12 June 53

Dear EP:

Of course the time to write biography is post mortem, but
as the mortem isn't post and as things are pressing--that is, as
there is a need to indicate what is worth "fighting FOR" and
why and how and by whom, and what against---Jesu, seest thou
not!--the time becomes now and I'm going ahead and do what I can.
It won't be the biography, but it will have that as raison d'être
and, god willing, it will be useful. Sure it'll have a lot of
sub secondary nonsense in it, necessarily, but not so much that
it will destroy the design of the book; just enough to get it
into print. You mention Emery's book on the Cantos; first time
I've heard of it. Won't Laughlin take it into print? What of
the university presses? Has he tried out here? At any rate,
his problem of publication will not, I think I can say, be mine.
The press here has already asked for what I've done so far, and
wants the whole thing when done; I think I can hold them to
that if problems arise. So publication is established---the
crumbs and cigarette butts and all, especially the all, which
is why one goes on. REALLY, one isn't quite so imbecile as
others at times try to suggest. And I change the diapers twice
a day. Dixie, anyway, is well again.

As soon as I clear away a couple of hundred exams just
handed in, I'll get on that list of names and report back soonest
on what's returned. Any more names? What of the Orient: Hong Kong?
Japan? Formosa? Peiping? and what of India: Delhi? Calcutta?
Certainly something should come in from out there???

In a great rush---in sua voluntade è pace?

Joh.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
BERKELEY 4, CALIFORNIA

10 September 1953

Dear EP:

It has been a long summer and a long silence. I write to
put two matters:

I sent out letters to the various names you gave me--some
two months ago. I have heard from none. There was a certain problem
with the mail at that time, and I wonder if the batch of notes,
all mailed at once, got lost at once. If you have heard from any
of those people and they mention that they have heard from me, would
you let me know? Otherwise, I shall sit down to begin again. I am
worried since I *should* have heard by now, but there is nothing.

Secondly, the publication of *The Translations* got here
the other day. I thought it a bad job of bookmaking, poorly
selected and insolently edited, if edited at all, and if not,
why not? I have complained loudly in a *Poetry* review.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

6 October 53

Dear EP:

Since I have not heard from you in answer to my last note, I
am assuming that either (a) the post office has done me wrong
again, or (b) you have not heard from any of those people, and
I am beginning again to try to get in touch with them about the
periodical commentary to be brought together here and prepared
for distribution among interested persons. I shall need, later,
a list of the interested persons --not the informing ones, but
the reading ones -- to whom our sheet should be sent.

Had dinner with Mathurin Dondo recently. He asked me to
send greetings from way back. I send them.

Yipes! I have heard that the selector of the TRANSLATIONS
of whom I said such unpleasant things is T.S. Eliot. This I could
have been spared, though I have held to my belief that the job done
was not up to the excellence of the work presented.

The love of all six of us (now also a dog) to yourself and
Mrs Pound.

P.S. I have been trying to interest the University in getting the Jaime de Angulo materials into safe keeping before they get lost altogether. Robert Duncan has been helping me on this, a job which I think has a very certain importance. He tells me that Mrs Pound has some of the manuscripts. Would it be possible to hear how many mss. and which ones, and, if we do not get the materials from the publisher or from some other source, would it be possible, at least by microfilm, to get the materials in your hands? This stuff ought to be made available, and soon. I would appreciate your help. Duncan is talking with Mrs de Angulo for us, and after I hear from you I shall be writing to Wyn about what he has.

J.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

12 October 53

Dear EP:

1. The dawg is a terror. What kind of a terror, who can tell?

2. Re: dating of translations: my review in *Poetry* did that fully, besides saying something. At least, I thought it something, but who can tell? Though I dare say I shall hear the complaints when the thing gets into print.

3. Re: PROceed under yr/ own power: do you mean with letters to peeeple? If so, I have started already. Do you mean with De Angulo materials? I am trying to. Have heard nothing from Duncan since I last wrote you.

4. Did I tell you we were drawing up an INDEX to THE CANTOS, a kind of informative thing we hope will be useful while not being the sort of thing that makes the meanings rigid? Neutral in its information, pleasant in its labor. M

5. Once in a while I get to see my family.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

23 October 1953

Dear EP:

All the letters re the EP newsletter have gone out. A slow job,
especially on a second time around.

You sent only eleven names: this seems small. I was thinking
of expanding the list to include such people as Horton and Paul
Blackburn and Harold Watts and Peter Russell. It seems to me we
ought to get the thing around if it is to do the job it might do.
Could you find time to send along some more names with addresses,
or do you want us to go ahead on our own and pull in whom we will?

