Chatter softens and Leopold takes the stage. Commences with statements of best intent, that he takes Pound at his word and believes Pound tried to tell his truth in a difficult context. We observe Canto LII in censored form, and Leopold reads the original ms. in full up to l.36.

Leopold finds 3 controversies.

1. “Rothschild sin drawing vengeance…”: In Leopold’s opinion, Pound would claim this was not anti-Semitic. He compares to Pound’s American Notes (1935, specifically C1272) in which Pound calls Jews the scapegoats of usurers, and quotes “Don’t start a pogrom…” Also uses A. David Moody, Poet: Volume II, p.158.

2. “Remarked Ben…”: which Benjamin Franklin did not say, or rather which came from a falsified document that was circulating in the States—Eliot received a letter after publication stating the falsity of this doc., the notice was passed to Pound who resisted. Leopold joins this to Pound’s treatment of the Protocols, which were a forgery but which Pound took as a “half-truth” (Leopold’s term); Pound treated the Protocols with importance despite their provenance. Leopold contextualises Pound in an echo-chamber, both in 1937-45 and again in St. Elizabeths, his main correspondence being with fascists or fans, and that those close to him also shared his views.

3. “slugs… yacht”: Leopold characterises this line with envy and ‘nimby’, and says that it is the most anti-Semitic of the censored material, that it does not belong in The Cantos. Later, another scholar will empathise, saying there are certain billionaires today whose yacht they would not welcome in their bay.

Leopold criticises the difference in reputation between EP and Eliot regards anti-Semitism. When Eliot required libel-safe censorship of LII, he suggested Bleistein in place of Rothschild. This name came directly from a poem of Eliot’s, “Burbank with a Beidecker | Bleistein with a Cigar,” and reading the poem, Leopold finds that Pound never wrote anything quite as disgusting (we later consider the Hell Cantos). Leopold finds that, apart from an obvious dislike of a certain family, Pound intellectually disagrees with ‘Semitic practice,’ but that Eliot writes unintellectual body horror, the same form of anti-Semitism Goebels played upon. Leopold presents another of Eliot’s anti-Semitic poems, “Dirge,” which was part of the material Eliot was trying to mould into The Waste Land, and mentions (for this reason or that) that Pound had it dropped (a fraction, “full thousand five…” surviving). This is Eliot in 1920 or 1921, when also he wrote a prose collection After Strange Gods with similar sentiment, a piece which was excluded in Faber’s collected prose of today. Eliot seems to have recognised the error of his ways & corrected, but in his most private correspondence, to his wife-to-be Emily Hale continues with similar sentiments; Leopold quoting from 3 letters.

Leopold discusses Kenner’s Pound Era, a study of Pound’s poetry without politics, and asks whether we make excuses for Pound that we would not make for anyone else. Discussion opens.

Tyler, I think, corrects Leopold’s comparative approach, that if one is less wrong they are still wrong. Leopold’s complaint about reputation may stand, but this is an important point for us to reach to enable further discussion. Tyler finds Pound conspiratorial, which is Pound’s self-belief and self-justification. Eliot is instead more suburban, more LBC (my term). He discusses text against action, that Pound incriminated himself in a public forum, and that this contributes to Pound’s reputational burden. The non-poetic form of the radio speech he suggests carries a different currency. Ben joins, and adds that LII contains a later lyrical beauty comparable to Canto XLIX, the seven lakes canto, suggesting that the distance between Pound’s beauty and disgust leaves him more susceptible to such criticisms, not just by our own draw to those better parts—and that further, we do forgive him somewhat for the beauty of his poetry. After mention of Eustace Mullins’s Secrets of the Federal Reserve reputedly being instigated by Pound, Ben recommends Sean Mark’s paper “Beauty is Difficult” as bolster.

Kenner’s approach is deemed no longer tenable given new revelations of Pound’s right-wing involvements. The O.R. Agresti correspondence, with Archie Henderson’s supplement, for a start, together with the suppression by New Directions of Pound’s anti-Semitic and even anti-Communist attitudes for the sake of his brand, for the sake of the success of his poetry (Gregory Barnhisel’s James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound for source).

Mike asks after the existence of a Pound-aware, or influenced right today, and we discuss the existence of a memeified Pound in various groups whose listing could be a mistake. We have all seen the occasional, rare reference. Some more prominent groups may have been absorbed into governments. Ben mentions his discoveries that T. D. Horton (of the St. Liz crew, and the Square $ Series) actually affected changes in legislature. He also appreciates Alec Marsh’s aspect of a Lost Cause ideology in The Cantos. Leopold repeats his disappointment with Marsh’s attributing “to be men, not destroyers” to a Semite-exclusionary Poundian paradise, Pound elsewhere and throughout The Cantos perceiving Semites as destroyers. (From Ezra Pound’s Washington Cantos and the Struggle for Light, which in post-script LG. otherwise recommends, best read alongside Marsh’s John Kasper and Ezra Pound).

Julius turns back to the Hell Cantos, comparing them to pre-William Burroughs, the Naked Lunch. Scans the landscape and determines that no-one has to be apologetic working on Pound given current geopolitics. We discuss Robert Casillo’s Genealogy of Demons, deciding it is outmoded but that, given Kenner, we had provide a counterbalance in making passage to our current understanding. Ben Smith: “As scholars, we have to be able to confess Pound’s wrong without losing our own rightness.” Ben again, on Pound’s moments of clarity and The Cantos as a warning.

Olga tells us of a young Pound’s letters with his mother, his mother says if you write an epic it should about America, Pound replies but what has America done to deserve an epic? And he turns to Dante, the epic of judgement.

Louis requests clarification on Pound’s treatment of the Protocols, historiographically and artistically, the method by which Pound treats fact, and the discussion also invites us to consider Pound’s maintaining the censored galleys in the contemporaneous American edition, the contrast between Pound’s treatment of book form and his desire to educate.

A brewing discussion on Kanye West finally boils. Differing opinions of sincerity arise. Conversation devolves (evolves?) into fanboying of Bob Dylan between Louis and Ben (it came from a quote of Allen Ginsberg that without EP there would be no BD), and we end.