy hour).
Your own Second poem/ line 2. seorn =? scorn
Her head (the parrot's) replaced by a leaden one? ? ? (I don't see how
for will do here. )
The sailors put a lead head in place of the
parrot's own? ?
or what do you mean?
English is very ambiguous, the typewriter can mean either the machine d ^crire or the dactylo; the young lady who types.
packed, makes one think you mean the machine, but is much nicer verb if you mean the
"female secretary and typist. "
I am leaving typewriter, but if you want the reader to understand that you indicate the female, please write Dunn to change it to typist. Then the she in next line, makes it sure.
These are very nice poems. I am delighted with the lot of them. (At first
? 42 SECTIONII: 1936-66
reading they seem better written than anyone's except some oj Cummings. )
I don't know whether (in your own poems) your inverting the order, verb before noun so often, indicates a difference in your English, or a stylistic difference between you and the others in Japanese.
That was why I wanted the Ideograms of the poems (if they are in ideo- gram, and not in kana. Kana I can do nothing with yet. ] Ideogram I can puzzle out IF I have a crib, as I have Morrison's dictionary.
I sympathize with yr/ reticence in not sending the personal notes. I al- ways hate 'em myself. I mean nothing is worse than having to write and rewrite one's own biography.
BUT as your editor, etc/etc/etc/
Can't you write brief notes about each
other. . . ?
This is "in order to establish means of communication. "
Cocteau and I have both refused to write autobiographies, and as Jean
said, "Mais, oui, those books are my autobiography. "
That is all very well for poets. But the Globe is interested in humanity
at low and large.
There is a natural curiosity. . . . It is satisfied in some degree by the An- alects. Should we be more aloof than Kung. I admit Kung did not write the Analects. We should wait for disciples to write our Analects. . . .
After 2500 years the Analects still serve the Ta Hio.
46: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
ALS-1 Siena. 14 August 1937 (address RapaJJo)
Dearest K. K.
ever E.
Duncan delighted with the poems. They will be in first issue of Townsman if it ever gets published.
I amspending4or5hoursadayonKung&canreada good deal of ideogram, (say as much as a five year old infant in Japan or China. ) If you can't find a copy of the Odes with a translation, please let me know the price of a good (not fancy) text in the original--& 1 will send the money for it. (registered post to Rapallo. )
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 43
Sorry to bother but the labour is in a good cause. Cordial greetings to VOU & 8.
47: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-2 Magomemachi. 6 September 1937.
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
I wish you will be generous to oversee my long abscondence from you for six months.
I have been constantly thinking of you, but I couldn't write.
I received your letters of March 11, August 14, and two pleasant books. I compared your kung fu tseu with the original, and admired your
sensible and relevant translation.
I cannot find out the Odes with a translation, therefore I have sent the
originals in the accompanying package. They were presented to me before by my Chinese friend, a young poet and they are very excellent books made in China of to-day. I am making them a present to you.
If they aren't the books you need, please let me know the title of the book you want in Chinese ideograms. It will be more convenient to me, because we differ remarkably from the Chinese in pronouncing of the very same ideograms.
Japanese poetry to Chinese can be said just the same with English poetry to Latin or Greek. We are now far apart from Chinese poetry.
I express my sincere gratitude for that you are kindly thinking about our poems.
They send me the Globe every number from June. I am going to send you my poetical works La Lettre d'ete.
I intend to publish another book The Cactus Irland within this year.
Yours very sincerely Katue Kitasono
Yours
Ezra Pound
? 44
SECTIONII: 1936-66
/^ y^
KeCXXAft )<l>C^<JV4. xr>U)
y^
^
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 45
48: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TL-2 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 21 October 1937
K. Kit
Dear Friend at too great a distance
I have at last got back to Rapallo and find four beautiful volumes; which don't seem to correspond to the latin version of the Chi King (sometimes spelled Shi King)
MAO
SHE CH-HfNG? ?
tseen
Jt-,"z,
f
(eyebrow, or kind of bamboo)
Odes
An ancient province as near as Morrison comes to it; with top left hand corner slightly
different.
To note or write down memoranda.
-^S ^? ^
4tTc
The Shi or Chi King I (might) read with the cribs (translations) I have. The four books you have so kindly sent; I may be able to read in time, at the rate of three lines a day.
they seem to be
[Crossout: Whether this is a collection sometimes called bamboo grove; the Lord alone knows. ]
Is it a commentary on the Odes of ch hing which are Book VII of the First part of the Chi King?
on the other hand I see something that looks like wind; foo //
At any rate it is all very good for my ignorance and will keep me occupied, and I am very grateful to you for sending it.
