However if the young
cerement
is hopeful, the time not wasted.
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
P.
Williams: in a letter of February 1957 William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) told his college pal EP: ''I do enjoy EDGE--the last translations from the chink by/of David Rafael Wang are worth the trip half way round the world to have encountered'' (Beinecke). For Wang's collaboration with Williams, see ''The Cassia Tree,'' New Directions, 19 (1966); rpt. in Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, vol. ii, ed. Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1988). The EP/ Williams relation is chronicled in Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, ed. Hugh Witemeyer (New York: New Directions, 1996).
151 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [February/March 1957]
Dear Hsin
The foregoing for use on idiots or others.
IF I were recommending anywhere in particular I wd/ tell you to apply to
what I think is called Washington U. east shore Maryland, in reach of the nashnz's keppertl.
There is at least one literate there, and he says the faculty is not lousy, which is mostly the case in murkn beaneries.
You might drop an enquiry to Tom Jones
113 Maple Av
Chestertown, Md.
He is interested in Corneille / in disagreement with Monsieur Reid I believe/ but that doesn't in least imply that he wd/ agree with Hsin.
BUT, damn it, a human being, literate, on ANY campus is a reason for at least
enquiring into local facilities.
Why THE hell don't anyone go see D. D. Paige <141 E. 44th St. >, who does
know something about N. C. tho I dont think he was at Duke.
Hold on/ I think it is the U. N. C. that stincgks. At any rate dont know anyone
there/ ask PAIGE.
186 from poetry to politics
As to Pindaric urge . . . it led Pin to rhetoric, or @ least that was my impression. [signed] Z
Washington U. : in spring 1958 Wang enrolled at the University of Maryland.
Tom Jones: in a letter to EP of 1 November 1956, Tom Jones introduces himself as ''president of the Mount Vernon Literary Society of Washington College, in Chestertown, Maryland'' (Beinecke).
Reid: Ralph Reid. See Letter 147 n. D. D. Paige: see Letter 28 n.
152 Wang to EP (TLS-2; Beinecke)
14 Marzo [March 1957]
IMPORTANT clariWcation:
Hsin has no Pindaric urge--at least what E. P. calls the Pindaric urge. Hsin, not being a genius, realizes his own limitations.
As Hsin sees it,
the greatest Narrative poems have been written by Homer, Chaucer, and Po
Chu-Yi;
the greatest love poems by Propertius, Catullus, and Ovid;
the greatest Imagiste poems by Li Po and Wang Wei;
the greatest Religious poems by Yeats and, perhaps, Blake;
the greatest poems on Ethics and Morality by Dante;
the greatest Dramatic poems by Shakespeare;
and the greatest Political poems by E. P. and Tu Fu/
What is actually left for Hsin to write but a subject in which he can excel others? The point is that no one has written anything DECENT about sports except
Homer (in snatches). And if you try to write artistically about the speed, the color, and the sound and fury of boxing, you'll Wnd it more diYcult than writing about the ethos of Confucius. HAN and T'ANG dynasties emphasized sports besides the arts. MING and CH'ING dynasties relegated athletics to an inferior position. The Greeks were aware of the importance of exercise. But the modern Chinese have neglected it. The consequence: the Chinese became eVeminate weaklings bullied by the West. The great Chinese novels, The One Hundred and Eight Bandits (or Water Margin) ? ? , and The Dream of the Red Chamber ? ? ? illustrate two diVerent concepts of the CHINESE HERO. In the former the men are real Chinese, i. e. virile and lusty; in the latter the hero is a Proustian type degenerate a la France. Before the Yuan Dynasty the artists were also men; after the Sung Dynasty the poets and painters were intellectual molly-coddles, as found mostly in France and the United States today.
(Incidentally, these two novels are better than anything [Henry] James has written. )
[New York]
? ? ? ? ? ? from poetry to politics 187
E. P. is a great tennis player, per esempio [for example]. If E. P. were an eVemi- nate, he would not have written Personae and The Cantos. AND you know what Kung thought of the athletic Tze-Lou and Julius Caesar of the athletic Antony.
[signed] ?
Po Chu-Yi: see Glossary on Bo Juyi.
? ? : a masterpiece of Wction about 108 outlaws (c. 1370) attributed to Shi Naian (c. 1296-c. 1372). See
Outlaws of the Marshes, trans. Sydney Shapiro (1980).
? ? ? : a masterpiece of Wction depicting the decline of a powerful family and the tragedy of two
young lovers (1754) by Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-c. 1763). See A Dream of Red Chambers, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (1978).
153 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 21 Mar [1957]
HSIN/
wot is the min chih party / it's [its] badge not in ideogram /
people's WHAT party, there being 5000 chihs.
I take it Ching mei, is the keppertal of the ex-republic of the U. S. and a
Washington delegate of the elegant plum bank might be of a district, or of WHAT?
The lady wot sez <she wuz> Idaho and mormon, dont appear malevolent, but the paper DEcidedly unsegregated.
whether useful <place wherein> to suggest that Ez is against certain diseases of thought that have aZicked various races / there being a lot of non-semitic jews, etc.
I don't know
You probably know by now that the gal [Anne Lebeck] is (or is said to be 26 of age) etc.
she thanks me fer prospect of printing you/ but you have not been expan- siVO on the ambience or chances/
Got to be kept separate from the distinctive quality of Edge/
the min chih has a red badge but it dont look hroosian red/ said to have scared old Mr whazzisname. bolshies in Mathews dic/ have other labels/ not min chih old Lampmen kusses Bill W[illia]ms/ BUT you realize that for 50 years there have been almost NO amerians writing to say what they think, 99. 9999%
writing to try to get past a copy desk.
hence the value of Bill W.
