SECTIONII: 1936-66 99
As I cant cash american cheques, save at risk to the Brits stealing 'em off the clipper in the Bahamas/ and as nothing (now) comes from English publications, this thin line of supplies from the J/T is, or would be, use- ful if allowed to flow in with proper, i.
As I cant cash american cheques, save at risk to the Brits stealing 'em off the clipper in the Bahamas/ and as nothing (now) comes from English publications, this thin line of supplies from the J/T is, or would be, use- ful if allowed to flow in with proper, i.
Ezra-Pound-Japan-Letters-essays
22 August 1940
My dear Ezra Pound,
I am very much pleased to get your letters of July 10 and July 17.
I am glad to print the translation of your Text Book in the next issue of VOU which is going to be out in September. I don't get any copy of Meridiano.
I am sending a copy of VOU each to Mr. Juan Ramon Masoliver and to Mr. E. E. Cummings. I have often tried to translate Cummings' poems, but never succeeded.
We Japanese don't like to be called Jap, because Jap has been used more often with contempt than with friendliness. There are so many examples like this in the world, I think.
On the 7th, August I sent you the sum of Y97. 80 by Lira in the payment for your three letters for J. T. I hope you will find the enclosed receipts.
races. _.
^ The more ^ J
Cantos 52/71 has surely reached me. I wish I could translate them in
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 93
Japanese. It is a very difficult task and yet I do never give up the hope. How is Miss Mary? I haven't written her so long. I will soon send her beautiful Japanese picture books. Hoping you are doing very well over the turquoise seas.
ever yours, Katue Kitasono
94: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 25 August 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Thanks very much for copy Jap Times 21 July/ wish I had had it in Rome last week. I visited yr/ cultural relations bureau, but found it hard to convince 'em I wrote for a real daily paper. (The weekly supplement looks artistic not journalistic. )
Anyhow they said all you young poets were incomprehensible. I told 'em VOU was the liveliest magazine in existence. They finally thought that maybe they had heard of you. (But "couldn't understand one single word. ") After half an hour one of 'em vaguely thought I must be some- one he had heard of; Fenollosa meant nothing to 'em. (They) thought I ought to get wise to modern Japan and not bother with (or stick to) Noh.
W^ell, they gave me a damn good cup of coffee. So I kidded 'em about disappearance of tea ceremony.
And they hoped to see me again
BUT Americans are suspect. Naturally. I do not wonder.
I enclose a bit of German publication/ might interest Mr. Iwado, if he does not already receive Hoffmann's bulletin? ?
If you can get Chang Kai Chek to read my Cantos 52-61 may be he wd/ make a sane peace. I see that his side kick kung/ has got his fingers burned/ and I shd/ think it was rightly, as he has not followed his great ancestor's teachings.
Mencius continues to be the most modern oriental author in spite im- ported sur-realism. / As far as I can make out all Chinese philosophy (apart from Kung and Mencius) is bunk plus opium/ but my means of knowledge are limited. Wish someone wd. get on with bilingual edition
? 94 SECTIONII: 1936-66
of the INTERESTING books of the orient/ meaning Japan and China. The bloomink hindoos and mohammeds don't ring my bloomink bell. Oh well; that is a bit exaggerated/ there once was a bloke called Avicenna.
Sorry Faber didn't print the map with my Cantos 52/61
it might have helped people to understand why Japan is in China/ and the altar of heaven etc/
Every time I meet an oriental I am told to pronounce everything differently. God knows what the censorship here
makes of ideogram. Any how, last week I was told to pronounce it "Taa Sheu" (which is written Ta Hio? ? ) How do you say it in Giappone? Taku Shoshi? ? . .
As to Mr. whatshisname at yr/ Kultur buro/ 1 shd/ have thought that the /. Times with especially its advertising matter/ "cRRRReatest electric etc/" in the world/ etc. was adequate to tell the Occident about how modern (and/or American) Japan is.
Matsumiya has left Rome, so I couldn't get round to poesy/ 1 mean if etc/ Noh is out/ and the living writers incomprehensible. Anyhow they were nice blokes. And so forth.