I thought I was asking for a book that wd/ be as easy to get in Tokio as the bible in New York.
Kung fu Tseu refers to it in the Ta Hio, and it is continually mentioned in the Analects and in Mencius as the book of poetry.
Confucius (Kung fu Tseu) anthology that he had selected.
f -^
? 46 SECTIONII: 1936-66
At any rate I seem to discern some kind of preface, then a line of verse in black type.
Kwan
Kwan
Tsheu etc// KEW, congregate
passing the pass; [or possibly a pun)
water bird or difficult yellow river's course
49: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-(fragment; probably a continuation of previous letter)
as superior man (or girJ) loves (or good)
"right left"
Well, heaven knows may be that idiot Jennings and the good old latin bloke were working on this poem, calling it song of Chou; the south/ Tcheou Nan.
In which case their translations! ! ! add to my confusion.
Nothing to do but keep at it.
I see VOU has Hemingway's "They all made peace" printed at an opportune moment.
I am glad that my country seems at the moment to be having a little more sense than it had ten days ago. In any
case . . . understanding must come/ but when.
I can't get to Japan unless I get a job presumably as professor there
OR unless 1 make a great deal of money soon; that is a great deal more than I ever have made yet.
Butchart and Duncan keep saying they are going to print Townsman and that it is in the press, and that your poems will be in it.
PATIENCE . . .
said to be an oriental virtue. 1 have used up so large a % of my own already that I can't speak with authority. Thanks once more. I will write again as soon as my head is clearer.
yours ever Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 47
50: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Rapallo. Sometime in October |22? 1. 1937
Dear K/K
I seem to be finding a clue/ and I think the Odes you sent are the ones I wanted.
At least they seem to be arranged thus? ? ? ? ? ?
Introduction:
Long sentence saying what the poem means. ONE LINE OF POEM and then a commentary ANOTHER LINE OF POEM then an explanation AND so FORTH.
at any rate something seems to fit Jennings' appalling translation. I haven't got much further than identifying a refrain or two.
Townsman announcement very tangled. Duncan trying to condense and merely attaining density.
envelope as a specimen document/ 1 have sent them your address AGAIN.
51: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5. Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 23 October 1937
Dear K/Kit
Your very beautiful book has just come, and I have started TRYING to read it, though some of the type forms are not as in Morrison.
I have also subscribed to the Tokyo Times. In the hope of getting a little English and French news. I wonder if it is Brinkley's old paper? I also wonder if they wd. print my news or interpretations of Eu- rope. Might be a first step toward getting to Tokyo. I think the paper is unlikely to be delivered "in all parts of China" for the next few w -ks, but the rest of their statements seem plausible.
//
ever EP
? 48 SECTIONII: 1936-66
The poems look as if you were going in for some extreme form of sim- plification, at greatest possible remove from Chinese elaboration, not that I have been able to read even a single sentence at sight.
I take it no one has tried to make poems containing quite so many simple radicals.
BUT my ignorance is appalling and my memory beneath contempt.
52: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TCS-1 Via Marsala 12-5. 28 October 1937
28 Oct. getting on nicely.
nowt (oldformfornothing,butscans
ever yours E. P.
red
not
fox
nowt Now that I have found out what is black which,andhowcarefully
not they count up all the lines in crow strophes/ Am going to try
seriously to understand your book, once I have rushed thru the Odes
53: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 November 1937
Dear K/K
better here. )
strikes me as v^ay poetry can be very nicely written.
Here is an article or letter, either (for) Tokio Times or for VOU. Not necessary to translate more than the meaning. And that only if you think there is some use in doing it.
I have said "an occidental language" to avoid argument at the start, but English is indicated for all translation from ideogram
ever EP
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 49
1. because it is richest in monosyllables
2. because it is least cluttered with syntax, and does not therefore put IN such a lot which isn't in ideogram
AND because a literal translation without inflection shocks us less than it wd/ french and Italians
A very skillful translator might get Japanese sound into an Italian translation but I know of no one capable of doing it.
The question to Japan is: instead of dumping cheap products which we already have too much of, in the Occident, why not send us some cheap books which we need
at least a few of us need them very badly and if they were on the market more of us would wake up to the fact that we need them.
the rest of the subject is I hope clear in the enclosed notes.
ever EP
If you translate the article, change anything you feel needs im- proving.