Mrs Ponsot refers to the ''copy cathedral'' her blurb says ''so far they have 5 children. ''
Ouan soui [Cheers] [signed] Z
? ? 188 from poetry to politics
min chih party. . . Ching mei . . . lady: see Letter 155.
old Lampmen: Rex Herbert Lampman, an inmate of St Elizabeths, began corresponding with EP
after his release in 1953.
Mrs Ponsot: Marie Ponsot, New York poet whose Wrst book was True Minds (San Francisco: City
Lights, 1956).
154 EP to Wang (TLS-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 7 Ap [1957]
Not clear if Hsin turned down by ONE bloodyversity or turned down altogether/
More I see it, and remind of what in Cantos I had forgot, more I see REMARKABLE Manchus /
a subject which the HSIN could treat carrying dynamite to blow the buggahs oV their bloody bugrocratic elevations.
I admit that the dynamite in trans/ of Odes has got silent treatment BUT it may seep thru in another 40 years/
Va. Poetry Soc. in yester, aware of timelag.
The Manchu DYnasty / looks like an innocent subject, all safely past etc.
? [Make it new]
to git some PERsonality into chinKIstory / as Psellos into Byzantine FEEmales.
What the devil is the
?
?
wise guy, big shot?
[signed] EP
REMARKABLE Manchus: the remarkable Qing emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng (Kang Hi and Yong Tching) of Cantos 60-1 and 98-9.
Psellos: the Byzantine theologian Michael Constantine Psellus (c. 1018-78) was the author of Chronographie.
155 Wang to EP (ALS-2; Beinecke)
Apt. 9, 242 Mulberry St. New York 12, n. y. April 7, 1957
Meant to answer you sooner. But am busy writing the Wfth canto of ''The Grandfather Cycle'' and a full-length play.
One business at a time:
from poetry to politics 189
Wrote to D. D. Paige several days ago. Heard rumor that he had left for Europe.
Finally saw Williams as you had suggested. He wanted to write a preface to my grandfather poems and suggested that I should send them to Henry Rago of Poetry, Chicago. He won't be any more help to me on my fellowship applica- tions. Too late: I have been turned down by all the universities for some damn reason I can't Wgure out.
Am not sure of the etymology of ? ? . Will have to check in the authorita- tive ? ? [Kangxi] dictionary for you.
As for A[nne]. Lebeck, she is already looked after.
Min Chih Party is deWnitely ? ? , a reform party during the reign of Tse` Hsi, the Empress Dowager. It was also known as the movement of Kang and Liang ? ? ? ? . The young king [emperor] ? ? [Guangxu], who supported the movement, was later locked up by the Empress Dowager, a vicious old hag.
Mei Ching, not Ching Mei, should be the Chinese version of the ''keppertal of the ex-republic of the U. S. ''
? ? are the ideograms.
Plum: national Xower of China. A plum bank ought to be a Chinese bank. B. Romney is a genuine Mormon: she knows her ancestry well. She still has
hundreds of relatives in Utah. Though a bit ''villagey,'' she is decidedly not diseased. She is attached to a French-Canadian, not to any Jewish boy.
Will you quote the whole sentence which includes ? ? ? I must know the context to answer accurately.
Greetings to D. P. [signed] ?
P. S. Enclosed a short poem about Li Po, with Tu Fu and E. P. in it. Wonder if I should send it to the Edge.
''The Grandfather Cycle'': a long poem of 101 cantos of which Wang Wnished Wfteen. Its Wrst four cantos appeared in the June 1957 issue of Poetry Broadside. See the Wrst Wfteen cantos in The Human Voice, 2/1 (1966), 31-6.
Romney: Barbara Romney, editor of Poetry Broadside.
156 EP to Wang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 3 May [1957]
No objection to Marcella's having ideas, fancy or otherwise
incline to favor ACTivity/ as anthropologist, instructive to observe activity/ inactivity / vide Mang Tze, less phenomenal, ergo less food provided the observer.
190 from poetry to politics
///
Not all things from one man/
of the FEW (damn) bits of sapience from U. S. pragmatik.
''not what you know but whom you know''/
murkns enslaved cause wont communicate with each other/
not necessary to use their intelligence if they have mobilizable $ and enough
intelligence to permit extraction or direction of same/
Lee Lady has rustled $20 for Edg/etc. the HOPE of appearing shd/be used as lure tho subscribers are not REQuired to contribute their own compositions. And Graves (funereal name) can't be expected to consider Sharp a poet who
suggested that S/ was being inserted with that label.
However if the young cerement is hopeful, the time not wasted.
Wang at lib/ to try to gaze on the 5 young Ponsot and their paternal painter. 8920 172nd St
Jamaica 32, N. Y.
excuse for intrusion, you are looking for ms/ for EDGE, and want be sure a
review copy of her bk/ has been sent to Stock/
yu cd/ even do a paragraph on it, IF you can stand it.
thanks fer trying to contact Miss Tseng.
Of course if Graves was burried in a female german, he wd/ react nihilisti-
cally, and the slavs ARE savages and the limitations of the German Anschauung have been noted.
tho I doubt if John Dewey was competent to do so.
fergarzACHE dont think every name I send yu as subject of investigation is assumed to be source of LIGHT
KUANG KUANG MING MING etc.
no nacherly I have not read books ''ON'' by any of 'em. <Sandry or Sandri>
if the buggars cant katchee some FACT of use or interest, I prefer to git on with my own chop.
No interest in Frost, Sandbag [Sanburg] or even in Elvis the Pelvis. no objection to others having it.
Lee Lady: Lee Lady (b. 1939) visited EP in 1956-8. After taking degrees in mathematics and Greek, he earned a Ph. D. from New Mexico State University (1972). He was a math professor at University of Hawaii from 1977 to 2001.
Graves: Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985), British poet, novelist, and critic.
Sharp: Bob Sharp. See Letter 146.
Miss Tseng: in a letter to EP of 2 May 1957 Wang reports: ''Mrs. Pao Swen Tseng has already
departed for Formosa, according to information supplied by the Chinese Delegation'' (Bei-
necke).
KUANG KUANG MING MING: the phrase from Wang Youpu's expansion of Kangxi's ''Sacred Edict''
means ''enlightened. '' It surfaces in Canto 99/722.
Elvis the Pelvis: American rock-and-roll icon Elvis Presley (1935-77)
from poetry to politics 191
157 Wang to EP (TLS-6; Beinecke)
4 Luglio [July 1957]
Caro Maestro [Dear Master],
Been busy working on article on modern chinese literature and translating
some poems for EDGE. Also doing a bit of work on the Edicts. Heard from Stock, who turned down my ''Mr. Universe'' poem. Read Stock's own poem in EDGE No. 4 and have a very low opinion of it. It leads me to wonder why so many inferior poets are magazine editors (e. g. Karl Shapiro, Stephen Spender, John Crowe Ransom and anthologists Sheldon Rodman, Rolfe Humphries, Oscar Williams among a host of other mediocrities).
Wonder if E. P. has ever seen an issue of POETRY TAOS. It combines cheesecake with poetry. W. C. Williams showed me a copy of it. Between covers of nude young ladies in technicolor there are sheaves of modern verse.
New York is not completely dead. There is at least one boy I know who's doing some honest work. Tom Sullivan, whom I mentioned in last letter, is hard at work on Brook[s] Adams and Zi[e]linski. He has written some insipid verse in the manner of Edgar Lee Masters, but his prose style is quite decent. His autobio- graphical sketches remind me vaguely of passages out of Portrait [of the Artist as a Young Man], but he cannot be just dismissed as an imitator of J[ames] J[oyce].
Nora was here. Told about Horton's anti-Kasper campaign. Hsin mistrusts all people with Xat heads and big jowls.
The Wrst four cantos of THE GRANDFATEHR CYCLE has [have] already come out in Romney's rag. With her usual woman's incompetence, she has allowed the printer to mutilate my poems abominably. As a result, a whole page of corrections has to be mimeographed. She is now staying at her beau's summer home in Jersey.
Marie Ponsot not heard from. It seems that after I had mentioned about my interest in eugenics, she decided not to see me. After all, the Catholic Church considers eugenics as sorcery.
Saw pore Ann[e] [Lebeck] last night. She insisted that women could be as intelligent as men if they so desired. She wanted to get a Ph. D. some day. Would like to write philosophical articles. Asked Hsin why E. P. has been partial to Marcella [Spann] and less fond of her. Hsin disagreed with her on all points. Adolf [Hitler] knew where women should belong more than any other political leaders. Told her that gloriWcation of the ''New Woman'' by merky thinkers like Ibsen and GBS [Shaw] has lead [led] to family disunity and political chaos in the West. Shaw as an antidote for Englishmen and westernized Chinese is excellent, but as a ''philosopher'' is all rot.
Literature is at a low ebb in Red China, but no lower than that in England. From Formosa all kinds of obscenities and viliWcations of Chinese Communist
[New York]
? ? ? 192 from poetry to politics
leaders have Xooded into this country. Chiang Kai-shek is certainly the last person on earth to encourage or inspire any national literature. Imagine Lucky Luciano or Frank Costello as the president of the United States and just see what kind of literature will Xourish.
Many verse-songs (? ? ) were written by Tu Fu and Po Chu-Yi. Some of them were inspired by the cruder songs of the Chinese people. I have translated two of them. ''I Joined the Army'' and ''The Song of the Boat-Puller of the Tyrant Yang'' are enclosed. Hope il maestro will read them over and give Hsin some criticism.
Po Chu-Yi, who used to tear up his verse whenever his washerwoman failed to understand and appreciate it, is now enjoying an unprecedented popularity in Red China. DeWnitely one of the top ten or Wfteen greatest Chinese poets, he is regarded by the Chinese Communist writers to be at least as great as Tu Fu and even greater than Li Po. As a narrative poet, he is comparable to Chaucer. Next to Tu Fu, he was the T'ang poet most interested in political matters. Since il maestro has translated Li Po, Tao Yuan-Ming, and Hsin's ancestor Wang Wei or Wang Fei (Omakitsu in Nipponese) and read some of Tu Fu, I think it is time that E. P. should take a look at Po, who resembles Tu Fu in many ways. His ? ? ? ''Song of Unending Sorrow'' about Yang Kuei-Fei and Emperor Ming Wang of the T'ang Dynasty is a masterpiece of Chinese narrative verse on a major scale.
Chao told me about E. P. 's recent discovery of Kuan Chung, the great Chinese economist. But Kung learned a good deal more from the Book of Changes (? ? ) and the Duke of Chou ? ? , one of my ancestors.
In the near poetic vacuum of the U. S. today, Hsin has found Elvis the Pelvis [Presley] a welcome relief from the constipations of Robert Frost, the diarrhea of Carl Sandbag, and the stinking shit of Shapiro, Schwartz, Rexroth, Tate and other buggers. Elvis at least makes one feel like fucking or busting the noses of some spineless poetic jerks like Richard Eberhart and W. H. Auden and murdering some Wlthy intellectual scumbags like Adlai Stevenson and/or Anthony Eden.
Believe that la Marcella has shown il maestro Hsin's ''The Message of Elvis Presley. '' Wonder where I can send it.
About Graal in Portugal, Hsin has never heard from him since writing him and sending mass. to him. Who is this person and what does he do in Portugal? Both Sharp and Hsin had the idea of starting a gym in Washington D. C. These are the facts: (1) as far as I know from checking through health and muscle magazines, there is no health studio in the district itself. The nearest gym is in Baltimore. There must be students at Catholic University and other youngsters who feel like going to a gym for weight-lifting, calisthenics, boxing, etc. Unless there is a serious problem about segregation, Washington should be a good place to start a gym. (2) In a gym you can sell books relating to mental and physical health and also health food. (3) Gyms used to be headquarters of the pre-war Bunds. Young people can get together to exchange ideas and practise target-shooting, which may come in
from poetry to politics 193
handy later in dealing with the Dulleses and Stevensons etc. (4) There are unsavory characters in bookstores as well as gymnasiums. But the future of real American manhood is more likely to be found swinging on parallel bars than slinking in bookstore corners behind bifocals. (5) If one such gym becomes successful in D. C. , a chain of similar gyms can be started all over the United States. In the long run, it will be more eVective than having bookstores. Does E. P. agree?
A candidate for running such a gym in Washington has been suggested by both Sharp and Nora. Les Blackaston, whom Hsin has not yet met, has been described as a junior version of Hemingway. What does E. P. think of him? Cheri [Sheri Martinelli] or Marcella [Spann] can be used as the trademark of the gym, and even Chatel can be put to selling health drinks behind a bar and eating all his can food there in perfect safety (without the interference of his landlady).
The blasted Wrecrackers outside make thinking impossible. Salute to D. P.
[signed] ?
Shapiro . . . Ransom: Karl Shapiro (1913-2000), editor of Poetry; Stephen Spender (1909-95), co-editor of Encounter; John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), editor of Kenyon Review.
Rodman . . . Williams: Sheldon Rodman, ed. , Mortal Triumph and Poems (1932); Rolfe Humphries, ed. , New Poems (1953); Oscar Williams, ed. , Book of New Poems of 1943 (1943).
Tom Sullivan: David Wang refers to Tom Sullivan as a newcomer to New York and ''an admirer of il maestro'' (2 May 1957, Beinecke).
Brook[s] Adams: see Glossary on Adams, Brooks.
Zi[e]linski: Thaddeus Zielinski (1859-1944), Polish professor of Greek. Henry Swabey's translation
of his ''The Sybyl'' (Paris: Rieder, 1924) appeared in Edge, 2 (December 1956).
Nora: Nora Devereaux Lyden, a divorced mother with two sons, was brought to EP and his circle
by John Kasper.
Luciano . . . Costello: New York organized crime bosses Charles Luciano and Frank Costello. Eberhart: Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), professor and poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College,
1956-70.
Stevenson: Adlai Stevenson was Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Eden: Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British prime minister (1955-7).
Graal: unidentiWed.
Elvis the Pelvis: see Letter 156 n.
Dulles: John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), US Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959. Sharp: Bob Sharp. See Letter 146.
Les Blackaston: unidentiWed.
Chatel: Jean Chatel, an aspiring novelist, later became a psychiatrist.
158 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 28 Sp/57
You wd/have got in with yr/godman/BUT it is unconfucian NOT to observe the Xight of time/
194 from poetry to politics
mebbe as the request to get on Sat/ didn't arrive till Monday they tho[ugh]t it not worth answer.
I had some suggestions.
still have 'em if yu get here.
K[asper]/ probably in ERROR mixing with ignorant / which is diVerent from
the crowd.
Guard against sedition. USE the law, even when the tyrants do not.
The theory of the law, the words of the law, until changed by constitutional
and legal process.
Note that Kerr and Ritchie are more astute.
CONSTITUTION PARTY
Ritchie combining with Peters who has vast amount of PARTICULAR
knowledge.
though stuck in his own generation.
Whether Maverick will open the other part of his mind, I dont know. he has
again been allowed to TEACH
which may be a bad sign, BUT he does go into detail and up to date has
answered question and LOOKED at texts.
HAS NOT yet grasped sense of stamp scrip/but may be demurring to Wnd
out if I know what the hell I am talking about. yrz
Kerr and Ritchie: Gordon Kerr, an instructor at Aberdeen University, informed EP of the success of his ''Pound campaign'' (15 June 1953, Beinecke). Eleanor Ritchie at Berkeley described to EP admirers' discussions of his poems (6 November 1956, Beinecke).
? ? Maverick: see Letter 135 n. : see Letter 149 n.
? 159 EP to Wang (TLS-1)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 11 Jan 58
Appeal to N. H. Pearson, 233 N. G. S. Yale Station, New Haven Conn. He has just had member of family in nervous breakdown/ so is distracted at moment.
So keep him in reserve until real danger of deportation/
IF deportable, INSIST on going to Formosa, not to Moscovite dependency say yu are OBviously not howling for white supremacy/and that study of
systematic defamation shd/ be made by some FOUNDATION.
