Put it: do japs of my age live where my elders were when they (jap con-
temporaries)
were in Europe?
Ezra-Pound-Japan-Letters-essays
pow wow of blokes who write about philosophy/
Meant to write about the Scarlatti week/ but too much else needing divulgation/ "Four Scarlats don't make a Vivaldi," not by no means but Guarnieri had got the opera into shape/ orchestra etc/ playing properly, which it wasn't last year.
J. T. my last remaining source of information re/ the U/S. I don't even know whether Jas/ has got out the Am/ edtn/ 52/71 Cantos.
Itoh's book (Brit. Emp. 8r Peop. ) ought to be pubd/ at once in some eu- ropean language. Possibly serialized in J. T. or at least summarized. After all in the Ban Gumi the pacification of the country precedes the lofty reflection, or plays of pussy-cology.
Great excitements last month/ thought of going to U. S. to annoy 'em but Clipper won't take anything except mails until Dec 15, so am back here at the old stand/ Thank god I didn't get as far as Portugal and get stuck there.
Pious reflections on my having spent 12 years in London/ 4 in Paris and now 16 or 17 in Italy/ Which you can take as estimate etc/etc/ {of nation- al values. ) I dunno what my 23 (infantile years) in America signify/ 1 left as soon as motion was autarchic; I mean my motion. Curious letch of Americans to try to start a civilization there/ or rather to REstart it: be- cause there seems to have been some up till 1863/. (1 shd still like to. )
Have you ever had the gargantuan appetite necessary for comparing the J. T. with AMERICAN daily or Sunday wypers? ? ? Or to consider what Japan does NOT import in the way of news print? ? Oh well; don't. Let it alone, and get out another issue of VOU.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 101
Any news of living autiiors wd/ be welcome. Gornoze whats become of Possum and Duncan and Angold, or the pacific Bunting.
Cultural Policy of Japan? ? Vide Ez' Guide to KuJchur, facilitated by Ez system of Economics, now the program of Ministers Funk and Riccardi, tho I dont spose they know it was mine.
yours E. P.
(re The U. S. vide my Make it New, Remy de Gourmont's letter: "Con- querir J'Amerique n'est pas sans doute votre seuJ but. "] Funny trick of memory,I thoughthehadwritten"civilizerI'Amerique. "Thatmust have been in my note to him.
100: Ezra Pound to Fosco Maraini TL-2 [n. p. ] 11 November 1940
Dear Sig. Maraini
. . . Do you also see my notes in the Japan Times March 3, June 13, July 21, Aug. 22, Sept. 12?
You could assist the (inboosting) Confucian revival if you wd/ write both to the editors of the Jap Times and to Di Marzio backing up what I say. The Meridiano needs more news of oriental books.
Do meet Kitasono Katue, VOU club (unless it is through him that you know of me). Nisi 1 tiome 1649, Magome Mati, Omori, Tokyo. He runs the liveliest magazine in the world.
Am trying to jazz up the Meridiano to the level of VOU. but it is heavy going and damn'd hard to get collaboration. Italians do not spontaneous- ly cooperate until they have a Duce to jam 'em together. A damn furriner can't do it. Then as soon as a man is any good he gets a job in an office and has no time save for his job.
Do for god's sake take up some point in my articles and write on that, with reference to it. If three or four of us start noticing each other's writ- ings, we can get something done.
At present all Italian (writers) either ignore each other or spend their time in irrelevant chatter, except re/ economics. Current issue of Gerar- chia has three articles worth noticing. Meridiano never has more than two in one issue. And no two contributors ever hit the same bullseye, or rather Di Marzio and I did cohere once but quite by accident; or rather
? 102 SECTIONII: 1936-66
without collusion. Not by accident but accidentally as to timing.
Would be most useful if you cd/ do article saying damn Lao-Tsze. Attack idea of studying "chinese philosophy" as if all Chinese philosophy had merit/ whereas some is no better than the shitten old testament/ which is crap, immoral, barbarous/ poison injected into Europe. Xtianity, the sane part of it is a european construction/ stoic morals and cosmogony. Deus est Amor. That is O. K. Believe Ovid knew that, or at least Amor Deus est. Mencius volume is the most modern book in the world. Take that as FROM ME, and do an article on it for Di Marzio.
Also (my econ. book) gives a fairly full list of all the possible varieties of human imbecility. Have you, by the way, any idea what has become of a group of neo-Confucians gathered round a chink named Tuan Szetsun who used to print pamphlets in Shanghai back in 1934? 862 Boone Rd. Shanghai. World prayer, etc.
cordially yours
I think Kitasono has a number of my books, which you may not know. Give you better idea of what I have done re/ [iJJegibiel. Cant get any real news from America.
(What about transiating Itoh? ) (vide enciosure)
101: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 15 November 1940
(jAPERICAN? ? )
Dear K/K?
Two articles, one by Mr. Setsuo Uenoda, and one by Dr. Tatsuo Tsukui in the }. T. Weekly for Oct. 17th ought to start discussion in the VOU club, if you are still lucky enough to corral eleven poets in one place.
The Kana syllabic writing is clumsy and cumbersome; I mean that the latin alphabet with 26 or even 24 signs will do all the work of the syll- able signs and is immeasurably easier to remember.
I suggest that in each issue of VOU you print at least one poem, prefer-
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 103
ably the best poem with a transliteration into roman alphabet. Stick to the Italian significance of the vowels. Japanese sounds very much like italian. English and french spelling does not represent the sound of the words as logically as Italian spelling, and is not constant in indicating what sound it implies.
IDEOGRAM is essential to {the exposition of) certain kinds of thought. Greek philosophy was mostly a mere splitting, an impoverish- ment of understanding, though it ultimately led to development of par- ticular sciences. Socrates a distinguished gas-bag in comparison with Confucius and Mencius.