The article you sent is the fourth of mine that I have seen in print in the jm
I don'tknowhowmanytheyhavereceived?
If there is anything you, personally, want me to write about do say so.
Is there any way for me to get a copy of K. Takashi (Itoh's) British EmpireandPeople/oneyen. 80(Seinenshobo,Kanda. Publishers. )I wd/ gladly review it here if the editors will send it/ or I will buy it if you can extract one yen. 80 from Mr. Iwado to be deducted from my next cheque, plus postage. And as soon as we have a sane peace with FUNK's eu- ropean plan in action and proper monetary system, I will stop boring you to death with econ/politico/geo/etc. and behave like an aesthete/ occupying myself with dramady/ poesy/ music etc. as a true inhabitant of Miaco (or however you now spell it, after the interval).
Maybe if Mr. Takashi (Itoh) cd/ see my stuff in the //T. he wd. think me competent to review his volume/ Tell him to vary his reading of Mencius with reading of the London Who's Who of company directors/ (or vice versa) (may be he has, I can't tell from the brief notice of his book. J. T. supplement 18th July. )
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 95
Laughlin is supposed to bring out Cantos in Sept. American mail comes here via Japan or by air/ when the damn brit/yitts dont swipe it in Ber- mudah.
IF you know of any i. kss glorious period of U. S. diplomacy than the present, tell papa.
And if Willkie so kindly delivers us, I shall have to go home and tell HIM that European history didn't stop in 1919.
HeiJ. ' Banzai. ' AJaLA. '. '
From the pinnacle of your youth look down with at least kindliness on my elderly exuberance.
ever yours E. Pound
95: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 5 September 1940
Dear Kit Kat
The poetic life is full of pitfalls. Thanks very much for bothering about the money orders, but 97 yen make something like 450 lire ITALIAN / the 45 or 46 lire marked on the red slip probably meant GOLD lire.
The post office here is looking into the matter. May be they will be able to pay something like the value of the 97 yen.
This note is a howl of caution. If there ever are any more yen, watch the postal clerk and see that the lire are either clearly marked GOLD (oro] or that the number of Italian lire (should be) roughly 4 and half times the (number) of the yen/
Such are the horrors of war/ with no english money, and considerable delay about American money.
One of the jokers in the back page of the Times weekly/ made some remarks about money and humour a few months ago/ meaning it arrived here a month ago.
In the mean time let us erect shrines and/or temples to Aphrodite and Apollo. That is to say let Europe do so.
and don't import sheep-cult-ites into Tokio.
Sorry to bother you with detail in first part of this note. E. Pound
? 96 SECTIONII: 1936-66
96: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi magome-mati, omoriku, tokio. 26 September 1940
Dear Ezra,
I received your bright letter of August 25, which made me laugh a pelican's laugh.
It was a good comic scene that they (K. B. S. ) could do nothing but gave a damn good cup of coffee to such a great poet and said "see you again. " They are nothing more than sparrow eggs.
Chinese pronunciation is very subtle. In Japan we pronounce Ta Hio, "Dai Gaku. " The pronounciation dictionary for middle school published in Shanghaiteachesustopronouncejl_ ^^"TaHsio. "AnotherChinesetext shows to pronounce it "Ta Hsu. "/ \ 3-
I think the J. T. and their readers would be very glad to know your opinion like what is to be the cultural policy in such a country like Japan. On the 20th of August I sent you a money order for the sum of Y34. 20, as you will find the account of J. T.
I shall be able to find the best way to get a copy of Takasi Itoh's book, British Empire and People, and I will send it to you as soon as possible. Before posting this letter, I inquired of the publisher.
ever yours, Katue Kitasono
97: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 October 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Sorry to be a damn nuisance. The post office here apparent- ly cant rectify the money order. 97 yen is over 20 dollars and 46 lire ITALIANE makes about two dollars.
Might be a way of pejorating nippo-merican relations but won't convince europe that Japan is on the way to greater asia. Also attacking America in her most exposed part (i. e. old EZ) won't affect the wicked plots/ usurers etc.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 97
45 lire oro/ gold lire, would come nearer to the worth of 97 yen/
Anyhow, I am chancing the 2 bucks on the possibility you can rectify/ absorption of 90% of value in transit won't do. Wont serve the Japanese cause.
Incidentally I have never used (or heard used) the term Jap as derogative. Nihon Jin is O. K.
The -anese makes very bad sound, and movement of word very difficult to get into elegant sentence. However let manners be manners.
How do you say Li Ki in Japanese? t^ -z^
Also I haven't had copy of Ponder's Modern Poetry/ which supposedly appeared in April. A comfort to see oneself in print. If you can get me a copy without wasting a weeks work, I shd/ be grateful.
Sea is looking O. K. with no brit. cruisers visible.
Am just back from Siena and trying to catch up with work. Mary af-
ter two months in Tyrol "gone native" to her mother's distress, so there is tremendous effort to make her Salonfahig before she goes back to La Quiete/
all after my instructions that she shd/ become Bauern/dhig to keep up with the times. At any rate her tennis is improving. I shall try that pic- ture (on her) of Japanese girls en masse with swords, to see if it will stimulate "union of cultures. "
I don't know whether Times wants me to insist that "Four Scarlatti wont make a Vivaldi. " (Sienese music week. )
They seem to be standing my economic frightfulness pretty
well.
On the other hand will they believe me an economist if they can make me believe in the post office idea of relation of yen to Italian lire?
That seems a subject for Cub Reporter (with my compliments). You can give him these notes if he is a friend.
My venerable father delighted with the Servant of the People article. My New York agent beseeching me to write literary Reminiscence (he wd/ probably faint if he saw a copy of J. T. for Aug. 22). Of course I dont know that you (K. K. ) approve of my crawling down the slopes of Parnas- sus. You have maintained tactful silence.
And confound it why does paper ruck on this machine. (1 will again exhort Meridiano office to send you the paper. ) Yours
Ezra Pound (P. S. post o_ffice is sending back the Vaglia money order to your p. o. )
? 98 SECTIONII: 1936-66
98: Fosco Maraini to Ezra Pound
ALS-l Kita 11, Nishi 3, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. 14 October 1940
Dear Sir,
I've been reading your articles in the Meridiano, not constantly as mails are rare up here, but with great intellectual pleasure. I must now write these two words to tell you how I agree with you about the Chinese classics. It is simply monstrous how stuffy our western outlook is still in this very year 1940, a long time after Matteo Ricci's words ought to have had some effect. Wemustsoonsoartotheleveloftheworld:ThenKungufuTsuJ[_ ir ^- Men-tsu etc, will have their places next to the usual heroes of our school days.
It is good that somebody like you should say such things. Some one from beyond the sea has always a wonderful effect: such is the nature of man. Thank you!
Yours sincerely Fosco Maraini
99: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 29 October 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Happy New Year, and for Kristzache get an idea of the rela- tive value of YEN and lire.
I have cashed yr/ last postal order for 156 lire/ damn.
That is about six dollars. The regular exchange of the dollar being at 19 lire to the dollar, but as resident foreigner I can get a 20% bonus/ bring- ing it to nearly 24.
Unless the yen has bust, it was worth about 40 cents/ so that 34 wd/ have been worth 13 dollars plus.
I dont mind putting up six or seven bucks to get the Sassoons out of Shanghai, or damaging the opium revenue in Singapore (48% due to hop), but I shd/ hate to have it used to scrag me rough-necked brothers from Iowa.
?
SECTIONII: 1936-66 99
As I cant cash american cheques, save at risk to the Brits stealing 'em off the clipper in the Bahamas/ and as nothing (now) comes from English publications, this thin line of supplies from the J/T is, or would be, use- ful if allowed to flow in with proper, i. e. as at the source, dimensions.
If you can't get sense out of the postal system, for gord'z sake try a bank/ must be some Italian bank with an office in Tokio? ? ? Or the American express co/ must exist, and continue bizniz at least until or unless hosti- litiesbustout,whichI hopetheywon't.
///
Cultural notes; possibly for VOU. Appearance of P. Tyler in J. T. reminds me that:
NO editor in America, save Margaret Anderson, ever felt the need of, or responsibility for, getting the best writers concentrated i. e. brought together in an American periodical. She started in Chicago, went to S. Francisco, then N. York and ended by pub/ing The Little Review in Paris. Evidently the aim was alien to American sensibilities.
The Dial might fool the casual observer; but its policy was not to get the best work or best writers. It got some. But Thayer aimed at names, wanted european celebrities, and spent vast sums getting their left overs. You wd/ see the same thing in American picture galleries, after a pain- ter is celebrated (and the Europeans have his best stuff] dealers can sell it to American "connoisseurs. "
European proportions, a. d. 1940. Germans rise at 6 a. m. to good music on the radio/ french radio music soppy, English music and jokes putrid. Incredible vulgarity, and jazz worse than the human mind had hitherto conceived possible.
There still remains a tiny minority of careful players of old mu- sic in England/ but even in that field much is weakly and sloppily played.
As to the J. T. sop about Eddie and Wallie/: you might in Japanese context quote the strictly anonymous
England's EmBOOzador
Getting back to Baltimore.
I don't want it in an English context as I dont want to hurt anyone's feel- ings. Eddie sure is for the old Baltimore boarding house.
You know (? ) Max Beerbohm did a caricature ages ago when Ed. was young: It showed Ed at 40 marrying his landlady's daughter.
? 100 SECTIONII: 1936-66
When I say good music, in Germany, you might note that it is played in time; french, eng/ and Ital music most usually is not.
I don't say it never is played in time, but the good old land of Diirer and Bach just dont like slop in musical measure. In fact there is a Germanic component of civilization, though you will find it hard to mention the subject in american Jewish papers.
If you manage to read my J. T. articles at all, I wish you wd/ comment FREELY. I want guidance. I wish you folks cd/ make a peace in China. Best possible kick in the jaw for the nastiest kikes and pseudo-kikes in America. If you can manage it we might get on and have a little civiliza- tion once again.
Oh, well, Italy has just had a philosophic congress/ i. e. 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.
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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.
My dear Ezra Pound,
I am very much pleased to get your letters of July 10 and July 17.
I am glad to print the translation of your Text Book in the next issue of VOU which is going to be out in September. I don't get any copy of Meridiano.
I am sending a copy of VOU each to Mr. Juan Ramon Masoliver and to Mr. E. E. Cummings. I have often tried to translate Cummings' poems, but never succeeded.
We Japanese don't like to be called Jap, because Jap has been used more often with contempt than with friendliness. There are so many examples like this in the world, I think.
On the 7th, August I sent you the sum of Y97. 80 by Lira in the payment for your three letters for J. T. I hope you will find the enclosed receipts.
races. _.
^ The more ^ J
Cantos 52/71 has surely reached me. I wish I could translate them in
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 93
Japanese. It is a very difficult task and yet I do never give up the hope. How is Miss Mary? I haven't written her so long. I will soon send her beautiful Japanese picture books. Hoping you are doing very well over the turquoise seas.
ever yours, Katue Kitasono
94: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 25 August 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Thanks very much for copy Jap Times 21 July/ wish I had had it in Rome last week. I visited yr/ cultural relations bureau, but found it hard to convince 'em I wrote for a real daily paper. (The weekly supplement looks artistic not journalistic. )
Anyhow they said all you young poets were incomprehensible. I told 'em VOU was the liveliest magazine in existence. They finally thought that maybe they had heard of you. (But "couldn't understand one single word. ") After half an hour one of 'em vaguely thought I must be some- one he had heard of; Fenollosa meant nothing to 'em. (They) thought I ought to get wise to modern Japan and not bother with (or stick to) Noh.
W^ell, they gave me a damn good cup of coffee. So I kidded 'em about disappearance of tea ceremony.
And they hoped to see me again
BUT Americans are suspect. Naturally. I do not wonder.
I enclose a bit of German publication/ might interest Mr. Iwado, if he does not already receive Hoffmann's bulletin? ?
If you can get Chang Kai Chek to read my Cantos 52-61 may be he wd/ make a sane peace. I see that his side kick kung/ has got his fingers burned/ and I shd/ think it was rightly, as he has not followed his great ancestor's teachings.
Mencius continues to be the most modern oriental author in spite im- ported sur-realism. / As far as I can make out all Chinese philosophy (apart from Kung and Mencius) is bunk plus opium/ but my means of knowledge are limited. Wish someone wd. get on with bilingual edition
? 94 SECTIONII: 1936-66
of the INTERESTING books of the orient/ meaning Japan and China. The bloomink hindoos and mohammeds don't ring my bloomink bell. Oh well; that is a bit exaggerated/ there once was a bloke called Avicenna.
Sorry Faber didn't print the map with my Cantos 52/61
it might have helped people to understand why Japan is in China/ and the altar of heaven etc/
Every time I meet an oriental I am told to pronounce everything differently. God knows what the censorship here
makes of ideogram. Any how, last week I was told to pronounce it "Taa Sheu" (which is written Ta Hio? ? ) How do you say it in Giappone? Taku Shoshi? ? . .
As to Mr. whatshisname at yr/ Kultur buro/ 1 shd/ have thought that the /. Times with especially its advertising matter/ "cRRRReatest electric etc/" in the world/ etc. was adequate to tell the Occident about how modern (and/or American) Japan is.
Matsumiya has left Rome, so I couldn't get round to poesy/ 1 mean if etc/ Noh is out/ and the living writers incomprehensible. Anyhow they were nice blokes. And so forth.
The article you sent is the fourth of mine that I have seen in print in the jm
I don'tknowhowmanytheyhavereceived?
If there is anything you, personally, want me to write about do say so.
Is there any way for me to get a copy of K. Takashi (Itoh's) British EmpireandPeople/oneyen. 80(Seinenshobo,Kanda. Publishers. )I wd/ gladly review it here if the editors will send it/ or I will buy it if you can extract one yen. 80 from Mr. Iwado to be deducted from my next cheque, plus postage. And as soon as we have a sane peace with FUNK's eu- ropean plan in action and proper monetary system, I will stop boring you to death with econ/politico/geo/etc. and behave like an aesthete/ occupying myself with dramady/ poesy/ music etc. as a true inhabitant of Miaco (or however you now spell it, after the interval).
Maybe if Mr. Takashi (Itoh) cd/ see my stuff in the //T. he wd. think me competent to review his volume/ Tell him to vary his reading of Mencius with reading of the London Who's Who of company directors/ (or vice versa) (may be he has, I can't tell from the brief notice of his book. J. T. supplement 18th July. )
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 95
Laughlin is supposed to bring out Cantos in Sept. American mail comes here via Japan or by air/ when the damn brit/yitts dont swipe it in Ber- mudah.
IF you know of any i. kss glorious period of U. S. diplomacy than the present, tell papa.
And if Willkie so kindly delivers us, I shall have to go home and tell HIM that European history didn't stop in 1919.
HeiJ. ' Banzai. ' AJaLA. '. '
From the pinnacle of your youth look down with at least kindliness on my elderly exuberance.
ever yours E. Pound
95: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 5 September 1940
Dear Kit Kat
The poetic life is full of pitfalls. Thanks very much for bothering about the money orders, but 97 yen make something like 450 lire ITALIAN / the 45 or 46 lire marked on the red slip probably meant GOLD lire.
The post office here is looking into the matter. May be they will be able to pay something like the value of the 97 yen.
This note is a howl of caution. If there ever are any more yen, watch the postal clerk and see that the lire are either clearly marked GOLD (oro] or that the number of Italian lire (should be) roughly 4 and half times the (number) of the yen/
Such are the horrors of war/ with no english money, and considerable delay about American money.
One of the jokers in the back page of the Times weekly/ made some remarks about money and humour a few months ago/ meaning it arrived here a month ago.