Williams: in a letter of February 1957 William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) told his college pal EP: ''I do enjoy EDGE--the last translations from the chink by/of David Rafael Wang are worth the trip half way round the world to have encountered'' (Beinecke). For Wang's collaboration with Williams, see ''The Cassia Tree,'' New Directions, 19 (1966); rpt. in Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, vol. ii, ed. Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1988). The EP/ Williams relation is chronicled in Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, ed. Hugh Witemeyer (New York: New Directions, 1996).
151 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [February/March 1957]
Dear Hsin
The foregoing for use on idiots or others.
IF I were recommending anywhere in particular I wd/ tell you to apply to
what I think is called Washington U. east shore Maryland, in reach of the nashnz's keppertl.
There is at least one literate there, and he says the faculty is not lousy, which is mostly the case in murkn beaneries.
You might drop an enquiry to Tom Jones
113 Maple Av
Chestertown, Md.
He is interested in Corneille / in disagreement with Monsieur Reid I believe/ but that doesn't in least imply that he wd/ agree with Hsin.
BUT, damn it, a human being, literate, on ANY campus is a reason for at least
enquiring into local facilities.
Why THE hell don't anyone go see D. D. Paige <141 E. 44th St. >, who does
know something about N. C. tho I dont think he was at Duke.
Hold on/ I think it is the U. N. C. that stincgks. At any rate dont know anyone
there/ ask PAIGE.
186 from poetry to politics
As to Pindaric urge . . . it led Pin to rhetoric, or @ least that was my impression. [signed] Z
Washington U. : in spring 1958 Wang enrolled at the University of Maryland.
Tom Jones: in a letter to EP of 1 November 1956, Tom Jones introduces himself as ''president of the Mount Vernon Literary Society of Washington College, in Chestertown, Maryland'' (Beinecke).
Reid: Ralph Reid. See Letter 147 n. D. D. Paige: see Letter 28 n.
152 Wang to EP (TLS-2; Beinecke)
14 Marzo [March 1957]
IMPORTANT clariWcation:
Hsin has no Pindaric urge--at least what E. P. calls the Pindaric urge. Hsin, not being a genius, realizes his own limitations.
As Hsin sees it,
the greatest Narrative poems have been written by Homer, Chaucer, and Po
Chu-Yi;
the greatest love poems by Propertius, Catullus, and Ovid;
the greatest Imagiste poems by Li Po and Wang Wei;
the greatest Religious poems by Yeats and, perhaps, Blake;
the greatest poems on Ethics and Morality by Dante;
the greatest Dramatic poems by Shakespeare;
and the greatest Political poems by E. P. and Tu Fu/
What is actually left for Hsin to write but a subject in which he can excel others? The point is that no one has written anything DECENT about sports except
Homer (in snatches). And if you try to write artistically about the speed, the color, and the sound and fury of boxing, you'll Wnd it more diYcult than writing about the ethos of Confucius. HAN and T'ANG dynasties emphasized sports besides the arts. MING and CH'ING dynasties relegated athletics to an inferior position. The Greeks were aware of the importance of exercise. But the modern Chinese have neglected it. The consequence: the Chinese became eVeminate weaklings bullied by the West. The great Chinese novels, The One Hundred and Eight Bandits (or Water Margin) ? ? , and The Dream of the Red Chamber ? ? ? illustrate two diVerent concepts of the CHINESE HERO. In the former the men are real Chinese, i. e. virile and lusty; in the latter the hero is a Proustian type degenerate a la France. Before the Yuan Dynasty the artists were also men; after the Sung Dynasty the poets and painters were intellectual molly-coddles, as found mostly in France and the United States today.
(Incidentally, these two novels are better than anything [Henry] James has written. )
[New York]
? ? ? ? ? ? from poetry to politics 187
E. P. is a great tennis player, per esempio [for example]. If E. P. were an eVemi- nate, he would not have written Personae and The Cantos. AND you know what Kung thought of the athletic Tze-Lou and Julius Caesar of the athletic Antony.
[signed] ?
Po Chu-Yi: see Glossary on Bo Juyi.
? ? : a masterpiece of Wction about 108 outlaws (c. 1370) attributed to Shi Naian (c. 1296-c. 1372). See
Outlaws of the Marshes, trans. Sydney Shapiro (1980).
? ? ? : a masterpiece of Wction depicting the decline of a powerful family and the tragedy of two
young lovers (1754) by Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-c. 1763). See A Dream of Red Chambers, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (1978).
153 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 21 Mar [1957]
HSIN/
wot is the min chih party / it's [its] badge not in ideogram /
people's WHAT party, there being 5000 chihs.
I take it Ching mei, is the keppertal of the ex-republic of the U. S. and a
Washington delegate of the elegant plum bank might be of a district, or of WHAT?
The lady wot sez <she wuz> Idaho and mormon, dont appear malevolent, but the paper DEcidedly unsegregated.
whether useful <place wherein> to suggest that Ez is against certain diseases of thought that have aZicked various races / there being a lot of non-semitic jews, etc.
I don't know
You probably know by now that the gal [Anne Lebeck] is (or is said to be 26 of age) etc.
she thanks me fer prospect of printing you/ but you have not been expan- siVO on the ambience or chances/
Got to be kept separate from the distinctive quality of Edge/
the min chih has a red badge but it dont look hroosian red/ said to have scared old Mr whazzisname. bolshies in Mathews dic/ have other labels/ not min chih old Lampmen kusses Bill W[illia]ms/ BUT you realize that for 50 years there have been almost NO amerians writing to say what they think, 99. 9999%
writing to try to get past a copy desk.
hence the value of Bill W.
Mrs Ponsot refers to the ''copy cathedral'' her blurb says ''so far they have 5 children. ''
Ouan soui [Cheers] [signed] Z
? ? 188 from poetry to politics
min chih party. . . Ching mei . . . lady: see Letter 155.
old Lampmen: Rex Herbert Lampman, an inmate of St Elizabeths, began corresponding with EP
after his release in 1953.
Mrs Ponsot: Marie Ponsot, New York poet whose Wrst book was True Minds (San Francisco: City
Lights, 1956).
154 EP to Wang (TLS-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 7 Ap [1957]
Not clear if Hsin turned down by ONE bloodyversity or turned down altogether/
More I see it, and remind of what in Cantos I had forgot, more I see REMARKABLE Manchus /
a subject which the HSIN could treat carrying dynamite to blow the buggahs oV their bloody bugrocratic elevations.
I admit that the dynamite in trans/ of Odes has got silent treatment BUT it may seep thru in another 40 years/
Va. Poetry Soc. in yester, aware of timelag.
The Manchu DYnasty / looks like an innocent subject, all safely past etc.
? [Make it new]
to git some PERsonality into chinKIstory / as Psellos into Byzantine FEEmales.
What the devil is the
?
?
wise guy, big shot?
[signed] EP
REMARKABLE Manchus: the remarkable Qing emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng (Kang Hi and Yong Tching) of Cantos 60-1 and 98-9.
Psellos: the Byzantine theologian Michael Constantine Psellus (c. 1018-78) was the author of Chronographie.
155 Wang to EP (ALS-2; Beinecke)
Apt. 9, 242 Mulberry St. New York 12, n. y. April 7, 1957
Meant to answer you sooner. But am busy writing the Wfth canto of ''The Grandfather Cycle'' and a full-length play.
One business at a time:
from poetry to politics 189
Wrote to D. D. Paige several days ago. Heard rumor that he had left for Europe.
Finally saw Williams as you had suggested. He wanted to write a preface to my grandfather poems and suggested that I should send them to Henry Rago of Poetry, Chicago. He won't be any more help to me on my fellowship applica- tions. Too late: I have been turned down by all the universities for some damn reason I can't Wgure out.
Am not sure of the etymology of ? ? . Will have to check in the authorita- tive ? ? [Kangxi] dictionary for you.
As for A[nne]. Lebeck, she is already looked after.
Min Chih Party is deWnitely ? ? , a reform party during the reign of Tse` Hsi, the Empress Dowager. It was also known as the movement of Kang and Liang ? ? ? ? . The young king [emperor] ? ? [Guangxu], who supported the movement, was later locked up by the Empress Dowager, a vicious old hag.
Mei Ching, not Ching Mei, should be the Chinese version of the ''keppertal of the ex-republic of the U. S. ''
? ? are the ideograms.
Plum: national Xower of China. A plum bank ought to be a Chinese bank. B. Romney is a genuine Mormon: she knows her ancestry well. She still has
hundreds of relatives in Utah. Though a bit ''villagey,'' she is decidedly not diseased. She is attached to a French-Canadian, not to any Jewish boy.
Will you quote the whole sentence which includes ? ? ? I must know the context to answer accurately.
Greetings to D. P. [signed] ?
P. S. Enclosed a short poem about Li Po, with Tu Fu and E. P. in it. Wonder if I should send it to the Edge.
''The Grandfather Cycle'': a long poem of 101 cantos of which Wang Wnished Wfteen. Its Wrst four cantos appeared in the June 1957 issue of Poetry Broadside. See the Wrst Wfteen cantos in The Human Voice, 2/1 (1966), 31-6.
Romney: Barbara Romney, editor of Poetry Broadside.
156 EP to Wang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 3 May [1957]
No objection to Marcella's having ideas, fancy or otherwise
incline to favor ACTivity/ as anthropologist, instructive to observe activity/ inactivity / vide Mang Tze, less phenomenal, ergo less food provided the observer.
190 from poetry to politics
///
Not all things from one man/
of the FEW (damn) bits of sapience from U. S. pragmatik.
''not what you know but whom you know''/
murkns enslaved cause wont communicate with each other/
not necessary to use their intelligence if they have mobilizable $ and enough
intelligence to permit extraction or direction of same/
Lee Lady has rustled $20 for Edg/etc. the HOPE of appearing shd/be used as lure tho subscribers are not REQuired to contribute their own compositions. And Graves (funereal name) can't be expected to consider Sharp a poet who
suggested that S/ was being inserted with that label.
However if the young cerement is hopeful, the time not wasted.
Wang at lib/ to try to gaze on the 5 young Ponsot and their paternal painter. 8920 172nd St
Jamaica 32, N. Y.
excuse for intrusion, you are looking for ms/ for EDGE, and want be sure a
review copy of her bk/ has been sent to Stock/
yu cd/ even do a paragraph on it, IF you can stand it.
thanks fer trying to contact Miss Tseng.
Of course if Graves was burried in a female german, he wd/ react nihilisti-
cally, and the slavs ARE savages and the limitations of the German Anschauung have been noted.
tho I doubt if John Dewey was competent to do so.
fergarzACHE dont think every name I send yu as subject of investigation is assumed to be source of LIGHT
KUANG KUANG MING MING etc.
no nacherly I have not read books ''ON'' by any of 'em. <Sandry or Sandri>
if the buggars cant katchee some FACT of use or interest, I prefer to git on with my own chop.