At any rate I need ideogram. I mean I need it in and for my own job, BUT I also need sound and phonetics. Several half-wits in a state of half education have sniffed at my going on with Fenollosa's use of the Japanese sounds for reading ideogram. I propose to continue. As sheer sound "Dai Gaku" is better than "Ta Tsii. " When it comes to the ques- tion of transmitting from the East to the West, a great part of the Chinese sound is no use at all. We don't hear parts of it, (much of) the rest is a hiss, or a mumble. Fenollosa wrote, I think justly, that Japan had kept the old sounds for the Odes long after the various invasions from the north had ruined them in China. Tones can not be learnt at three thousand miles distance any how, or at any rate, never have been.
The national defence of Basho and Chikamatsu can be maintained by use of the latin alphabet. If any young Tanakas want to set out for world conquest, on the lines Ubicumque Jingua Romano ibi Roma (wherever the latin tongue, there Rome) you will invade much better by giving us the sound of yr/ verse in these latin signs that are understood from the Volga to the West coast of Canada, in Australia, and from Finland to the Capes of Good Hope and Horn.
English had conquered vast territories by absorbing other tongues, that is to say it has pouched most latin roots and has variants on them handy for use where french and even Italian have shown less flexibility; it has taken in lashin's of greek, swallowed mediaeval french, while keeping its solid anglo-saxon basis. It then petrified in the tight little is- land, but American seems to be getting into Tokyo. Question of whether want to "preserve" Japanese in test tubes or swallow the American vocabulary is for you to decide.
I still think, as I wrote last year, that with Italian, Ideogram and English (American brand] you can have a tri-lingual system for world use. But spurred on by T. T. and S. U. I wd/ amend my suggestion of us- ing the kana writing with the ideograms and say use the latin letters.
? 104 SECTIONII: 1936-66
One wd/ learn Japanese more quickly if with each chunk of con- versation dictionary offered by the /. T. we could have something worth reading printed bilingually.
Throughout all history and despite all academies, living language has been inclusive and not exclusive.
(japerican) Japerican may well replace pidgin even in our time but Japanese will never become lingua franca until its sound is printed in the simplest possible manner.
102: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TCS-1 Via Marsala 12-5. 22 November Anno XIX [1940]
Dear Kit Kat
Next time I have a bit of money from /. T. please take out for me a six months subscription to the daily edition. I don't get enough news from the Weekly. However dull you may think the paper, it is a dn/ sight more lively than the usual dailies. Have you had any news of Duncan, or Eliot or anyone? Bloke named Maraini seems to see Meri- diano now and then. I wonder if your copies have come? They promised to send them.
yours
Ezra Pound
(I have told him to see you, hut forget what town he is in; may he half way up Euji. )
103: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 5 December 1940 (Giovedi)
Dear KitKat
You will be pleased/ relieved/ honour'd/ bored or whatever to hear that the money order allegedly 451/ rearrove today with a supple- mentary order for 405/ also Polite letter in english to local postmaster
yours E. Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 105
from idem in Tokyo/ saying the clerk had err'd. (The one from last Au- gust or September)
You will observe from the enclosed that it needed a "magical aspect" of two major orbs/ etc.
L'OROSCOPO DEL 5. --Questo giovedi pri- vo di configurazioni lunari, passera sotto il dominiediunmagicoaspettotrail Solee Giove che facilitera la conclusione di buoni affari ma per contro dovremo fre- nare le spese, particolarmente se causate dal be! sesso.
MARIO SEGATO.
Do the Jap papers include horror/scopes? Two Italian journals print 'em/ and in London several million ephemerides of the stars (Zadkiel and Old Moore) used to be sold. Yeats potty on the subject.
Not easily perceiving that men {differ one from another)/ he needed some explanation or stimulus to note that some like boiled ham for din- ner, whereas others (genteeJ irish) think it vulgar. Have known him in- sulted by its appearance {at eventide). Ace/ him and his Li Ki/ it shd/ be eaten cold for breakfast only, and so forth.
How long it takes for men of different even if contiguous nations etc//
Chinese diplomat said to me lately/ two peoples ought to be brothers/ they read the same books/ believe he was a Chiang K/Cheker at that.
salve/ banzai/ wan soui/ alala;
und so weiter. yours
Ezra Pound
104: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 30 December 1940
Dear Kit Kat
HAPPY NEW YEAR. And thanks for Lahiri's book. How much does he know? How seriously am I to take the book? Several dozen ques-
? 106 SECTIONII: 1936-66
tions. re/ Roppeita Kita. This (school) opposed to Umewaka Minoru's? Or not, as I note the son is called Minoru.
What is the point of the curls? Or are they only used for the red lion's mane?
/
I note that Ito is back/ pp/ in Jap Times a bit queer. May be O. K. Miscio's strong point was never moral fervour, and he may have a sane desire to popularize, (or not? ) however Tami Kume who had studied Noh, though he hadn't in 1915 Ito's inventiveness etc/ had by training something that Miscio hadn't (quite naturally had not at age of 23) got by improvisation.
Do you see these old buzzards who are "in spite of the weight of 55 win- ters" etc. still amazing yr/ hindoo by being alive? I mean does Mushakoji or Kita etc/ know what you are up to? Or are the ages kept in separate compartments?
Antidote for Xtianity? I mean take it early before it poisons Japan with its Semitic elements.
Any useful action to be taken, or does yr/ generation merely ignore it? Obviously almost any religion can be taken up by an artist who will select only its better part and ignore its evils.
Subject not simple. Am wondering whether any good can be done by starting an article in Italian: "Christianity will come out of this war like a plucked chicken. . . . " following or preceding the remark with allusions to collaboration of anglican bishops and the papal gang with usury and jews.
I suppose Y. Yashiro is bloke whose book on Botticelli 1 saw at Yeats' ten years or more ago?
What I dont make out is whether one cd/ talk with Mushakoji/ whether he is SET on Beethoven, or whether that list of three names is due to his unfamiliarity with what I think is better. I mean does he like 'em for their real merits/ or because they are different from Jap work/ or what?
Am all for boom in Confucius/ but hear there is some very poor neo- Confucianism on the Chinese market. Weak generalities/
Mencius is the most modern author. I mean still, today, the most modern/ 1940 whereas Aragon is 1920. Or was.
Put it: do japs of my age live where my elders were when they (jap con- temporaries) were in Europe?
Neue Sachlichkeit sounds O. K. ; naturally Italy hasn't yet heard of it.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 107
Frobenius was contemporary. Dare say I have touched on these points before. Shd/ like pointers re/ jap Times/ whether I am being too UNchris- tian for 'em/ or whether they are getting bored (nowt printed for some time) or whether my economics are too orthodox. Colliers wouldn't like 'em. But Senator Frazier has caught the boat/ which Volpi has not.
Another line of enquiry: do you, Ito, Mushakoji and Kita agree on any- thing? And if so what?
Or do you set round and never meet (as in England different sects)
Sometimes damn foreigner can introduce proper people across clique frontiers. As activist, shd/ like to know if useful collaboration possible between me and any of 'em/ either to get full sound film of Noh/ or more lively Confucian comprehension.
Anyhow, Happy New Year/ damn Churchill and lets hope that Frankie Roosevelt will lie down now he has a third term to play with.
yours
Ezra Pound
(Why am I not translated? Any one outside VOU club ever read a hook by E. P. ? )
{Don't send compliments--I am interested in knowing why. )
105: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 31 December 1940
Dear Kit Kat
FOR VOU
Lahiri's book gives the impression, possibly a wrong one, that Y. Noguchi & Mushakoji may be living in what was in England and Amer- ica the era of 1890 or even of 1888.
I wish I could convince VOU club that economics, and in particular the preoccupation with the nature of money and the effects of usury are not a bee in my sole and personal bonnet.
The surrealists. Max Ernst and the lot of 'em (Crevel being their best writer, and not quite of them) were all represented in The Little Re- view in 1923.
? 108 SECTIONII: 1936-66
A surrealist treatment of money would be contemporary, today, 1940 or still better anno xix del Era fascista.
This awareness is not a mere idiosyncrasy of mine. The most vital poets in the West, Bunting, cummings, Angold are all awake to it. So is W. C. Williams, so is Ron Duncan, editor of Townsman, who pre- ceded Laughlin in printing VOU poems, so is and has been T. S. Eliot from the day he wrote Bleistein: "The jew is underneath the lot. "
It is proper that up to the age of crucifixion (32) the poet be lyric. After that he withers, I think, if he does not feel some curiosity as to the locus of his own perceptions and passions. By locus I mean their movement in relation to the humanity about him.
E. P.
DearK/
The preceding page is to print if VOU has space. This page is private, repeating possibly points from yesterday's letter.
You would help me considerably if you can find time to say why my books are not translated into Japanese. VOU has done all it can, and is doing all it can, as a magazine. But couldn't Japan print a series of books in English and/or other languages at a reasonable price? A Jap publisher could even sell copies in Europe (Continent where Eng. & Am. public haven't contracted by rights. ) if he wd. go to it and print the good books that that bloody swine Tauchnitz and Albatross (united) (a jew named Reese, amusing card but evil. ) does not and never will print.
Naturally I wd/ be only too glad to tell the publisher what is, and has for the past 50 years been worth reading.
Half dozen of dozen H. James/ W. H. Hudson, a little of F. M. Ford. My anthology Profile, my Kuich. More Thos. Hardy. Possibly some Frobenius/ Crevel's Pieds dans le Plat.
Is there in Japan an available edtn/ of Madame Bovary/ Educ Sen- timentaJe, or of Corbiere, Laforgue, Rimbaud? Or of Gautier's Emaux et Camees?
Or my Jefferson and/or Mussolini (as simple chronicle)?
All could be done for two yen a vol/ with percentage of 10% to authors. I mean print 'em in original language. J. T. readers numerous enough to cover the cost of printing. You might indeed be a pubr/ instead of a bibJiotecario/ No, probably too risky. A fixed job is the basis of sanity.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 109
But you must know a printer. I wd. cheerfully take a few shares in any company you told me was properly organized. Not as capitalist, but just toshowbyafewbucks,thatI thoughtthethinggoodbusiness.
Hell! Tauchnitz has made money enough.
Eliot's poems/ etc. It wd. be useful to you and VOU to have all the best foreign books available in Tokyo at a low price. Paper covers for prefer- ence.
/ by the way/ when did Bernie Pshaw ever see a Noh play and why did he think he knew what it was driving at?
Wonder if Kita/ no he cant have/ if that was first photo/ anyhow, wonder who did the damn good performance that I saw from film in Washing- ton?
Kita OUGHT to be smoked up to get all his performances onto a permanent record of that sort, both the movements and the sound.
What the hell he is doing in a Louis XIV wig beats me, unless it is the blinkin old lion, Ki lin or wott t' hell?
Henya hair is red and straight/ 1 dare say the "coils" iz the flossie dawg.
ever yrs E. Pound
106: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 February 1941
Dear Kit Kat
The metamorphosis of the Jap Times is from this distance an interesting study and very sad.
I take it the departure of Mr. Iwado coincides. I note that the village idiot has a column on Lahiri's book etc.
I should very much like to hear the whole story if you have patience to tell it. I had already indulged in conjectures during the month pre- vious to disappearance of Mr. Iwado and the Cub Reporter. I spose boys will be boys and youth youth. Anyhow I wd/ like it if not as history at least as romance and the development of the short story in the far east. Maupassant, to Caldwell or As you like it.
? 110 SECTIONII: 1936-66
In fact I wondered whether my Confucianism, or my economics, or my nationality /etc/etc/
107: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TL-1 [n. p. ]. 16 February 1941
Kat
I lived today a hokku, or at least it seems more suited to a Japanese context than to my heavier hand, so I offer it to the VOU club.
With the war there are this year no concerts by the Amici del Tigullio, the foreign subscribers are gone, but that wd/ not prevent us, there is no Gerhart Miinch, no pianist/ no public or perhaps there might be a public, but at any rate, I am the public.
Stage, a room on the hill among the olive trees
the violinist playing the air of Mozart's 16th violin sonata/
then a finch or some bird that escapes my ornithology tried to counterpoint. (aJJ through in key)
I suppose the subject is: War time. yours
(Storm, high seas. )
I think you have post cards of the cliffs here, and this is the season when the olives fall, partly with wind or rain/ hail for a few minutes today/
The impatient peasant rattles a bamboo in the olive twigs to get the olives down, but this is now against the regulations as they, the olives, are supposed to give more oil if they fall by themselves.
benedictions, yours
Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 111
108: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 12 March 1941
Dear Kit Kat
Have I asked, and have you answered: whether you have olive trees in Japan? and whether the peasants shake off the olives with bamboo poles?
The Janequin "Canzone degJi Uccelli," Miinch's version for violin, was printed in Townsman. I think I mention it also in ABC of Reading. ]. born end of Quattrocento/ about 1475, if I remember rightly. Otherwise these lines from a new Canto/ or rather for a new Canto, can go to the VOU club without explanation.
///Lines to go into Canto 72 or somewhere///
Now sun rises in Ram sign.
With clack of bamboos against olive stock
We have heard the birds praising Janequin And the black cat's tail is exalted.
The sexton of San Pantaleo plays "e mobile" on his carillon "un'eduo. . . cheladonnaemobile"
In the hill tower (videt et urbes) And a black head under white cherry boughs
Precedes us down the salita.
{Italian for stone path in hills. )
The water-bug's mittens show on the bright rock below him. (If I were 30 years younger I wd/ call 'em his boxing gJoves. )
I wonder if it is clear that I mean the shadow of the "mittens" and can you ideograph it . . . very like petals of blossom.
All of which shows that I am not wholly absorbed in saving Europe by economics.
Though if yr/ minister is coming to Berlin/ Rome, the Jap Times ought to go on with my articles, unless the seceding editor has taken 'em with him to enliven some other publication.
? 112 SECTIONII: 1936-66
I get more and more orthodox every day by not moving from positions taken ten or 20 years ago.
Have just finished clean copy of my translation of Por's Politica Economico-Sociale in Italia. / magnificently constructed as a book/ but HELL as sentence construction/ or rather hell if you don't knock every sentence to bits and remake it in English. My temper for past 3 weeks unfit for a self-respecting leopard cage in any zoo.
Do try to get some news from cummings/ etc.
benedictions/ Ezra Pound
Oh yes, I have spoken (to U. S. A. 8r England) on the radio several times from Rome. But I suppose the transmissions short wave for Tokio are only in Japanese? ?
109: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 25 March 1941
Dear Kit Kat
Had no sooner writ you (my Jast) than came "Diogenes" with yr/ mention of "olive tree"/ but no proof it was Jap olive.
///
I am still interested in Jap Times/ as last artel/ of mine to appear was my whoop of joy for Matsuoka's taking on his present job. I shd/ have thought paper cd/ stand that//
Note for you and VOU club/ that I sent yesterday to United Press a state- ment of plan for Pacific Peace//
We shd/ give you Guam but insist on getting Kumasaka and Kagekiyo in return.
i. e. INSIST on having 300 Noh plays done properly and recorded on sound film so as to be available to educate such amerikn stewdents as are capable of being cultur'd.
(parenthesis Henry Adams to Geo Santayana 45 years ago: "Ahhh, so you wish to teach at Harvard. Ah, it can not be done! ")
Of course I dont know that the U. P. will print the proposal. If they don't and if I am asked to broadcast again, I shall probably put it on the air.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66
113
Last /. T. Weekly mentioned Hoshu Saito and Gado Ono. I don't know whether there is record in P'enoilosa's notes of name of "master of ideo- graph" who did the ideograms that I now have. I think I merely heard thenamefromMrs. Fenollosa. After25yearsoneisabitvague. I think it was Saito. I wonder if there is any way of discovering whether Saito knew Fenollosa, or of identifying the "rays" ideogram (by its style) whichI havereproducedatstartofmy"Cantos52/71. "
I have merely given it as "from the Fenollosa collection"
I don't know whether you have the Nott edtn/ of the Written Character. All the ideograms there are, I believe, by the same hand/ at any rate all in same ink on same size sheets of rice paper; very black as to ink, very suave as to paper surface, almost a glaze.
// Mediterranean March
Black cat on the quince branch mousing blossoms
Message to the ex-governor who writes hokku/
For bigger and better glaring (in the Tokyo zoo) Let out the tiger
And put in the sassoon.
110: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 12 April 1941
Dear Kit Kat
"BuonaPasqua,"Thanksfor"highbrow,"I canmakeout what the subject matter is, I don't suppose I shall ever be able to read it without a crib.
Wouldn't Laughlin publish a translation either of the book as it stands, or of a selection of yr/ essays?
I have asked so many questions in my last six or ten letters that I don't
//
Ezra Pound
? 114 SECTIONII: 1936-66
know what more to ask. Fine season for airmen and suspended one for the arts in Europe. Meaning, no news save what you get from the news agencies.
cordially yours Ez. Pound
In fact the only "literary gossip" is from an old copy of Time I think it was, Mr. Eliot converting the Archbish. of York to a mixture of Christian- ity, communism and economics. In about that order.
Ill: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi magome-mati, omoriku, tokio. 28 May 1941
Dear Mr. Ezra Pound,
Thank you for your letter of April 12. 1 am very sorry I haven't written answers for your letters so long that your questions have run out.
As you know VOU is changed its name to singijyutu.
My latest book of poems, Hard Egg, has reached you by now, hasn't it? I translated your Hokku "Mediterranean March" and wrote it in my poor hand. You will know what a great master Gado Ono is, as compared with mine.
As well as you we get very little news in Tokio.
Charles Ford has published his book of poems, Overturned Lake, is the only latest news?
How is Duncan?
Townsman reaches me no longer. YouroriginalplanforPacificpeacewasquicklyprintedin/. T. Mayit
be realized like a miracle of 20th century!