In the mean time let us erect shrines and/or temples to Aphrodite and Apollo. That is to say let Europe do so.
and don't import sheep-cult-ites into Tokio.
Sorry to bother you with detail in first part of this note. E. Pound
? 96 SECTIONII: 1936-66
96: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi magome-mati, omoriku, tokio. 26 September 1940
Dear Ezra,
I received your bright letter of August 25, which made me laugh a pelican's laugh.
It was a good comic scene that they (K. B. S. ) could do nothing but gave a damn good cup of coffee to such a great poet and said "see you again. " They are nothing more than sparrow eggs.
Chinese pronunciation is very subtle. In Japan we pronounce Ta Hio, "Dai Gaku. " The pronounciation dictionary for middle school published in Shanghaiteachesustopronouncejl_ ^^"TaHsio. "AnotherChinesetext shows to pronounce it "Ta Hsu. "/ \ 3-
I think the J. T. and their readers would be very glad to know your opinion like what is to be the cultural policy in such a country like Japan. On the 20th of August I sent you a money order for the sum of Y34. 20, as you will find the account of J. T.
I shall be able to find the best way to get a copy of Takasi Itoh's book, British Empire and People, and I will send it to you as soon as possible. Before posting this letter, I inquired of the publisher.
ever yours, Katue Kitasono
97: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-2 Anno XVIII, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 2 October 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Sorry to be a damn nuisance. The post office here apparent- ly cant rectify the money order. 97 yen is over 20 dollars and 46 lire ITALIANE makes about two dollars.
Might be a way of pejorating nippo-merican relations but won't convince europe that Japan is on the way to greater asia. Also attacking America in her most exposed part (i. e. old EZ) won't affect the wicked plots/ usurers etc.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 97
45 lire oro/ gold lire, would come nearer to the worth of 97 yen/
Anyhow, I am chancing the 2 bucks on the possibility you can rectify/ absorption of 90% of value in transit won't do. Wont serve the Japanese cause.
Incidentally I have never used (or heard used) the term Jap as derogative. Nihon Jin is O. K.
The -anese makes very bad sound, and movement of word very difficult to get into elegant sentence. However let manners be manners.
How do you say Li Ki in Japanese? t^ -z^
Also I haven't had copy of Ponder's Modern Poetry/ which supposedly appeared in April. A comfort to see oneself in print. If you can get me a copy without wasting a weeks work, I shd/ be grateful.
Sea is looking O. K. with no brit. cruisers visible.
Am just back from Siena and trying to catch up with work. Mary af-
ter two months in Tyrol "gone native" to her mother's distress, so there is tremendous effort to make her Salonfahig before she goes back to La Quiete/
all after my instructions that she shd/ become Bauern/dhig to keep up with the times. At any rate her tennis is improving. I shall try that pic- ture (on her) of Japanese girls en masse with swords, to see if it will stimulate "union of cultures. "
I don't know whether Times wants me to insist that "Four Scarlatti wont make a Vivaldi. " (Sienese music week. )
They seem to be standing my economic frightfulness pretty
well.
On the other hand will they believe me an economist if they can make me believe in the post office idea of relation of yen to Italian lire?
That seems a subject for Cub Reporter (with my compliments). You can give him these notes if he is a friend.
My venerable father delighted with the Servant of the People article. My New York agent beseeching me to write literary Reminiscence (he wd/ probably faint if he saw a copy of J. T. for Aug. 22). Of course I dont know that you (K. K. ) approve of my crawling down the slopes of Parnas- sus. You have maintained tactful silence.
And confound it why does paper ruck on this machine. (1 will again exhort Meridiano office to send you the paper. ) Yours
Ezra Pound (P. S. post o_ffice is sending back the Vaglia money order to your p. o. )
? 98 SECTIONII: 1936-66
98: Fosco Maraini to Ezra Pound
ALS-l Kita 11, Nishi 3, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. 14 October 1940
Dear Sir,
I've been reading your articles in the Meridiano, not constantly as mails are rare up here, but with great intellectual pleasure. I must now write these two words to tell you how I agree with you about the Chinese classics. It is simply monstrous how stuffy our western outlook is still in this very year 1940, a long time after Matteo Ricci's words ought to have had some effect. Wemustsoonsoartotheleveloftheworld:ThenKungufuTsuJ[_ ir ^- Men-tsu etc, will have their places next to the usual heroes of our school days.