No interest in Frost, Sandbag [Sanburg] or even in Elvis the Pelvis. no objection to others having it.
Lee Lady: Lee Lady (b. 1939) visited EP in 1956-8. After taking degrees in mathematics and Greek, he earned a Ph. D. from New Mexico State University (1972). He was a math professor at University of Hawaii from 1977 to 2001.
Graves: Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985), British poet, novelist, and critic.
Sharp: Bob Sharp. See Letter 146.
Miss Tseng: in a letter to EP of 2 May 1957 Wang reports: ''Mrs. Pao Swen Tseng has already
departed for Formosa, according to information supplied by the Chinese Delegation'' (Bei-
necke).
KUANG KUANG MING MING: the phrase from Wang Youpu's expansion of Kangxi's ''Sacred Edict''
means ''enlightened. '' It surfaces in Canto 99/722.
Elvis the Pelvis: American rock-and-roll icon Elvis Presley (1935-77)
from poetry to politics 191
157 Wang to EP (TLS-6; Beinecke)
4 Luglio [July 1957]
Caro Maestro [Dear Master],
Been busy working on article on modern chinese literature and translating
some poems for EDGE. Also doing a bit of work on the Edicts. Heard from Stock, who turned down my ''Mr. Universe'' poem. Read Stock's own poem in EDGE No. 4 and have a very low opinion of it. It leads me to wonder why so many inferior poets are magazine editors (e. g. Karl Shapiro, Stephen Spender, John Crowe Ransom and anthologists Sheldon Rodman, Rolfe Humphries, Oscar Williams among a host of other mediocrities).
Wonder if E. P. has ever seen an issue of POETRY TAOS. It combines cheesecake with poetry. W. C. Williams showed me a copy of it. Between covers of nude young ladies in technicolor there are sheaves of modern verse.
New York is not completely dead. There is at least one boy I know who's doing some honest work. Tom Sullivan, whom I mentioned in last letter, is hard at work on Brook[s] Adams and Zi[e]linski. He has written some insipid verse in the manner of Edgar Lee Masters, but his prose style is quite decent. His autobio- graphical sketches remind me vaguely of passages out of Portrait [of the Artist as a Young Man], but he cannot be just dismissed as an imitator of J[ames] J[oyce].
Nora was here. Told about Horton's anti-Kasper campaign. Hsin mistrusts all people with Xat heads and big jowls.
The Wrst four cantos of THE GRANDFATEHR CYCLE has [have] already come out in Romney's rag. With her usual woman's incompetence, she has allowed the printer to mutilate my poems abominably. As a result, a whole page of corrections has to be mimeographed. She is now staying at her beau's summer home in Jersey.
Marie Ponsot not heard from. It seems that after I had mentioned about my interest in eugenics, she decided not to see me. After all, the Catholic Church considers eugenics as sorcery.
Saw pore Ann[e] [Lebeck] last night. She insisted that women could be as intelligent as men if they so desired. She wanted to get a Ph. D. some day. Would like to write philosophical articles. Asked Hsin why E. P. has been partial to Marcella [Spann] and less fond of her. Hsin disagreed with her on all points. Adolf [Hitler] knew where women should belong more than any other political leaders. Told her that gloriWcation of the ''New Woman'' by merky thinkers like Ibsen and GBS [Shaw] has lead [led] to family disunity and political chaos in the West. Shaw as an antidote for Englishmen and westernized Chinese is excellent, but as a ''philosopher'' is all rot.
Literature is at a low ebb in Red China, but no lower than that in England. From Formosa all kinds of obscenities and viliWcations of Chinese Communist
[New York]
? ? ? 192 from poetry to politics
leaders have Xooded into this country. Chiang Kai-shek is certainly the last person on earth to encourage or inspire any national literature. Imagine Lucky Luciano or Frank Costello as the president of the United States and just see what kind of literature will Xourish.
Many verse-songs (? ? ) were written by Tu Fu and Po Chu-Yi. Some of them were inspired by the cruder songs of the Chinese people. I have translated two of them. ''I Joined the Army'' and ''The Song of the Boat-Puller of the Tyrant Yang'' are enclosed. Hope il maestro will read them over and give Hsin some criticism.
Po Chu-Yi, who used to tear up his verse whenever his washerwoman failed to understand and appreciate it, is now enjoying an unprecedented popularity in Red China. DeWnitely one of the top ten or Wfteen greatest Chinese poets, he is regarded by the Chinese Communist writers to be at least as great as Tu Fu and even greater than Li Po. As a narrative poet, he is comparable to Chaucer. Next to Tu Fu, he was the T'ang poet most interested in political matters. Since il maestro has translated Li Po, Tao Yuan-Ming, and Hsin's ancestor Wang Wei or Wang Fei (Omakitsu in Nipponese) and read some of Tu Fu, I think it is time that E. P. should take a look at Po, who resembles Tu Fu in many ways. His ? ? ? ''Song of Unending Sorrow'' about Yang Kuei-Fei and Emperor Ming Wang of the T'ang Dynasty is a masterpiece of Chinese narrative verse on a major scale.
Chao told me about E. P. 's recent discovery of Kuan Chung, the great Chinese economist. But Kung learned a good deal more from the Book of Changes (? ? ) and the Duke of Chou ? ? , one of my ancestors.
