Peace Ideogram
Ezra Pound undertakes
a 20th Century peace vision quest.
Another Don Quiote,
he treks from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven
in a modern odyssey to end all wars.
He hopes to rebuild civilization
out of the Great War rubble
by writing epic poetry,
Confucian philosophy,
economics and art
in multi-languages and cultures
that time travels
and turns between imagism,
ideograms, vorticism and visions,
across world literature,
troubadour history
and into a utopia of fine art.
A lifelong serial poem,
Los Cantos connects the east with the west,
gathers up the riches of each.
The journey gets stuck in Hell,
songs shoot bullets
at bankers for funding wars
to make rich men richer.
Pound fingers culprits,
blames them for war,
embraces Fascism
and antisemitism,
all while these poems celebrate
art, love songs and poetry,
he enters Purgatory
while off at a distance
Peace beckons from Paradise.
Los Cantos poems shift time,
sift out golden ideograms.
They offer versions of salvation:
with Confucious and Doa from the East,
in Homer and Ovid from the West,
with pinches of ancient Greek wisdom
leavened by French troubadour love ballads,
with Dante's Songs of Heaven and Hell,
and Malatesta's El Tempio of Art & Poetry.
The Pisan Cantos, written on death row in Italy,
glimpse Heaven in past glories,
in lyrical beauty, songs steer toward peace.
From the time Pound was a young artist,
he believed that poetry and art
can heal and bring peace
to a war blasted world.
Where does this lunacy get him?
17 years in St. Elizabeth's insane asylum.
WWII comes anyway, more wars follow.
In the final song fragments of Los Cantos,
Pound lives in Hell.
(Inspired by Ezra Pound scholar and teacher, Andrew Schelling)
https://www.verse-virtual.org/2024/May/bruck-ingrid-2024-may.html
Date of Publication: May 1, 2024