It is good that somebody like you should say such things. Some one from beyond the sea has always a wonderful effect: such is the nature of man. Thank you!
Yours sincerely Fosco Maraini
99: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-3 Anno XIX, Via Marsala 12-5, Rapallo, with Gaudier-Brzeska profile head. 29 October 1940
Dear Kit Kat
Happy New Year, and for Kristzache get an idea of the rela- tive value of YEN and lire.
I have cashed yr/ last postal order for 156 lire/ damn.
That is about six dollars. The regular exchange of the dollar being at 19 lire to the dollar, but as resident foreigner I can get a 20% bonus/ bring- ing it to nearly 24.
Unless the yen has bust, it was worth about 40 cents/ so that 34 wd/ have been worth 13 dollars plus.
I dont mind putting up six or seven bucks to get the Sassoons out of Shanghai, or damaging the opium revenue in Singapore (48% due to hop), but I shd/ hate to have it used to scrag me rough-necked brothers from Iowa.
?
SECTIONII: 1936-66 99
As I cant cash american cheques, save at risk to the Brits stealing 'em off the clipper in the Bahamas/ and as nothing (now) comes from English publications, this thin line of supplies from the J/T is, or would be, use- ful if allowed to flow in with proper, i. e. as at the source, dimensions.
If you can't get sense out of the postal system, for gord'z sake try a bank/ must be some Italian bank with an office in Tokio? ? ? Or the American express co/ must exist, and continue bizniz at least until or unless hosti- litiesbustout,whichI hopetheywon't.
///
Cultural notes; possibly for VOU. Appearance of P. Tyler in J. T. reminds me that:
NO editor in America, save Margaret Anderson, ever felt the need of, or responsibility for, getting the best writers concentrated i. e. brought together in an American periodical. She started in Chicago, went to S. Francisco, then N. York and ended by pub/ing The Little Review in Paris. Evidently the aim was alien to American sensibilities.
The Dial might fool the casual observer; but its policy was not to get the best work or best writers. It got some. But Thayer aimed at names, wanted european celebrities, and spent vast sums getting their left overs. You wd/ see the same thing in American picture galleries, after a pain- ter is celebrated (and the Europeans have his best stuff] dealers can sell it to American "connoisseurs. "
European proportions, a. d. 1940. Germans rise at 6 a. m. to good music on the radio/ french radio music soppy, English music and jokes putrid. Incredible vulgarity, and jazz worse than the human mind had hitherto conceived possible.
There still remains a tiny minority of careful players of old mu- sic in England/ but even in that field much is weakly and sloppily played.
As to the J. T. sop about Eddie and Wallie/: you might in Japanese context quote the strictly anonymous
England's EmBOOzador
Getting back to Baltimore.
I don't want it in an English context as I dont want to hurt anyone's feel- ings. Eddie sure is for the old Baltimore boarding house.
You know (? ) Max Beerbohm did a caricature ages ago when Ed. was young: It showed Ed at 40 marrying his landlady's daughter.
? 100 SECTIONII: 1936-66
When I say good music, in Germany, you might note that it is played in time; french, eng/ and Ital music most usually is not.
I don't say it never is played in time, but the good old land of Diirer and Bach just dont like slop in musical measure. In fact there is a Germanic component of civilization, though you will find it hard to mention the subject in american Jewish papers.
If you manage to read my J. T. articles at all, I wish you wd/ comment FREELY. I want guidance. I wish you folks cd/ make a peace in China. Best possible kick in the jaw for the nastiest kikes and pseudo-kikes in America. If you can manage it we might get on and have a little civiliza- tion once again.
Oh, well, Italy has just had a philosophic congress/ i. e. 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.
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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.