Do you receive ]. T.
Meant to write about the Scarlatti week/ but too much else needing divulgation/ "Four Scarlats don't make a Vivaldi," not by no means but Guarnieri had got the opera into shape/ orchestra etc/ playing properly, which it wasn't last year.
J. T. my last remaining source of information re/ the U/S. I don't even know whether Jas/ has got out the Am/ edtn/ 52/71 Cantos.
Itoh's book (Brit. Emp. 8r Peop. ) ought to be pubd/ at once in some eu- ropean language. Possibly serialized in J. T. or at least summarized. After all in the Ban Gumi the pacification of the country precedes the lofty reflection, or plays of pussy-cology.
Great excitements last month/ thought of going to U. S. to annoy 'em but Clipper won't take anything except mails until Dec 15, so am back here at the old stand/ Thank god I didn't get as far as Portugal and get stuck there.
Pious reflections on my having spent 12 years in London/ 4 in Paris and now 16 or 17 in Italy/ Which you can take as estimate etc/etc/ {of nation- al values. ) I dunno what my 23 (infantile years) in America signify/ 1 left as soon as motion was autarchic; I mean my motion. Curious letch of Americans to try to start a civilization there/ or rather to REstart it: be- cause there seems to have been some up till 1863/. (1 shd still like to. )
Have you ever had the gargantuan appetite necessary for comparing the J. T. with AMERICAN daily or Sunday wypers? ? ? Or to consider what Japan does NOT import in the way of news print? ? Oh well; don't. Let it alone, and get out another issue of VOU.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 101
Any news of living autiiors wd/ be welcome. Gornoze whats become of Possum and Duncan and Angold, or the pacific Bunting.
Cultural Policy of Japan? ? Vide Ez' Guide to KuJchur, facilitated by Ez system of Economics, now the program of Ministers Funk and Riccardi, tho I dont spose they know it was mine.
yours E. P.
(re The U. S. vide my Make it New, Remy de Gourmont's letter: "Con- querir J'Amerique n'est pas sans doute votre seuJ but. "] Funny trick of memory,I thoughthehadwritten"civilizerI'Amerique. "Thatmust have been in my note to him.
100: Ezra Pound to Fosco Maraini TL-2 [n. p. ] 11 November 1940
Dear Sig. Maraini
. . . Do you also see my notes in the Japan Times March 3, June 13, July 21, Aug. 22, Sept. 12?
You could assist the (inboosting) Confucian revival if you wd/ write both to the editors of the Jap Times and to Di Marzio backing up what I say. The Meridiano needs more news of oriental books.
Do meet Kitasono Katue, VOU club (unless it is through him that you know of me). Nisi 1 tiome 1649, Magome Mati, Omori, Tokyo. He runs the liveliest magazine in the world.
Am trying to jazz up the Meridiano to the level of VOU. but it is heavy going and damn'd hard to get collaboration. Italians do not spontaneous- ly cooperate until they have a Duce to jam 'em together. A damn furriner can't do it. Then as soon as a man is any good he gets a job in an office and has no time save for his job.
Do for god's sake take up some point in my articles and write on that, with reference to it. If three or four of us start noticing each other's writ- ings, we can get something done.
At present all Italian (writers) either ignore each other or spend their time in irrelevant chatter, except re/ economics. Current issue of Gerar- chia has three articles worth noticing. Meridiano never has more than two in one issue. And no two contributors ever hit the same bullseye, or rather Di Marzio and I did cohere once but quite by accident; or rather
? 102 SECTIONII: 1936-66
without collusion. Not by accident but accidentally as to timing.
Would be most useful if you cd/ do article saying damn Lao-Tsze. Attack idea of studying "chinese philosophy" as if all Chinese philosophy had merit/ whereas some is no better than the shitten old testament/ which is crap, immoral, barbarous/ poison injected into Europe. Xtianity, the sane part of it is a european construction/ stoic morals and cosmogony. Deus est Amor. That is O. K. Believe Ovid knew that, or at least Amor Deus est. Mencius volume is the most modern book in the world. Take that as FROM ME, and do an article on it for Di Marzio.
Also (my econ. book) gives a fairly full list of all the possible varieties of human imbecility. Have you, by the way, any idea what has become of a group of neo-Confucians gathered round a chink named Tuan Szetsun who used to print pamphlets in Shanghai back in 1934? 862 Boone Rd. Shanghai. World prayer, etc.
cordially yours
I think Kitasono has a number of my books, which you may not know. Give you better idea of what I have done re/ [iJJegibiel. Cant get any real news from America.
(What about transiating Itoh? ) (vide enciosure)
101: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 15 November 1940
(jAPERICAN? ? )
Dear K/K?
Two articles, one by Mr. Setsuo Uenoda, and one by Dr. Tatsuo Tsukui in the }. T. Weekly for Oct. 17th ought to start discussion in the VOU club, if you are still lucky enough to corral eleven poets in one place.
The Kana syllabic writing is clumsy and cumbersome; I mean that the latin alphabet with 26 or even 24 signs will do all the work of the syll- able signs and is immeasurably easier to remember.
I suggest that in each issue of VOU you print at least one poem, prefer-
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 103
ably the best poem with a transliteration into roman alphabet. Stick to the Italian significance of the vowels. Japanese sounds very much like italian. English and french spelling does not represent the sound of the words as logically as Italian spelling, and is not constant in indicating what sound it implies.
IDEOGRAM is essential to {the exposition of) certain kinds of thought. Greek philosophy was mostly a mere splitting, an impoverish- ment of understanding, though it ultimately led to development of par- ticular sciences. Socrates a distinguished gas-bag in comparison with Confucius and Mencius.
