EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

Everybody had heard of Egypt and nobody had heard of Benin.

That's that. I don't know that I can say much more.
Anything I can do to assist in the carrying out of
the idea, I am more than willing to do. Probenius
is now in charge of the Ethnological Museum, Frankfurt am
Main.

"The Voice of Africa", a rather diffuse travel book has been translated by a translator who understands the technical terms of F's german, and who will be available for further work.

Erlebte Erdteile, is pubd. by Frankfurter Zeitung, 7 vols.
more or less summary of F's results. The top floor of
the Museum is given up to F's school for training specialists.

cordially yours

On tour
837 East 24th Street
Los Angeles, Calif.
April 22, 1932.

Mr. Ezra Pound
Via Marsala, 12 Int. 5
Rapallo, Italy.

Dear Mr. Pound:

I am sorry to have been so long about answering your letter but I have been on a lecture tour of the South all winter. I was very much interested in what you had to say about Frobenius. Certainly I agree with you about the desireability of his being translated into English and I have written to both Howard and Fisk Universities concerning what you say and sending them each a copy of your letter that was sent to Tuskegee.

Tuskegee is a very wealthy industrial school but I am afraid they have little inclinations toward anything so spiritually important as translations of Frobenius would be to the Negro race. I am enclosing here the letters with which Howard and Fisk have answered me. So you can see what they seem to think about it. They are our largest and most important Negro Universities.

Some weeks ago I sent you my books in care of INDICE. I hope you have received them.

I have known your work for more than 10 years and many of your poems insist on remaining in my head, not the words, but the mood and the meaning, which, after all, is the heart of a poem. I never remember 10 consecutive words of anybody's, not even my own, poems.

Thank you for bringing this great German's work to the attention of American Negroes. I hope something will come of your suggestion and if I can do any more about it I assure you that I will.

4

18 June 1932

VIA MARSALA 12-5

E. POUND

RAPALLO

Dear Hughes

Thanks very much for "Scotsborough Limited."

As for the case itself, I don't know that my name has been used on any protest, and I don't know that my name or anyone's name can be of any use.

I believe the American govt. as INTENDED, and as a system is as good a form of govt. as any, save possibly that outlined in the new Spanish constitution, but no govt. can go on forever if it allows the worst men in it to govern and if it lends itself repeatedly to flagrant injustice.

There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme Southern states are governed by the worst there is in them.

I can't see how the "left" can make anything save confusion until it can think more clearly about economics, though it is no more ignorant of them than any other group or party.

All of which you are welcome to quote if you think it will do any good. I am not hiding my approval.

ANNO XIII
1935

E. POUND
RAPALLO
VIA MARSALA 12 - 5

Dear Hughes

Have just spent 30 cents postage on Jacques Romain.

Heaven knows what good it will do / out at least a few more

people will know he exists and has been jailed.

If you are near Dynamo/ for god's sake try to get 'em to THINK.

A revolution to pattern is an absurdity, and absurdly impossible.

Anybody who wants a REAL one, has got to want it IN TIME
and SPACE, ie; a particular place at a given date.

NONE of the american idiots will think of a MEANS of
distributing communal wealth IN the U.S.A. in 1935 or '36
or 1940.

CAN you get it into ANY of them that WHEN some real revolutionar

ies

ies thought about conquest of London/ they SAW how to
sieze the city/ but saw no means of provisioning it WHEN
taken. at least they thought they cd/ hold out for three
days.

There was a commune in Paris/ and a communist seizure
of factories in Giolitti's time.

beaten by Giolitti's NON-resitence

That ivory tower ass Zukofsky has been bleating about
communism.

To me

That type of communist don't WANT communism, he
just wants to avoid thinking.

There are two means of breaking bank POWER. If the communists
were REAL they wd/ be back of the urge toward one or
preferably BOTH these means. call 'em knives, to
out the BANK hangmen banker's noose. if they like Buddy
terminology.

BUEH BANK Hangmen Bankers Union

ANNO XIII
1935

Considerin' I spend about 95% of my energy at this
typewriter trying to CREATE a REAL revolution, I get a bit
fed up with palookas who merely go on talking about a
stuffed replica of a revolution that ONCE happned.

NO revolution is made to pattern, or by people who refuse
to look at the mass of opposition/ the KIND of opposition,
and the Avaliable energies that can be used in moving
tOWARD revolution.

American architects used to build
imitations of European castles and palaces/ that was a phase
preceded the new architecture / the REVOLUTION in architecture.
Will 40 communists move on to the idea of a REVOLUTION
in America, cognizant of american factors that MUST inhere
in any american revolution ?

You can't have a Cromwellian, or a French, Robespierre,
or a Russian or an Intalian revolution in the U.S.

as for world revolution, that is O.K., and for a while,
we are in world revolution, but we will be the arse end
unless some left wing intelligence acts.

Were going out and
being yes-men en masse ( attending meeting etc. ) isn't enough.

r:s:v:p: