Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Cantos XXXVII-XXXIX

John Quincy Adams
This entry is part 30 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. These are not exactly typical readings of the poems, so much as readings I’m doing with a specific research project in mind for a fiction project I’d like to write next year. If you’d like to know more about the project, I recommend scrolling down to the bottom of extended post, and reading the first installment in this series. I’m currently working my way through Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI, and this week, I’m up to my second posting on …

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Cantos XXXIV-XXXVI

John Quincy Adams
This entry is part 29 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. These are not exactly typical readings of the poems, so much as readings I’m doing with a specific research project in mind for a fiction project I’d like to write next year. If you’d like to know more about the project, I recommend scrolling down to the bottom of extended post, and reading the first installment in this series. Yesterday, I launched into Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI with a short essay (which it is, more than a close …

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto XXXI-XXXIII

Thomas Jefferson
This entry is part 28 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. These are not exactly typical readings of the poems, so much as readings I’m doing with a specific research project in mind — how to write Ezra Pound as a figure in a novel in which modernist artists, poets, and musicians secretly waged an occult war in the earlier half of the 20th century. Or maybe about artists, musicians, and poets waging a secret, occult war in some other world vaguely like ours, in a time period …

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The Mays of Ventadorn by W.S. Merwin

The Mays of Ventadorn
This entry is part 27 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

While I must admit to having read none of Merwin’s poetry, I found myself quite curious about his book, The Mays of Ventadorn; since encountering the most famous of the songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, I have always considered him my favorite troubadour. (And while this is not unusual–Bernart was something of a rockstar in his day, and is well-remembered today–I was pleased to discover that my fascination was shared by Merwin.) This book was published by National Geographic Directions, and is part of a series titled The Literary Travel Series, a job for which Merwin is well-suited, having spent …

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Movies I’ve Seen Lately

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen a few movies I thought were pretty good, though not as good as a lot of people seem to think. Indeed, even Miss Jiwaku has been more thrilled with them than I’ve been. The three I’m thinking about were: Limitless, Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, and Cabin in the Woods. Just in case you’re scared of “spoilers” I’ll put my thoughts in the extended section.

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Korean “Disaster” Films: 연가시 / Deranged

This entry is part 56 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I guess I blinked a week or two ago, as I missed Cabin in the Woods’ very brief release in Korea. This suggests it was a probably a good film, since good films here are rarely shown more than a week. Resignedly, Miss Jiwaku and I schlepped it down to the local cinema to watch 연가시 (apparently known in English as Deranged, which is not the best title choice, but then, it’s not the best movie so I don’t think the foreign title’s a problem). Deranged is, just barely, Korean science fiction, so I figured I’d give it a review here. In …

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto XXVIII-XXX

Pope Alexander (Alessandro) Vl
This entry is part 25 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. These are not exactly typical readings of the poems, so much as readings I’m doing with a specific research project in mind — how to write Ezra Pound as a figure in a novel in which modernist artists, poets, and musicians secretly waged an occult war in the earlier half of the 20th century. Or maybe about artists, musicians, and poets waging a secret, occult war in some other world vaguely like ours, in a time period …

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Not a Good Sign

When, in the course of the first ten pages of a novel, the characters mostly talk about visiting prostitutes… well, that doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the novel. But it’s one of the few fiction books I’ve run across that discusses Korea from a foreign point of view, and it’s even the first of a series. Five points to anyone who’s read (and can name) what book I’m talking about. Ten points to anyone who can tell me whether it’s actually worth slogging through, or whether all that blather about visiting prostitutes actually adds up to anything …

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto XXVII

This entry is part 24 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

This post is one in a series of readings I’m posting of each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, a few at a time. These are not exactly typical readings of the poems, so much as readings I’m doing with a specific research project in mind — how to write Ezra Pound as a figure in a novel in which modernist artists, poets, and musicians secretly waged an occult war in the earlier half of the 20th century. Or maybe about artists, musicians, and poets waging a secret, occult war in some other world vaguely like ours, in a time period …

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A Study From Ontario: Leon Surette’s A Light From Eleusis: A Study of Ezra Pound’s Cantos

This entry is part 23 of 60 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

(Note: This week’s first (and only on-time) posting for the series on Pound’s The Cantos is a review of an academic text I completed a few weeks ago. Since I will have completed my discussion of A Draft of Cantos 17-27 this week, I figured I might as take the opportunity to post this already-written-up post while I’m still mired in final exam stuff. (If I was less busy, I’d have posted this after Canto XXX. But it’s the week after exams, and I’m up to my neck in grading, so…) (By the way I’ll be posting my reading of Canto …

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