The central idea of the letter that went out is in this paragraph
from it:

"There are still a good many things to be said and that need to be said concerning the work, literary and extraliterary, of Ezra Pound, things that center on his attempts to find ways to maintain the life of the mind, to keep up a demand for awarness. It has been thought therefore that a kind of periodical newsletter distributed among those who have been aware of Pound's achievement would be an effective way of keeping up at least one kind of awareness and, perhaps, of contributing to it.

"At Mr Pound's suggestion I am writing to you to ask...."

(The rest suggests the problems of contributions and procedures for publication and asks for aid.)

Will do????

<table><tr><td>THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS</td></tr></table>

Mr Ezra Pound
St Elizabeth's Hospital
Washington, D.C.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

15 November 1953

Dear EP:

Sorry about the inclusion of your name. We included that phrase only on
the letters that went out to people you had specifically recommended. We have not
included it since. So be it.

Return letters keep coming in. It would seem that there are no objections
and indeed considerable interest. We should get to press before too long.

In the meantime, I shall fuhr in relative silence.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

23 December 1953

Dear Gran'pa:

There has been sufficient response to my notes about the NEWSLETTER to get a kind of preliminary issue into the mails within a couple of weeks. This first issue will be exploratory, testing and suggesting. Several people have written in to ask that you write a note for the first number. Would you be interested?

P.S. Just got a fine long letter from Mary Barnard after a long, long wait.
Now if I could only locate Paige.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

5 February 54

Dear EP:

This is just to send along greetings and some pictures
of the boys last Christmas day. A rum bunch, eh?

I might also add that this afternoon I tore up a contract
to teach here this summer (regretting the lost 600 dollars but
burning the bridges to get to something more important) and
so I shall be heading for Europe this June, even if I have to swim
the pond. I shall be going to talk with people and to examine such
manuscript material as I can find. If I can see that material that
Paige had in Rapallo, so much the better; if not, I'll have to work
without it. The decision, of course, is yours.

And beyond people and manuscripts, there is the whole continent
I've never seen, various correspondents to the Newsletter who sound
worth the looking up, a good deal of family in England I've never met,
and just, in all, a summer of looking about and trying to understand.
Dixie and the boys will stay on the farm in Maryland, where, if you
could stand the noise and frolic, they could drive down to see you
whenever they might fit in. We should be back there by late June.

The Newsletter draws a wide, interested, and interesting response;
I have hopes that it will do the job we want of it, or at least move
things in the right direction. I have written some 200 letters in the
last two weeks; I have hopes that when the mail is all in, we'll have
broad and active base from which to fight back. CIV/n is indeed not a
one man job; we're moving to share the work and to keep it working.

Our love to Madame Dorothy....

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

27 October 1954

Dear EP:

First, this is to pass along greetings from the all of us:
happy birthday, and all that kind of thing. Another notch on the long
stick, the full significance of which few know better than I. May it
dawn a pleasant day, and the flow, may it be free.

Second, this is to announce that after *four* years of trying,
I was finally able today to locate a copy of Adams on *Civilization and
Decay*. What did they do, take it off the shelves? Why is it so rare
and why so seldom noted? Either Beard is an ass in his introductory
notes (and none have moved to prove this) or there is a silence of
frightening dimensions in the areas of historiography. I'm going to
put the question to local historians and see what comes out. Will
let you know.

I hope the PN: 4 moved in diflections that seemed useful to you.
The limit of ten issues mentioned is necessitated by, among other things,
a limit of funds here. I think I can scrape up another $600 to run the
last six issues, but it squeezes one. We send out over 500 copies per issue
now, and have just heard from Finhänd. Another translation???

About the *Cantos Index*: Pearson sent along word from you that
you do not look with disfavor on our saving gramp from making memos
on the back leaf. Good enough. We think it will have its use. But there
will be gaps in the annotations here and there, more than we would want.
We've spent some time on it and hope to send it off to the press around
April 1. The January PN will list some items were not sure about,
perhaps 150 of them. But this is the pitch: could I fire off some of the
most difficult to you for brief notes? This can be anonymous if you wish,
and I shall try to arrange it so that it takes little time. But the
value of your comment would seem to need no explanation. Things will go
blank without it.

Hope that the visit with Goacher proved as pleasant as was my own
with him. He's a good person to have over there, in many ways.

Haven't heard from Mary and family: did they ever get the Pooh book
I sent the kids from London?

Regards to the both of you,

C O P Y

10 January 55

Dear Mr Guenther:

Your letter has just arrived. I think the delay, though regrettable when one considers that things have gone on for over ten years now, is for the best. The move you propose could be made extremely important and useful. I do not think, however, that it can be too strongly stressed that _this thing must be done right_, or it will end only in harm and frustration. It will be of no value to let this move miscarry; you can be of service only to the extent that you can organize the latent support that is ready to be tapped, direct the petition toward proper authorities, understand the legal business associated with the case, and above all else, see to it that the wishes of Ezra Pound are ascertained and that your plans bear his confirmation. It may not be possible for him to set a deliberate _imprimatur_ on your petition, since obviously he will feel both intimately concerned and yet, perhaps, necessarily dissociated. But if this plan is to be carried through, do let us see it carried through to some positive end. There has been far too much loose sentimentalism over the case of Ezra Pound; too many "friends" have shed easy tears over the case, leaving nothing gained. Ezra Pound is still in St. Elizabeths, for all the futile protest that has sputtered forth. Please, Mr Guenther, do this right, or let it go. Don't light another fuse and then drown it in ignorant weeping. I am certain that something can come out of this, but you must know what you are doing and what can be done.

I repeat: I will do all I can to help you. I must say from the first, however, that though I shall be able to give your plans full publicity in the _Newsletter_, I cannot arrange to publish the petition therein. The _Newsletter_ has a direct responsibility to a State of California institution; since your petition will be an appeal to Federal authorities concerning a Federal legal case, it is impossible for me to use the _Newsletter_ as a direct instrument of that appeal. The appeal has news value, and so can be noted in the _Newsletter_; but the appeal is also an active legal instrument, and so must be dissociated from the legal responsibilities I have in publishing the _Newsletter_ with State of California funds. Were the _Newsletter_ self-supporting and removed from the University, it would be a different case. But things being as they are, I have no alternative.

One last word, for the moment: you ask for suggestions; I think this to be a basic question: do you want Ezra Pound to be released from St Elizabeths, or, what may be quite a different matter, do you want him not only released but fully exonerated of all charges against him, free to go where he wishes, here or abroad? Only the latter condition will be meaningful and pertinent. It will be the more difficult to accomplish, and must be seen as a different problem from that of the former possibility, but without a full release, nothing attempted will come to significance.

Copy to Ezra Pound

["UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA", "DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH\nBERKELEY 4, CALIFORNIA", "3 February 55", "Dear EP:", "By now you will have seen the fifth issue of the *Newsletter*. It seems to me to be moving along all right in one way: insofar as it compiles a past. That kind of thing has to be done, *but* I should not like to think the *Newsletter* is able to consider the past only.", "Which is another way of saying that, all in all, I thought the last issue dull. I thought it dragged along while it should have been pointing ahead. I would like to think that we can get that pointing ahead.", "Which brings me to this: we'll publish what we hear about and what we receive. You know how these things go. A lot of people express enormous interest, and then when the chips are down and we ask for something new and new-making, they clam up. We still want to have the *Newsletter* a something that will not only keep up one kind of awareness, but also a something that will cont cont cont cont cont

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

11 February 55

Dear EP:

In addition to the photographs of Mary and Boris and the children that I sent yesterday, I am having developed -- they will be ready early next week -- photographs of the Monti painting of you, the painting of your father, and a 19th century painting of a woman, whose identity I am ignorant of; all these were in the house in Rapallo, up the salita. Also some general shots of Rapallo, one of the Gaudier-Braśka bust (which didn't come out well), one of the Nancy Cox mask, and some of San Trovaso, the Piazetta San Marco, and some, I think (I don't know if they are on the last roll sent in), of London: Church Walk, Holland Place Chambers, South Lodge and so forth.

If you'd like any of these, I'll be pleased to send copies off to you.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

6 January 58

Dear Mr Pound:

Though I do not doubt it is there, I cannot find an error on page 22 of the INDEX. Neither can I detect the note of tendentiousness marring the book; perhaps tendency is hard to recognize. The book can be little more than amusing to the author of the *Cantos*, but it will be useful for those who have the need for it. I regret the publisher required cuts in some of the annotations to save space; a more complete statement sometimes would have been more meaningful. But one does what one can.

I recently came into possession of this photograph of an early portrait of your mother. It occurred to me that you might wish to have it. It is very beautiful of her.