(vide P.
Has our magazine VOU 13 arrived at you? Following your advice I added certain lines in English, and I want to print some news in English or French hereafter.
It is our sorrow that, as you mentioned in your letter, we have not any foreign poet of first rank in Tokio, and therefore we desire eagerly to communicate with European and American poets, and if possible, to ex- change magazines. Though our ideography and idiom is a great obstruc-
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 33
tion, we will try hard for their appreciating us. Will you please let us know some good magazines of poems?
Very interested, I translated your "Mediaevalism," and published it in our magazine. We shall be very much pleased, if we can have your latest poetical work or some writings for our magazine.
Have you returned from your travel already? What a charm! a painted ceiling, a pine tree, and the cornice of a renaissance church.
Now it is fall in Tokio. The sky is crystalline, blue. The cold wind makes a mosaic of yellow leaves and Ford on the pavement of Ginza.
I am trying to write a poem of steel-like strength by combinating bombard UNKER no. 17 and pendant of Bopoto.
Yours sincerely, Katue Kitasono
38: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: Anno XV 1936, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo. with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 24 November 1936
Dear Mr Katue
New Directions.
In haste//
I am asking Laughlin to send you his anthology
You might send him the VOU containing "Mediaevalism" marking the page/
also send it to Alberto Carocci, La Riforma Letteraria
via XX Settembre 28
Firenze, Italy
marking the page in red/ and
the cover "vide Cavalcanti"
so that his Italian eye will be awakened to what it is about.
Could you send me a short article in English, giving a paragraph to each of the poets who signed that group letter to me. Saying plainly who they are, one by one, and whether they have common aim, or have signed any very brief manifesto, {also paragraph or so about chief writers not in VOU group)
? 34 SECTIONII: 1936-66
And then the individual differences.
I should also like a couple of poems from each with an english transla- tion, but sending also the ideograms of the original, with a comment on the important ones, so that I could emend or intensify the translation if I saw a way of doing so.
I think I could print such an article and that Laughlin could probably reprint it in his next year's collection.
We could call it Tokio 1937
but the Japanese date should be given first.
Tokio in the . . . . year of . . . . 1937.
as I give the Italian Era Fascista XV and the old style 1936 on my stationery.
This would at least help us (over here) to get better acquainted with VOUtai and who sings or paints.
I am asking W. C. Williams and Laughlin to sign a group greeting from America.
Is an UNKER a junker airplane? {or different kind? )
from
Ez" Po"
(debased form of Rihaku) Con espressioni di alta stima
39: Ezra Pound to Japanese Ambassador in Rome
TLS-1 Hotel Italia, via Quattro Fontane, Roma. 26 December 1936
His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, Roma Eccellenza
If a letter from Mr. Ken Yanagisawa has reached Your Ex- cellency, or one of yr/ staff I need only say that I am in Rome and at Your service.
If no such letter has arrived, I should, nevertheless be very glad to meet any member of the Embassy who recollects Umewaka MinoruorErnestFenollosa(whosepapersandstudiesoftheNoh,I have
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 35
done my best to edit) or anyone who is interested in improving the understanding of Japanese cuhure in Europe and America and arranging better methods for mutual cuUural comprehension.
con espressioni di alta stima Ezra Pound
I shall be in Rome at above address until Wednesday the 30th of this month.
40: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 1 January 1937
Dear Mr. Kitasono K/ Happy New Year
Thank you for yr/ Xmas greeting.
Please thank Mr. Yanagisawa for his letter to Rome. I came back here yesterday. InRome1 hadathreehourtalkwithMr. HajimeMatsumiya, Councillor of the Embassy. He has done book in English on Japanese poetry, which 1 shall try to have published in England.
I think we got as far as two strangers could get in one interview. Naturally we had too many things to discuss to do anything very thor- oughly. I shall send him my ABC and perhaps he will approve of it as a text book to introduce Japanese students to western literature.
Or perhaps we shd/ work out a bilingual edition? or at least have a Japanese introduction to emphasize certain omissions.
The ABC takes Shakespeare for granted but anyone starting free frompresentWesternschooltrainingmightnotknowthat1 havene- glected certain authors in the ABC because they are already over empha- sized, or obscure other elements.
Will you please call Mr. Yanagisawa's attention to A New American History
by W. E. Woodward,
pub/ Farrar and Rinehart. New York.
This is the first general history {of the U. S. A. ) with the new historic con- sciousness. It wd. be a great joke if you started using it in your schools and giving a better teaching of U. S. history than is given in American schools.
? 36 SECTIONII: 1936-66
The book is just out [not perfect, but contains a great deal of truth not easily available elsewhere in so short a compass).
Cordially Ez Pound
41: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 29 January 1937
Dear Mr. Katue
Here is the description of the first television transmission of Suma Genji, from my version based on Fenollosa's notes and study.
You v^ill see that the Dancer enjoyed the play, how^ever
transmuted,
and that at any rate some of the Beauty has been brought over to the Occident.
ever yours Ezra Pound
42: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-2 1649 Nishi 1-Chome, Magomemachi, Tokio, Japan. 30 January [1937]
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
I am very much obliged to you for your two letters of 24 Nov. 1936, 1 Jan. 1937, and sending me your brilliant four books.
By the Active Anthology I can know accurately about the contemporary poets of an activity and further development. I find them also writing actively in the New Directions which Mr. James Laughlin iv sent me by your request.
The critical essays Make it New promise to make me aware of the essential values of European literature.
It is delightful to us Orientals that such splendid books like The Chinese Written Character and Ta Hio were brought out to the world. I am going to write an introductory essay on these books.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 37
A great excitement and encouragement to us that the English transla- tionofourpoemsmaybeprintedbyyourkindness. I don'tknowhowfarwe can succeed, but we do our best. They will be soon sent to you.
The other day I received from Mr. D. C. Fox Das L/rbiJd, Die Umschau and a pamphlet on Frobenius' Paideuma, the last of them, one of the members of our club is now very interested translating to print in VOU no. 16.
Bopoto is the name of natives living in west Africa. I wrote it without a deep meaning.
Please excuse the misprint of Junker.
I am pleasant to hear of the interview of you and Mr. Hajime Matsumiya in Rome. I don't know Mr. H. Matsumiya at all but I wish his book will be published in England.
Mr. Yanagisawa has gone to Belgique for his new post in the Embassy. I hope you will meet him someday.
As soon as I find a proper person, I will introduce him [to] A New American History.
I think in Japan those who read the ABC oj Reading have already got the outline of the Western literature, and they cannot misunderstand the om- issions in the ABC.
I enjoyed your beautiful letter paper. The white Q ^5- in the white paper.
Please send my good wishes to Mr. D. C. Fox, Mr. J. Laughlin iv, and Mr. H. Matsumiya at your convenience.
43: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-2 [n. p. ] 26 February 1937
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
Thank you for your letter and the description of Suma Genji. By Miss Margaret Lenoa's detailed letter I could imagine, very well, the stage of it. I think the elegant and mysterious atmosphere of that play was brought abouttotolerableextent,and1 expressmysincererespectforyoureager- ness and effort to do such a hard task as to reproduce the beauty of the symbolical Noh play. It is a great regret that I cannot see the stills of that fascinating play, Europeanized and modernized.
. ^.
^\
Yours very sincerely, Katue Kiiasono
38 SECTIONII: 1936-66
I am going to print Miss M. Lenoa's interesting report in VOU no. 17. fear tliat you may need her letter, so I return it to you.
I have sent you the translation of our poems and my brief note.
We are eagerly looking forward to your views about them.
I am also sending you my first anthology. You will see my portrait about
ten years ago. The velvet cap is the same as the uniform cap of MeierhoJd Theater at that time.
Appendix 1
MARCH 13th, 1936
In the night least expected, it sleets
Among pasonia-trees, and
As if to say "You are, prepared like primrose in
the garden-frame,
Yearning for the green field? "
Such a gentle wind refreshing is born there.
Appendix 2
THE WILD LILY
When your awakening spakening sparkles pearly with the morning dew for necklace,
When like a whiff of Houbigant
Smells your youthful breathing,
I can bear your speckled face.
When you open the curtains green
With the ancient pride slightly betrayed
In your lips obliquely turned, and
Look down the Century for Solomon's glory In the shady hill-side from your window,
I could knock off your head.
Haruki Sou
Yours sincerely, Katue Kitasono
Tuneo Osada
1
? ? SECTIONII: 1936-66 39
44: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and grifion design. 2 March 1937
Dear Mr. Katue
The most galling part of my ignorance at the moment is that I haven't the original text of the Odes.
Pauthier was a magnificent scholar, and I have his French to guide me in Kung, Ta Hio, The Standing Fast in the Middle and The Analects. I have (also) an excellent english crib with notes for these works. But the English version of the Odes is intolerable and an old latin one un- satisfactory.
Can you find me a cheap edition? I say cheap, I mean good, and clear but not fancy. If it has a translation into some European language that wd. help, and one wd. need to use the dictionary only for the inter- esting words.
Tami Koume had a satisfactory edtn. of the Noh Plays. The kana I can notuse/ButI dorecognizemoreideogramsthanI did.
Impossible to write ideogram with a Waterman pen. I am doing a little essay, starting my next book with a note on
the first very clear, the latter interesting in its context.
Translations of the Odes are so bare one thinks the translator must have missed something, and very annoying not to be able to see what.
With Sordello the fusion of word, sound, movement is so simple one only understands his superiority to other troubadours after having stud- ied Provengal and half forgotten it, and come back to twenty years later.
When I did "Cathay" I had no inkling of the technique of sound which I am now convinced must exist or have existed in Chinese poetry.
Does VOU include a critique of Japanese past poetry as a whole? A position from which you look at Chinese poetry, Japanese poetry gra- dually freeing itself from (? or continuing) Chinese, as we continually sprout from or try to cut away from, or reabsorb, resynthesize, greek, latin?
There are here too many questions.
cordially yours Ezra Pound
? 40 SECTIONII: 1936-66
45: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-4 On stationery imprinted: 1937 Anno XV, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with quotes: "A tax is not a share" and "A nation need not and should not pay rent for its own credit," and griffon design. 11 March 1937
Dear Katue KITASONO
All right! Kitasono is your family name. We occidentals are very ignorant. You must tell us, patiently, even these de-
tails.
The poems are splendid, and the first clear lighting for me of what is going on in Japan.
The NEW Japan. Surrealism without the half-baked ignorance of the
French young.
I shall try the poems on Giobe. It is not a literary magazine. T
They have printed me on Edward VIII's abdication, and announce that they will print my note on Roman Empire. Then they say my note on Geneva is "too serious for their readers. " That may be because I men- tioned George Tinkham, who kept the U. S. A. out of that sink of hypoc- risy the League of Nations.
"Uncle George" is crossing the Pacific next summer and I hope youwillbeabletomeethim. Heis theAmericaIwasbornin,andthat may have disappeared (almost) entirely by now.
My daughter was shocked at his lack of sartorial elegance, (age eleven) but she decided that "J'uomo pih educato"
had spent too much time on his face massage etc.
"J'uomo piu educato"is a S. American more or less millionaire fop.
Excuse this diffuseness . . .
I don't KNOW that the Globe will print poetry as poetry.
It is made for the multitude and printed
55,000 copies.
Ronald (no relation of Isadora) Duncan is starting a literary magazine in London. If the Giobe won't print poems, he will.
AND the Giobe may very well be kept out of England because I have not put on GLOVES either of antelope skin, emerald or any other material in writing about the swine who are afflicting that country.
so THAT even if the Globe does print the poems, it may be possible and/ or necessary to print them in Townsman also.
:$-iT |
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 41
In any case the Townsman will want more news of VOU. {Which means plastic poetry singing, or what? )
You have not sent the Ideograms of the poems. And in any case I should not touch the translations. Though I would like to see the originals if they are written in ideogram. Perhaps I already have them in VOU? ?
I shall correct only a few typing errors, or what seem such, if the follow- ing errors have been wrongly corrected, will you please write direct to
J. T. Dunn Esq.
Globe, 157V2 West Fifth St. , St. Paul, Minn. U. S. A. and say that I have asked you to do so.
Dear old Satie lived at Arceuil (not Alceuil) In Sasajima's poem.
? vonarates . . . is this a botanical term or error for venerates
speady? ? steady or speedy
To save time I am sending the manuscript to Globe, and correcting the words to
venerates and steady
Nakamura/ glisling? ? I am correcting to glistening
this is pronounced glisning or glissening it means shining and shimmering.
KOIKE// 1 wonder whether he means Aiding or adding or aided. I am putting Aiding (last line Glassy hour).
Your own Second poem/ line 2. seorn =? scorn
Her head (the parrot's) replaced by a leaden one? ? ? (I don't see how
for will do here. )
The sailors put a lead head in place of the
parrot's own? ?
or what do you mean?
