Black Tern (Chlidonias niger) near Burns, Oregon: photo by Jon Nelson, 13 May 2015
Killdeer 2. "Broken Wing Act". Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), near Burns, Oregon. These birds forage for food in fields, mudflats and shores, usually by sight. Their name comes from their frequently heard call. These birds will frequently use evasive action display ("broken wing act") to distract predators from their nests. This involves the bird walking away from its nesting area holding its wing in a position that simulates an injury. and then flapping around on the ground emitting a distress call. The predators then think they have easy prey and are attracted to the seemingly injured bird and away from the nest. If the parent sees that a potential predator is not following along, it will move closer and get louder until it gets the attention of the predator.: photo by Nick Perla, 29 June 2010
Ezra Pound: from Canto LXXXI
The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.
“Master thyself, then others shall thee beare”
Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst’ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
I say pull down.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972): from Canto LXXXI (1945/1948)
Black Terns (Chlidonias niger) near Burns, Oregon: photo by Jon Nelson, 13 May 2015
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus). A striking black-and-white bird with very long, thin legs, the Black-necked Stilt is found along the edges of open water, in this case near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 25 May 2008
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus). A striking black-and-white bird with very long, thin legs, the Black-necked Stilt is found along the edges of open water, in this case near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 25 May 2008
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), feeding in flooded agricultural fields several miles north of Malheur National Willdlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 1 June 2008
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), feeding in flooded agricultural fields several miles north of Malheur National Willdlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 1 June 2008
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), feeding in flooded agricultural fields several miles north of Malheur National Willdlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 1 June 2008
The standoff [Portland, Oregon]: photo by Nick Fisher, 3 February 2007
Sittin' around and Constitution learnin #Oregonstandoff: image via Jennifer Hayden @Scout_Finch, 30 January 2016
Anderson describes seeing bald eagles and taking it as a sign of God’s hand. Apparently forgets they are at a bird refuge #Oregonstandoff: tweet via Jennifer Hayden @Scout_Finch, 30 January 2016
This Burns resident is NOT happy about the 3%er rolling rally. #Oregonstandoff: image via Corry Young @photocorry, 30 January 2016
Driving through residential areas at night blaring horns. Way to win hearts and minds, III% #Oregonstandoff: tweet via Shane Roth @apexnerd, 30 January 2016
Revolution Radio can't find locals who are supportive of Rolling Bro-test #Oregonstandoff: tweet via Shane Roth @apexnerd, 30 January 2016
All
they want is peace...a piece of Oregon, a piece of Idaho, a piece of
Montana, a piece of Arizona, a piece of Wyoming! #Oregonstandoff: tweet via Return Our Refuge @Return Our Refuge 30 January 2016
A Veritable "Who's That" of the Patriot Movement mill about a Rite Aid parking lot #Oregonstandoff: tweet via Shane Roth @apexnerd, 30 January 2016
Crowd getting larger for the 3%ers rolling rally #Oregonstandoff: image via Corry Young @photocorry, 30 January 2016
Sunset west of Burns, Oregon: photo by Kurt Johnson, 26 April 2011
These moments when Ezra attains true eminence... I think of his last silences.There's this world that keeps rotunding the same suicidal cookooness, no matter how many fine ancient and wise Chinese characters you throw at it.
ReplyDeleteHere's something from Jean Michel Rabaté (via Google):
"When we manage to learn more about Paquin, relevant features may be found, some of which destroy the web of speculative associations each reader is likely to spin for himself; for instance, the fact that she opened a house in London in 1912, at a time when Pound lived there but felt attracted by whatever came from Paris ('"We" in London 1911-14 were subsequent to a great deal of Paris'), strengthens the connection between the end of Canto LXXX and Canto LXXXI. But, on the other hand, she was the wife of a rich banker, Joseph Paquin, and exploited her entries into the higher echelons of Parisian society. Did Pound know of this, and is she meant to represent beauty bought by usury? Besides, she was not only a gifted designer, but also her own mannequin, and knew how to promote, advertise and manage her house in a very modern and efficient way. Is she a symbol of grace and elegance, or of corruption and decadence? The only other explicit mention of her by Pound seems to go in the direction of a negative view: 'the mode Paris 1892-1910 is over. It is as uninteresting as a Paquin model for 1894."' Is Paquin's name a kenning for what Williams calls 'obsolete'? Or is she a symptom of pure complacency and idolatry, since we learn that she exhibited a wax figure of herself at the Paris Exhibition of 1900? Pound seems to have known that green, along with white and gold, was one of her favourite colours for her much-admired evening gowns."
How does Pound sound presently?
ReplyDeleteI keep forgetting that proximity to the Pacific flyway and its wonders is not something everyone enjoys, or would even wish to enjoy, for that matter. To get tremendously obvious about something that's probably already blindingly obvious... but then again, with blogging, one never knows... all these last fifteen or so posts are, in one way or another, just bird blogging. The splendor of the birds, the disgusting humanity of the rednecks. But not to worry. The fact that no one but me gives a darn about Black-necked Stilts is no feather off the wing of a Black-necked Stilt.
ReplyDeleteBlack-necked Stilt
Abdal-Hayy, yes, EP at his magisterial greatest -- what else is there to say?
Things like resignation, concession, admission of error are not held to be proper subjects for postmodern poetry.
As for the UPenn English Department expert.... jeez, is there no escape from these guys?