At any rate I need ideogram. I mean I need it in and for my own job, BUT I also need sound and phonetics. Several half-wits in a state of half education have sniffed at my going on with Fenollosa's use of the Japanese sounds for reading ideogram. I propose to continue. As sheer sound "Dai Gaku" is better than "Ta Tsii. " When it comes to the ques- tion of transmitting from the East to the West, a great part of the Chinese sound is no use at all. We don't hear parts of it, (much of) the rest is a hiss, or a mumble. Fenollosa wrote, I think justly, that Japan had kept the old sounds for the Odes long after the various invasions from the north had ruined them in China. Tones can not be learnt at three thousand miles distance any how, or at any rate, never have been.
The national defence of Basho and Chikamatsu can be maintained by use of the latin alphabet. If any young Tanakas want to set out for world conquest, on the lines Ubicumque Jingua Romano ibi Roma (wherever the latin tongue, there Rome) you will invade much better by giving us the sound of yr/ verse in these latin signs that are understood from the Volga to the West coast of Canada, in Australia, and from Finland to the Capes of Good Hope and Horn.
English had conquered vast territories by absorbing other tongues, that is to say it has pouched most latin roots and has variants on them handy for use where french and even Italian have shown less flexibility; it has taken in lashin's of greek, swallowed mediaeval french, while keeping its solid anglo-saxon basis. It then petrified in the tight little is- land, but American seems to be getting into Tokyo. Question of whether want to "preserve" Japanese in test tubes or swallow the American vocabulary is for you to decide.
I still think, as I wrote last year, that with Italian, Ideogram and English (American brand] you can have a tri-lingual system for world use. But spurred on by T. T. and S. U. I wd/ amend my suggestion of us- ing the kana writing with the ideograms and say use the latin letters.
? 104 SECTIONII: 1936-66
One wd/ learn Japanese more quickly if with each chunk of con- versation dictionary offered by the /. T. we could have something worth reading printed bilingually.
Throughout all history and despite all academies, living language has been inclusive and not exclusive.
(japerican) Japerican may well replace pidgin even in our time but Japanese will never become lingua franca until its sound is printed in the simplest possible manner.
102: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TCS-1 Via Marsala 12-5. 22 November Anno XIX [1940]
Dear Kit Kat
Next time I have a bit of money from /. T. please take out for me a six months subscription to the daily edition. I don't get enough news from the Weekly. However dull you may think the paper, it is a dn/ sight more lively than the usual dailies. Have you had any news of Duncan, or Eliot or anyone? Bloke named Maraini seems to see Meri- diano now and then. I wonder if your copies have come? They promised to send them.
yours
Ezra Pound
(I have told him to see you, hut forget what town he is in; may he half way up Euji. )
103: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 5 December 1940 (Giovedi)
Dear KitKat
You will be pleased/ relieved/ honour'd/ bored or whatever to hear that the money order allegedly 451/ rearrove today with a supple- mentary order for 405/ also Polite letter in english to local postmaster
yours E. Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 105
from idem in Tokyo/ saying the clerk had err'd. (The one from last Au- gust or September)
You will observe from the enclosed that it needed a "magical aspect" of two major orbs/ etc.
L'OROSCOPO DEL 5. --Questo giovedi pri- vo di configurazioni lunari, passera sotto il dominiediunmagicoaspettotrail Solee Giove che facilitera la conclusione di buoni affari ma per contro dovremo fre- nare le spese, particolarmente se causate dal be! sesso.
MARIO SEGATO.
Do the Jap papers include horror/scopes? Two Italian journals print 'em/ and in London several million ephemerides of the stars (Zadkiel and Old Moore) used to be sold. Yeats potty on the subject.
Not easily perceiving that men {differ one from another)/ he needed some explanation or stimulus to note that some like boiled ham for din- ner, whereas others (genteeJ irish) think it vulgar. Have known him in- sulted by its appearance {at eventide). Ace/ him and his Li Ki/ it shd/ be eaten cold for breakfast only, and so forth.
How long it takes for men of different even if contiguous nations etc//
Chinese diplomat said to me lately/ two peoples ought to be brothers/ they read the same books/ believe he was a Chiang K/Cheker at that.
salve/ banzai/ wan soui/ alala;
und so weiter. yours
Ezra Pound
104: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 30 December 1940
Dear Kit Kat
HAPPY NEW YEAR. And thanks for Lahiri's book. How much does he know? How seriously am I to take the book? Several dozen ques-
? 106 SECTIONII: 1936-66
tions. re/ Roppeita Kita. This (school) opposed to Umewaka Minoru's? Or not, as I note the son is called Minoru.
What is the point of the curls? Or are they only used for the red lion's mane?
/
I note that Ito is back/ pp/ in Jap Times a bit queer. May be O. K. Miscio's strong point was never moral fervour, and he may have a sane desire to popularize, (or not? ) however Tami Kume who had studied Noh, though he hadn't in 1915 Ito's inventiveness etc/ had by training something that Miscio hadn't (quite naturally had not at age of 23) got by improvisation.
Do you see these old buzzards who are "in spite of the weight of 55 win- ters" etc. still amazing yr/ hindoo by being alive? I mean does Mushakoji or Kita etc/ know what you are up to? Or are the ages kept in separate compartments?
Antidote for Xtianity? I mean take it early before it poisons Japan with its Semitic elements.
Any useful action to be taken, or does yr/ generation merely ignore it? Obviously almost any religion can be taken up by an artist who will select only its better part and ignore its evils.
Subject not simple. Am wondering whether any good can be done by starting an article in Italian: "Christianity will come out of this war like a plucked chicken. . . . " following or preceding the remark with allusions to collaboration of anglican bishops and the papal gang with usury and jews.
I suppose Y. Yashiro is bloke whose book on Botticelli 1 saw at Yeats' ten years or more ago?
What I dont make out is whether one cd/ talk with Mushakoji/ whether he is SET on Beethoven, or whether that list of three names is due to his unfamiliarity with what I think is better. I mean does he like 'em for their real merits/ or because they are different from Jap work/ or what?
Am all for boom in Confucius/ but hear there is some very poor neo- Confucianism on the Chinese market. Weak generalities/
Mencius is the most modern author. I mean still, today, the most modern/ 1940 whereas Aragon is 1920. Or was.