English is very ambiguous, the typewriter can mean either the machine d ^crire or the dactylo; the young lady who types.
packed, makes one think you mean the machine, but is much nicer verb if you mean the
"female secretary and typist. "
I am leaving typewriter, but if you want the reader to understand that you indicate the female, please write Dunn to change it to typist. Then the she in next line, makes it sure.
These are very nice poems. I am delighted with the lot of them. (At first
? 42 SECTIONII: 1936-66
reading they seem better written than anyone's except some oj Cummings. )
I don't know whether (in your own poems) your inverting the order, verb before noun so often, indicates a difference in your English, or a stylistic difference between you and the others in Japanese.
That was why I wanted the Ideograms of the poems (if they are in ideo- gram, and not in kana. Kana I can do nothing with yet. ] Ideogram I can puzzle out IF I have a crib, as I have Morrison's dictionary.
I sympathize with yr/ reticence in not sending the personal notes. I al- ways hate 'em myself. I mean nothing is worse than having to write and rewrite one's own biography.
BUT as your editor, etc/etc/etc/
Can't you write brief notes about each
other. . . ?
This is "in order to establish means of communication. "
Cocteau and I have both refused to write autobiographies, and as Jean
said, "Mais, oui, those books are my autobiography. "
That is all very well for poets. But the Globe is interested in humanity
at low and large.
There is a natural curiosity. . . . It is satisfied in some degree by the An- alects. Should we be more aloof than Kung. I admit Kung did not write the Analects. We should wait for disciples to write our Analects. . . .
After 2500 years the Analects still serve the Ta Hio.
46: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
ALS-1 Siena. 14 August 1937 (address RapaJJo)
Dearest K. K.
ever E.
Duncan delighted with the poems. They will be in first issue of Townsman if it ever gets published.
I amspending4or5hoursadayonKung&canreada good deal of ideogram, (say as much as a five year old infant in Japan or China. ) If you can't find a copy of the Odes with a translation, please let me know the price of a good (not fancy) text in the original--& 1 will send the money for it. (registered post to Rapallo. )
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 43
Sorry to bother but the labour is in a good cause. Cordial greetings to VOU & 8.
47: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-2 Magomemachi. 6 September 1937.
Dear Mr. Ezra POUND,
I wish you will be generous to oversee my long abscondence from you for six months.
I have been constantly thinking of you, but I couldn't write.
I received your letters of March 11, August 14, and two pleasant books. I compared your kung fu tseu with the original, and admired your
sensible and relevant translation.
I cannot find out the Odes with a translation, therefore I have sent the
originals in the accompanying package. They were presented to me before by my Chinese friend, a young poet and they are very excellent books made in China of to-day. I am making them a present to you.
If they aren't the books you need, please let me know the title of the book you want in Chinese ideograms. It will be more convenient to me, because we differ remarkably from the Chinese in pronouncing of the very same ideograms.
Japanese poetry to Chinese can be said just the same with English poetry to Latin or Greek. We are now far apart from Chinese poetry.
I express my sincere gratitude for that you are kindly thinking about our poems.
They send me the Globe every number from June. I am going to send you my poetical works La Lettre d'ete.
I intend to publish another book The Cactus Irland within this year.
Yours very sincerely Katue Kitasono
Yours
Ezra Pound
? 44
SECTIONII: 1936-66
/^ y^
KeCXXAft )<l>C^<JV4. xr>U)
y^
^
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 45
48: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TL-2 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 21 October 1937
K. Kit
Dear Friend at too great a distance
I have at last got back to Rapallo and find four beautiful volumes; which don't seem to correspond to the latin version of the Chi King (sometimes spelled Shi King)
MAO
SHE CH-HfNG? ?
tseen
Jt-,"z,
f
(eyebrow, or kind of bamboo)
Odes
An ancient province as near as Morrison comes to it; with top left hand corner slightly
different.
To note or write down memoranda.
-^S ^? ^
4tTc
The Shi or Chi King I (might) read with the cribs (translations) I have. The four books you have so kindly sent; I may be able to read in time, at the rate of three lines a day.
they seem to be
[Crossout: Whether this is a collection sometimes called bamboo grove; the Lord alone knows. ]
Is it a commentary on the Odes of ch hing which are Book VII of the First part of the Chi King?
on the other hand I see something that looks like wind; foo //
At any rate it is all very good for my ignorance and will keep me occupied, and I am very grateful to you for sending it.