In the near poetic vacuum of the U. S. today, Hsin has found Elvis the Pelvis [Presley] a welcome relief from the constipations of Robert Frost, the diarrhea of Carl Sandbag, and the stinking shit of Shapiro, Schwartz, Rexroth, Tate and other buggers. Elvis at least makes one feel like fucking or busting the noses of some spineless poetic jerks like Richard Eberhart and W. H. Auden and murdering some Wlthy intellectual scumbags like Adlai Stevenson and/or Anthony Eden.
Believe that la Marcella has shown il maestro Hsin's ''The Message of Elvis Presley. '' Wonder where I can send it.
About Graal in Portugal, Hsin has never heard from him since writing him and sending mass. to him. Who is this person and what does he do in Portugal? Both Sharp and Hsin had the idea of starting a gym in Washington D. C. These are the facts: (1) as far as I know from checking through health and muscle magazines, there is no health studio in the district itself. The nearest gym is in Baltimore. There must be students at Catholic University and other youngsters who feel like going to a gym for weight-lifting, calisthenics, boxing, etc. Unless there is a serious problem about segregation, Washington should be a good place to start a gym. (2) In a gym you can sell books relating to mental and physical health and also health food. (3) Gyms used to be headquarters of the pre-war Bunds. Young people can get together to exchange ideas and practise target-shooting, which may come in
from poetry to politics 193
handy later in dealing with the Dulleses and Stevensons etc. (4) There are unsavory characters in bookstores as well as gymnasiums. But the future of real American manhood is more likely to be found swinging on parallel bars than slinking in bookstore corners behind bifocals. (5) If one such gym becomes successful in D. C. , a chain of similar gyms can be started all over the United States. In the long run, it will be more eVective than having bookstores. Does E. P. agree?
A candidate for running such a gym in Washington has been suggested by both Sharp and Nora. Les Blackaston, whom Hsin has not yet met, has been described as a junior version of Hemingway. What does E. P. think of him? Cheri [Sheri Martinelli] or Marcella [Spann] can be used as the trademark of the gym, and even Chatel can be put to selling health drinks behind a bar and eating all his can food there in perfect safety (without the interference of his landlady).
The blasted Wrecrackers outside make thinking impossible. Salute to D. P.
[signed] ?
Shapiro . . . Ransom: Karl Shapiro (1913-2000), editor of Poetry; Stephen Spender (1909-95), co-editor of Encounter; John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), editor of Kenyon Review.
Rodman . . . Williams: Sheldon Rodman, ed. , Mortal Triumph and Poems (1932); Rolfe Humphries, ed. , New Poems (1953); Oscar Williams, ed. , Book of New Poems of 1943 (1943).
Tom Sullivan: David Wang refers to Tom Sullivan as a newcomer to New York and ''an admirer of il maestro'' (2 May 1957, Beinecke).
Brook[s] Adams: see Glossary on Adams, Brooks.
Zi[e]linski: Thaddeus Zielinski (1859-1944), Polish professor of Greek. Henry Swabey's translation
of his ''The Sybyl'' (Paris: Rieder, 1924) appeared in Edge, 2 (December 1956).
Nora: Nora Devereaux Lyden, a divorced mother with two sons, was brought to EP and his circle
by John Kasper.
Luciano . . . Costello: New York organized crime bosses Charles Luciano and Frank Costello. Eberhart: Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), professor and poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College,
1956-70.
Stevenson: Adlai Stevenson was Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Eden: Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British prime minister (1955-7).
Graal: unidentiWed.
Elvis the Pelvis: see Letter 156 n.
Dulles: John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), US Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959. Sharp: Bob Sharp. See Letter 146.
Les Blackaston: unidentiWed.
Chatel: Jean Chatel, an aspiring novelist, later became a psychiatrist.
158 EP to Wang (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 28 Sp/57
You wd/have got in with yr/godman/BUT it is unconfucian NOT to observe the Xight of time/
194 from poetry to politics
mebbe as the request to get on Sat/ didn't arrive till Monday they tho[ugh]t it not worth answer.
I had some suggestions.
still have 'em if yu get here.
K[asper]/ probably in ERROR mixing with ignorant / which is diVerent from
the crowd.
Guard against sedition. USE the law, even when the tyrants do not.
The theory of the law, the words of the law, until changed by constitutional
and legal process.
Note that Kerr and Ritchie are more astute.
CONSTITUTION PARTY
Ritchie combining with Peters who has vast amount of PARTICULAR
knowledge.
though stuck in his own generation.
Whether Maverick will open the other part of his mind, I dont know. he has
again been allowed to TEACH
which may be a bad sign, BUT he does go into detail and up to date has
answered question and LOOKED at texts.
HAS NOT yet grasped sense of stamp scrip/but may be demurring to Wnd
out if I know what the hell I am talking about. yrz
Kerr and Ritchie: Gordon Kerr, an instructor at Aberdeen University, informed EP of the success of his ''Pound campaign'' (15 June 1953, Beinecke). Eleanor Ritchie at Berkeley described to EP admirers' discussions of his poems (6 November 1956, Beinecke).
? ? Maverick: see Letter 135 n. : see Letter 149 n.
? 159 EP to Wang (TLS-1)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 11 Jan 58
Appeal to N. H. Pearson, 233 N. G. S. Yale Station, New Haven Conn. He has just had member of family in nervous breakdown/ so is distracted at moment.
So keep him in reserve until real danger of deportation/
IF deportable, INSIST on going to Formosa, not to Moscovite dependency say yu are OBviously not howling for white supremacy/and that study of
systematic defamation shd/ be made by some FOUNDATION.
