Friday, October 20, 2023
The Present State of the Country
Letter of Ezra Pound to Hubert Creekmore (February 1939), in The Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941, ed. D.D. Paige (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), pp. 417-418 (at 417):
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Am I American? Yes, and buggar the present state of the country, the utter betrayal of the American Constitution, the filth of the Universities, and the — — — — system of publication whereby you can buy Lenin, Trotsky (the messiest mutt of the lot), Stalin for 10 cents and 25 cents, and it takes seven years to get a set of John Adams at about 30 dollars. Van Buren's autobiog not printed till 1920.A. David Moody, Ezra Pound, Poet: A Portrait of the Man and His Work, Vol. II: The Epic Years, 1921-1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 298, dates the letter to March 1939 and quotes "shitten" in place of the dashes.
[....]
When are you going to make the place safe for natives? Or to hell with safe; when are you going to make it or permit it to be made a fit habitat?