Cluelessness on the part of Joe Schmoe the Common Reader is one thing, on the part of the author of Crimes of the Future: Theory and its global reproduction; Psychoanalysis and Literature; and some three dozen additional undoubtedly penetrating and hefty tomes, another.
In the poem the high-end Parisian couturier Paquin figures much as might, today, the stars of Paris Fashion Week -- Chanel, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Yves Saint Laurent, et al. A simple and striking opposition, the artifice of high capitalism against the superior artistry and superior humility of the natural world.
"Besides, she was not only a gifted designer, but also her own mannequin, and knew how to promote, advertise and manage her house in a very modern and efficient way. Is she a symbol of grace and elegance, or of corruption and decadence?"
Do give us a break, Jean Michel. Is Charlie Hebdo Santa Claus?
What is it with UPenn, any more, that causes every English Professor to be so totally lacking in common sense?
Jack, as to how Pound sounds presently, you know that question is front-loaded with irony, but I suppose you are meaning to ask something along the lines of, how, in the airless, stifling institutional environment of the Pound section of the Penn Sound archive -- actually a donation from the archives of "Professor Richard Sieburth", though in 2007 the accession was proudly hailed as something of a coup by UPenn corporate spokesmen "Professor Bernstein" and "Dr. Filreis"... those noted Pound scholars... -- does the famously politically-incorrect Pound sound now?
Or do you mean how does Pound sound when mingled with the backfires and echoes of actual present experience outside the hothouse of the academic litscene?
Or how does he sound to me?
Or to the people in Burns, Oregon?
Or to the Idaho 3%?
Or to the Black-necked Stilt?
Or... to you????
To me he sounds much as he has sounded for the past several forevers since the magnificence of his poetry brought me to that dying art in the first place.
Then again, looking at the question in terms of audience relations...
The poem excerpted here was not meant to be read at Brown University, for example.
Given that it was writ under extremely fraught circumstances, in a prison camp, the original audience can't have been much larger than a few guards, fellow inmates (mostly black), and a number of insects, down at ground level.
How did it sound to that audience?
How would it sound to Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Pete Santilli, Ryan Payne, the late LaVern Finestra, Jon Ritzheimer, Sean Anderson et al?
Huh?
Who?
Here's how Canto LXXXI sounded to Ezra Pound when read aloud to him by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Here's how Canto LXXXI sounded when read aloud for a recording by Ezra Pound
Ezra sounds right on to me, Tom, but who knows? Maybe I’m just a greenhorn rednecking in the wrong part of the woods. http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Redneck
ReplyDeleteJust like a furriner to know better. Do you guys even HAVE woods over there in them furrin lands??
ReplyDeleteCan't never trust no furriner no ways.
Next thing we know, they'll be growin' brains, and sneakin' 'em through Customs...
And even as we fiddle, Burns burns... with anger.
At this moment in the gelid parking lot of the Harney County Courthouse two throngs of humans scream at each other. One group is composed of locals, who want the uninvited Idaho 3% brain capacity Militia to get the hell out. The other group is composed of the uninvited Idaho 3% brain capacity Militia. They have bigger flags, and arguably even more kidney fat, under the extremely forgiving camo.
The late La Voy Finicum/Lavern Finestra having become a saint and martyr after committing suicide by cop, his cult is now the stuff of legend. At least two habitually lying human females, one of adult age, neither with IQ higher than 0.7, are swearing he was murdered in cold blood while saving a newborn lamb.
In his memory, the Idaho Gun Mob is demanding all Oregon local officials, state police, sheriffs, judges, dogcatcher et al, be forced to leave their positions immediately, to be replaced by armed morons from Uranus.
Petishun to gets them Harney county boys to resine
Meanwhile, the one inconvenient feature of the Finicum Walmartyrdom turns out to be the absolutely inarguable fact it's entirely based on more of the same yeehaw b.s. that's been the "lifeblood" of this "movement".
LaVoy Finicum Was Not Murdered. He Forced Oregon Police To Shoot Him.: Bob Owens, Bearing Arms, 30 January 2016
(Bob Owens, by the way, is the Editor of Bearing Arms. He is an alumnus of Gunsite Academy, is an instructor with Project Appleseed, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.)
And anybody who questions the authenticity of that Petishun should know it comes from the one forum in this country in which rationality is beyond debate: Bay Harbor Islands Psychiatric Hospital, Florida.
ReplyDelete"The green world" won't be bearing us much longer.
ReplyDeleteFor all his madhouse politics, Pound's outline of what was to be lost and the coming fall in Cantos seems more prescient than ever. At least his reactionary cathead was often lit up with critical fire. He knew the disasters better than many on the left.
As to the militia, whatever shape their vanity takes it has bugger all to do with aesthetics. They'd scuff up anything good and clean.
I'd give a good deal for just a glance of a black-necked stilt.
I am 100% pro-bird blogging. These days, it's non-stop pelicans for us as the herring move through town. Not as many cormorants as last year, which makes me wonder where they've gone. Lots of different gulls, and more than a few crows, too. I don't think we've got Black-necked Stilts, but we do have a lot of lighter-colored long-legged birds along the shore.
ReplyDeleteI've located our black necked stilts -- they're about a mile up the coast from us, in the salty marshes by the highway. I'll try to get some pictures this weekend, do some bird blogging of my own.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible not to rejoice in this upwelling of common sympathy for the Black-necked Stilt... skinny legs and all.
ReplyDelete