Put it: do japs of my age live where my elders were when they (jap con- temporaries) were in Europe?
Neue Sachlichkeit sounds O. K. ; naturally Italy hasn't yet heard of it.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 107
Frobenius was contemporary. Dare say I have touched on these points before. Shd/ like pointers re/ jap Times/ whether I am being too UNchris- tian for 'em/ or whether they are getting bored (nowt printed for some time) or whether my economics are too orthodox. Colliers wouldn't like 'em. But Senator Frazier has caught the boat/ which Volpi has not.
Another line of enquiry: do you, Ito, Mushakoji and Kita agree on any- thing? And if so what?
Or do you set round and never meet (as in England different sects)
Sometimes damn foreigner can introduce proper people across clique frontiers. As activist, shd/ like to know if useful collaboration possible between me and any of 'em/ either to get full sound film of Noh/ or more lively Confucian comprehension.
Anyhow, Happy New Year/ damn Churchill and lets hope that Frankie Roosevelt will lie down now he has a third term to play with.
yours
Ezra Pound
(Why am I not translated? Any one outside VOU club ever read a hook by E. P. ? )
{Don't send compliments--I am interested in knowing why. )
105: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 31 December 1940
Dear Kit Kat
FOR VOU
Lahiri's book gives the impression, possibly a wrong one, that Y. Noguchi & Mushakoji may be living in what was in England and Amer- ica the era of 1890 or even of 1888.
I wish I could convince VOU club that economics, and in particular the preoccupation with the nature of money and the effects of usury are not a bee in my sole and personal bonnet.
The surrealists. Max Ernst and the lot of 'em (Crevel being their best writer, and not quite of them) were all represented in The Little Re- view in 1923.
? 108 SECTIONII: 1936-66
A surrealist treatment of money would be contemporary, today, 1940 or still better anno xix del Era fascista.
This awareness is not a mere idiosyncrasy of mine. The most vital poets in the West, Bunting, cummings, Angold are all awake to it. So is W. C. Williams, so is Ron Duncan, editor of Townsman, who pre- ceded Laughlin in printing VOU poems, so is and has been T. S. Eliot from the day he wrote Bleistein: "The jew is underneath the lot. "
It is proper that up to the age of crucifixion (32) the poet be lyric. After that he withers, I think, if he does not feel some curiosity as to the locus of his own perceptions and passions. By locus I mean their movement in relation to the humanity about him.
E. P.
DearK/
The preceding page is to print if VOU has space. This page is private, repeating possibly points from yesterday's letter.
You would help me considerably if you can find time to say why my books are not translated into Japanese. VOU has done all it can, and is doing all it can, as a magazine. But couldn't Japan print a series of books in English and/or other languages at a reasonable price? A Jap publisher could even sell copies in Europe (Continent where Eng. & Am. public haven't contracted by rights. ) if he wd. go to it and print the good books that that bloody swine Tauchnitz and Albatross (united) (a jew named Reese, amusing card but evil. ) does not and never will print.
Naturally I wd/ be only too glad to tell the publisher what is, and has for the past 50 years been worth reading.
Half dozen of dozen H. James/ W. H. Hudson, a little of F. M. Ford. My anthology Profile, my Kuich. More Thos. Hardy. Possibly some Frobenius/ Crevel's Pieds dans le Plat.
Is there in Japan an available edtn/ of Madame Bovary/ Educ Sen- timentaJe, or of Corbiere, Laforgue, Rimbaud? Or of Gautier's Emaux et Camees?
Or my Jefferson and/or Mussolini (as simple chronicle)?
All could be done for two yen a vol/ with percentage of 10% to authors. I mean print 'em in original language. J. T. readers numerous enough to cover the cost of printing. You might indeed be a pubr/ instead of a bibJiotecario/ No, probably too risky. A fixed job is the basis of sanity.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 109
But you must know a printer. I wd. cheerfully take a few shares in any company you told me was properly organized. Not as capitalist, but just toshowbyafewbucks,thatI thoughtthethinggoodbusiness.
Hell! Tauchnitz has made money enough.
Eliot's poems/ etc. It wd. be useful to you and VOU to have all the best foreign books available in Tokyo at a low price. Paper covers for prefer- ence.
/ by the way/ when did Bernie Pshaw ever see a Noh play and why did he think he knew what it was driving at?
Wonder if Kita/ no he cant have/ if that was first photo/ anyhow, wonder who did the damn good performance that I saw from film in Washing- ton?
Kita OUGHT to be smoked up to get all his performances onto a permanent record of that sort, both the movements and the sound.
What the hell he is doing in a Louis XIV wig beats me, unless it is the blinkin old lion, Ki lin or wott t' hell?
Henya hair is red and straight/ 1 dare say the "coils" iz the flossie dawg.
ever yrs E. Pound
106: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 February 1941
Dear Kit Kat
The metamorphosis of the Jap Times is from this distance an interesting study and very sad.
I take it the departure of Mr. Iwado coincides. I note that the village idiot has a column on Lahiri's book etc.
I should very much like to hear the whole story if you have patience to tell it. I had already indulged in conjectures during the month pre- vious to disappearance of Mr. Iwado and the Cub Reporter. I spose boys will be boys and youth youth. Anyhow I wd/ like it if not as history at least as romance and the development of the short story in the far east. Maupassant, to Caldwell or As you like it.
? 110 SECTIONII: 1936-66
In fact I wondered whether my Confucianism, or my economics, or my nationality /etc/etc/
107: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TL-1 [n. p. ]. 16 February 1941
Kat
I lived today a hokku, or at least it seems more suited to a Japanese context than to my heavier hand, so I offer it to the VOU club.
With the war there are this year no concerts by the Amici del Tigullio, the foreign subscribers are gone, but that wd/ not prevent us, there is no Gerhart Miinch, no pianist/ no public or perhaps there might be a public, but at any rate, I am the public.
