Hooked on Pound at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播by Jim Rader '60 |
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When, as a freshman at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播, I first became aware that the poet Ezra Pound had once taught there, it was almost 50 years after the fact. Now it has been 100 years; this school year marks the centennial of the classic encounter between rebel poet and staid Midwestern college that has become a staple item in American literary folklore.
I got hooked on the story.
What began as a discovery and a fascination became a major project during my undergraduate years and an abiding part-time pursuit during my adulthood. Over and over it has seemed that I couldn鈥檛 be done with it.
I probably would never have gotten hooked had I not discovered the story on my own. I was studying late one night in the dark recesses of Yandes Library searching through back issues of The 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 to prepare for a speech about those early Little Giant basketball teams that became national powerhouses. I turned a page and there was the striking profile photo whose caption read: PROF. EZRA POUNDS/Romance Languages.
I could hardly contain my excitement as I rushed into the next room and brought back a biographical dictionary. Comparing colleges and dates from the entry on Pound, I quickly confirmed that, in spite of the misspelling of his
When I mentioned my discovery to one of my English professors, I learned that Pound鈥檚 brief tenure at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 was well known, especially the story about his having a woman in his room and being fired as a result. It had even been written up in the college鈥檚 centennial history.
Still, I couldn鈥檛 resist doing some cursory research to learn more about his stay in Crawfordsville.
In the spring of 1958, The Bachelor editor Roger Smith was planning a special magazine for Pan Hel weekend and, knowing of my interest in the Pound episode, asked me to write an article. For the next two weeks, I cut my classes and plunged into research in 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 and Crawfordsville publications of 1907-08. I interviewed several Crawfordsville alumni, and wrote special-delivery letters to a couple of alumni from out of town and the one surviving faculty member besides Pound, and wrote my article.
To the body of knowledge about Pound鈥檚 five-month tenure, I managed to add a few new details: He arrived in mid-September 1907, just shy of his 22nd birthday, and departed on February 14, 1908. Soon after his arrival he bought a chafing dish, and while others went home for Thanksgiving, he stayed in Crawfordsville and dined on oysters from that chafing dish. He was seen by some students as a good, even excellent teacher, and by at least one as a fool and a misfit with nothing to offer his students. In January he began to cut chapel on a daily basis and his absences were duly noted in The 新澳门六合彩开奖直播. And when he left he was paid a lump sum of $200, almost half of his promised annual salary, by order of George L. Mackintosh, President of 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 at the time.
Three days after it was published, I mailed a copy of my Bachelor article to Pound, with a rather sophomoric cover letter. Not surprisingly, he didn鈥檛 reply.
But I continued to research the topic in my spare time. I had a job in the Alumni Office and that probably helps explain how I got the idea of writing to all the alumni who had been at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 in 1907-08. English Professor Walter Fertig offered a $20 grant to pay for postage. My letter to the almost 200 alumni who survived from Pound鈥檚 time at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 went out on November 22, 1958. Eventually I would receive over 50 letters in response; about 35 of them included useful memories of Pound and his time at the college.
One former student said he been a part of the incident.
"I was a bit involved with the same escapade that brought his dismissal," wrote Dr. Roy G. Pearce, Class of 1908. "What he did was foolish but I do not believe that he did anything save give them, the ladies, a room to sleep in. I was questioned about the same affair but evidently was a more successful liar."
Lexemuel Hesler, Class of 1911, described the poet moments after he had been fired.
"One day," former Pound student Lexemuel Hesler wrote to me, "I started to Center Hall to register for the winter quarter. I met Ezra coming out the building, tears running down his face. One of the boys who had been in the class said: 鈥楬aven鈥檛 you heard? Old Doc Mac just fired Ezra.鈥�"
"I saw him at the Big Four Station, South Washington Street, and talked with him until he boarded the train leaving the city," wrote David Glasscock, Class of 1908. "In the course of our conversation I asked him why he was leaving. He replied that he was fired鈥 asked him why? He replied that the college board fired him because he had had a girl in his room. I asked if he had had one. He said, 鈥榊es I did.鈥� And when he denied
Having learned that a Crawfordsville High School student, Viola Baylis, had been one of Pound鈥檚 confidantes in 1907, I set about to track her down. This involved some detective work, but I eventually located her in California, and now Mrs. Wildman, and she and I corresponded for several years.
Among many other details, she described Pound as having "dressed in a cosmopolitan manner, wearing soft-collared shirts, wide flowing ties, velveteen jackets, patent-leather shoes, a wide-brimmed felt hat always atop his unruly hair."
Of the incident for which the poet was fired, Mrs. Wildman wrote to me: "He gave his room and bed to a 鈥榩oor orphan in the storm.鈥� When he came, crushed, to discuss the episode with me, he explained how he had slept, fully clothed, on the floor."
Norman Holmes Pearson, a Pound scholar at Yale, heard of my Bachelor article and wrote asking
This time the poet responded and offered some cryptic but valuable leads. His erratically-typed but fascinating note on letterhead from Rapallo, Italy, began:
Dear Rader,
In the spring of 1959, Roger Smith became editor-in-chief of The 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 Review. He asked me if I would do a further article on the subject. As a result I published two reminiscences, one from Mrs. Wildman, who was obviously enamored of the poet, and one from Fred H. Rhodes, class of 1910, a student in Pound鈥檚 beginning French class who had attended one of his teacher鈥檚 "soir鈩s" and was not impressed.
When the Review article was published, I sent a copy of the magazine to Pound and received a second letter from him, this one including an invitation to visit him in Italy. Unfortunately I never took him up on the invitation. In 1975, while doing research at Yale鈥檚 Beinecke Library, I met Pound鈥檚 daughter, Mary de Rachewilz. She volunteered that in 1959 her father was not extending very many invitations to anyone.
When I left 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 at the end of my junior year and transferred to Indiana University, I continued my research. After graduation I dragged the growing mass of research files with me as I moved to Chicago. But when I migrated to Vermont in 1964, I drove to Crawfordsville and gave the whole collection to Lilly Library.
In 1971 I was contacted by Richard Kamka, a high-school teacher from the Chicago area; he and a colleague were planning a film about Pound at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 and asked for my help. Over the next decade or so, I worked with the two young filmmakers and once made a trip to Crawfordsville to join them in their effort. The film was never completed, but I collaborated with Kamka off and on for several years, trying jointly to puzzle out the details of what happened when.
I probably would have overlooked the centennial of Pound鈥檚 tenure at 新澳门六合彩开奖直播 except for a phone call
Looking back on the part-time research that spanned more than 20 years of my life, I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. What began as an informal independent study became a major part of my life and produced a substantial body of documentation; that history has become a part of my own.
新澳门六合彩开奖直播 has taken its lumps for its "failure to appreciate Ezra Pound" and Crawfordsville has been faulted, with good reason, for its prudery. I think, however, that 100 years is sufficient statute of limitations for these crimes. On this centennial I propose a toast to both Old Ez and Old 新澳门六合彩开奖直播!*
Jim served on the staff of now-U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for nearly 20 years, retired in 2004, and currently works part-time as coordinator of the Vermont State Rehabilitation Council. He lives in Grand Isle, VT, with his wife of 25 years, Meg Pond; they have five children and six grandchildren.
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Dear Rader,
Another alumnus believed he was the last to see Pound before he left Crawfordsville.