I thought I was asking for a book that wd/ be as easy to get in Tokio as the bible in New York.
Kung fu Tseu refers to it in the Ta Hio, and it is continually mentioned in the Analects and in Mencius as the book of poetry.
Confucius (Kung fu Tseu) anthology that he had selected.
f -^
? 46 SECTIONII: 1936-66
At any rate I seem to discern some kind of preface, then a line of verse in black type.
Kwan
Kwan
Tsheu etc// KEW, congregate
passing the pass; [or possibly a pun)
water bird or difficult yellow river's course
49: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-(fragment; probably a continuation of previous letter)
as superior man (or girJ) loves (or good)
"right left"
Well, heaven knows may be that idiot Jennings and the good old latin bloke were working on this poem, calling it song of Chou; the south/ Tcheou Nan.
In which case their translations! ! ! add to my confusion.
Nothing to do but keep at it.
I see VOU has Hemingway's "They all made peace" printed at an opportune moment.
I am glad that my country seems at the moment to be having a little more sense than it had ten days ago. In any
case . . . understanding must come/ but when.
I can't get to Japan unless I get a job presumably as professor there
OR unless 1 make a great deal of money soon; that is a great deal more than I ever have made yet.
Butchart and Duncan keep saying they are going to print Townsman and that it is in the press, and that your poems will be in it.
PATIENCE . . .
said to be an oriental virtue. 1 have used up so large a % of my own already that I can't speak with authority. Thanks once more. I will write again as soon as my head is clearer.
yours ever Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 47
50: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Rapallo. Sometime in October |22? 1. 1937
Dear K/K
I seem to be finding a clue/ and I think the Odes you sent are the ones I wanted.
At least they seem to be arranged thus? ? ? ? ? ?
Introduction:
Long sentence saying what the poem means. ONE LINE OF POEM and then a commentary ANOTHER LINE OF POEM then an explanation AND so FORTH.
at any rate something seems to fit Jennings' appalling translation. I haven't got much further than identifying a refrain or two.
Townsman announcement very tangled. Duncan trying to condense and merely attaining density.
envelope as a specimen document/ 1 have sent them your address AGAIN.
51: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5. Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 23 October 1937
Dear K/Kit
Your very beautiful book has just come, and I have started TRYING to read it, though some of the type forms are not as in Morrison.
I have also subscribed to the Tokyo Times. In the hope of getting a little English and French news. I wonder if it is Brinkley's old paper? I also wonder if they wd. print my news or interpretations of Eu- rope. Might be a first step toward getting to Tokyo. I think the paper is unlikely to be delivered "in all parts of China" for the next few w -ks, but the rest of their statements seem plausible.
//
ever EP
? 48 SECTIONII: 1936-66
The poems look as if you were going in for some extreme form of sim- plification, at greatest possible remove from Chinese elaboration, not that I have been able to read even a single sentence at sight.
I take it no one has tried to make poems containing quite so many simple radicals.
BUT my ignorance is appalling and my memory beneath contempt.
52: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TCS-1 Via Marsala 12-5. 28 October 1937
28 Oct. getting on nicely.
nowt (oldformfornothing,butscans
ever yours E. P.
red
not
fox
nowt Now that I have found out what is black which,andhowcarefully
not they count up all the lines in crow strophes/ Am going to try
seriously to understand your book, once I have rushed thru the Odes
53: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 On stationery imprinted: Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 November 1937
Dear K/K
better here. )
strikes me as v^ay poetry can be very nicely written.
Here is an article or letter, either (for) Tokio Times or for VOU. Not necessary to translate more than the meaning. And that only if you think there is some use in doing it.
I have said "an occidental language" to avoid argument at the start, but English is indicated for all translation from ideogram
ever EP
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 49
1. because it is richest in monosyllables
2. because it is least cluttered with syntax, and does not therefore put IN such a lot which isn't in ideogram
AND because a literal translation without inflection shocks us less than it wd/ french and Italians
A very skillful translator might get Japanese sound into an Italian translation but I know of no one capable of doing it.
The question to Japan is: instead of dumping cheap products which we already have too much of, in the Occident, why not send us some cheap books which we need
at least a few of us need them very badly and if they were on the market more of us would wake up to the fact that we need them.
the rest of the subject is I hope clear in the enclosed notes.
ever EP
If you translate the article, change anything you feel needs im- proving.
(vide P.