Stage, a room on the hill among the olive trees
the violinist playing the air of Mozart's 16th violin sonata/
then a finch or some bird that escapes my ornithology tried to counterpoint. (aJJ through in key)
I suppose the subject is: War time. yours
(Storm, high seas. )
I think you have post cards of the cliffs here, and this is the season when the olives fall, partly with wind or rain/ hail for a few minutes today/
The impatient peasant rattles a bamboo in the olive twigs to get the olives down, but this is now against the regulations as they, the olives, are supposed to give more oil if they fall by themselves.
benedictions, yours
Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 111
108: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 12 March 1941
Dear Kit Kat
Have I asked, and have you answered: whether you have olive trees in Japan? and whether the peasants shake off the olives with bamboo poles?
The Janequin "Canzone degJi Uccelli," Miinch's version for violin, was printed in Townsman. I think I mention it also in ABC of Reading. ]. born end of Quattrocento/ about 1475, if I remember rightly. Otherwise these lines from a new Canto/ or rather for a new Canto, can go to the VOU club without explanation.
///Lines to go into Canto 72 or somewhere///
Now sun rises in Ram sign.
With clack of bamboos against olive stock
We have heard the birds praising Janequin And the black cat's tail is exalted.
The sexton of San Pantaleo plays "e mobile" on his carillon "un'eduo. . . cheladonnaemobile"
In the hill tower (videt et urbes) And a black head under white cherry boughs
Precedes us down the salita.
{Italian for stone path in hills. )
The water-bug's mittens show on the bright rock below him. (If I were 30 years younger I wd/ call 'em his boxing gJoves. )
I wonder if it is clear that I mean the shadow of the "mittens" and can you ideograph it . . . very like petals of blossom.
All of which shows that I am not wholly absorbed in saving Europe by economics.
Though if yr/ minister is coming to Berlin/ Rome, the Jap Times ought to go on with my articles, unless the seceding editor has taken 'em with him to enliven some other publication.
? 112 SECTIONII: 1936-66
I get more and more orthodox every day by not moving from positions taken ten or 20 years ago.
Have just finished clean copy of my translation of Por's Politica Economico-Sociale in Italia. / magnificently constructed as a book/ but HELL as sentence construction/ or rather hell if you don't knock every sentence to bits and remake it in English. My temper for past 3 weeks unfit for a self-respecting leopard cage in any zoo.
Do try to get some news from cummings/ etc.
benedictions/ Ezra Pound
Oh yes, I have spoken (to U. S. A. 8r England) on the radio several times from Rome. But I suppose the transmissions short wave for Tokio are only in Japanese? ?
109: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 25 March 1941
Dear Kit Kat
Had no sooner writ you (my Jast) than came "Diogenes" with yr/ mention of "olive tree"/ but no proof it was Jap olive.
///
I am still interested in Jap Times/ as last artel/ of mine to appear was my whoop of joy for Matsuoka's taking on his present job. I shd/ have thought paper cd/ stand that//
Note for you and VOU club/ that I sent yesterday to United Press a state- ment of plan for Pacific Peace//
We shd/ give you Guam but insist on getting Kumasaka and Kagekiyo in return.
i. e. INSIST on having 300 Noh plays done properly and recorded on sound film so as to be available to educate such amerikn stewdents as are capable of being cultur'd.
(parenthesis Henry Adams to Geo Santayana 45 years ago: "Ahhh, so you wish to teach at Harvard. Ah, it can not be done! ")
Of course I dont know that the U. P. will print the proposal. If they don't and if I am asked to broadcast again, I shall probably put it on the air.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66
113
Last /. T. Weekly mentioned Hoshu Saito and Gado Ono. I don't know whether there is record in P'enoilosa's notes of name of "master of ideo- graph" who did the ideograms that I now have. I think I merely heard thenamefromMrs. Fenollosa. After25yearsoneisabitvague. I think it was Saito. I wonder if there is any way of discovering whether Saito knew Fenollosa, or of identifying the "rays" ideogram (by its style) whichI havereproducedatstartofmy"Cantos52/71. "
I have merely given it as "from the Fenollosa collection"
I don't know whether you have the Nott edtn/ of the Written Character. All the ideograms there are, I believe, by the same hand/ at any rate all in same ink on same size sheets of rice paper; very black as to ink, very suave as to paper surface, almost a glaze.
// Mediterranean March
Black cat on the quince branch mousing blossoms
Message to the ex-governor who writes hokku/
For bigger and better glaring (in the Tokyo zoo) Let out the tiger
And put in the sassoon.
110: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-1 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 12 April 1941
Dear Kit Kat
"BuonaPasqua,"Thanksfor"highbrow,"I canmakeout what the subject matter is, I don't suppose I shall ever be able to read it without a crib.
Wouldn't Laughlin publish a translation either of the book as it stands, or of a selection of yr/ essays?
I have asked so many questions in my last six or ten letters that I don't
//
Ezra Pound
? 114 SECTIONII: 1936-66
know what more to ask. Fine season for airmen and suspended one for the arts in Europe. Meaning, no news save what you get from the news agencies.
cordially yours Ez. Pound
In fact the only "literary gossip" is from an old copy of Time I think it was, Mr. Eliot converting the Archbish. of York to a mixture of Christian- ity, communism and economics. In about that order.
Ill: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi magome-mati, omoriku, tokio. 28 May 1941
Dear Mr. Ezra Pound,
Thank you for your letter of April 12. 1 am very sorry I haven't written answers for your letters so long that your questions have run out.
As you know VOU is changed its name to singijyutu.
My latest book of poems, Hard Egg, has reached you by now, hasn't it? I translated your Hokku "Mediterranean March" and wrote it in my poor hand. You will know what a great master Gado Ono is, as compared with mine.
As well as you we get very little news in Tokio.
Charles Ford has published his book of poems, Overturned Lake, is the only latest news?
How is Duncan?
Townsman reaches me no longer. YouroriginalplanforPacificpeacewasquicklyprintedin/. T. Mayit
be realized like a miracle of 20th century!
Do you receive ]. T.
