Telephone:

TEMPLE BAR 8985 (2 lines)

LICENSED BY L.C.C.

MEMBER
THEATRICAL MANAGERS
ASSOCIATION

Cables:

"PLAYBOX, LONDON" (Western Union)

GORDON HARBORD

Literary & Dramatic Agent

Plays:

GORDON HARBORD

EDGAR B. SKEET

Films:

MRS. T. C. DAGNALL

Artists:

ERNEST DUDLEY

Publicity:

DAVID EVANS

Literary Dept.:

RUTH ROGERS

BRIAN HALL, B.A. (Oxon)

Manager:

D. S. BLANDFORD

Secretary:

ELSIE MARSHALL

53, ST. MARTIN'S LANE,

LONDON, W.C. 2

19th February, 1974

Ezra Pound, Esq.,
Via Marsala 12-5,
RAPALLO,
ITALY.

Dear Mr. Pound,

Many thanks for your card about McAlmon. I am
sure that a preface from you would be a great help to him. It
would compel people over here to take him seriously, and I expect
you know how difficult it is to get publishers in these unproper-
ous times to regard anything seriously that hasn't the hall-mark
of commercial success — particularly a new name.

I sent "ALIEN FLAME", as McAdam's book is called
at present, to Faber last week. It has gone to them anonymous-
ly, at the author's request, and I have just dropped a line to
Mr. Stewart to say that you would write a preface.

NEW YORK

HOLLYWOOD

PARIS

BERLIN

Telephone:

TEMPLE BAR 8985 (2 lines)

LICENSED BY L.C.C.

Cables:

GORDON HARBORD

Literary & Dramatic Agent

Plays:

GORDON HARBORD

EDGAR B. SKEET

Films:

MRS. T. C. DAGNALL

Artists:

ERNEST DUDLEY

Publicity:

DAVID EVANS

ARY DEPT. :

RUTH ROGERS

BRIAN HALL, B.A. (Oxon)

Manager:

D. S. BLANDFORD

Secretary:

ELSIK MARSHALL

53. ST. MARTIN'S LANE,
LONDON, W.C.2

26th February, 1934.

Ezra Pound, Esq.,
Via Marsala 12-5,
RAPALLO,
I T A L Y.

Dear Mr. Pound,

Mr. McAlmon wrote to us about "ALIEN FLAME" to say:- "I suggest as a matter of fact that you submit it everywhere anonymously, although if it's taken I won't have it published so." He also suggested Faber & Faber among others as suitable publishers for it; and the book was sent to them some time before we heard that you would be prepared to write him a preface. On the 10th February he wrote "At any rate, if you will try Faber & Faber as I suggest. ...And for the rest, you know the market best."

You will see from this that we have merely carried out the author's instructions, and there is no question of the work being published anonymously. I am sorry if my first letter did not make this clear.

NEW YORK

HOLLYWOOD

PARIS

BERLIN

res publica, the public convenience

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

for or from reasons necessitated in the narration.
He buts into the action instead of remaining a spectator.
Whether from author's personal necessity to claim freedom
from prejudice rather than from need inherent in tellin' the
tale,

I ask you ? you can think it out.

On the other hand this queery may rise from my
own prejudices.

On the third or fourth hand ; permit the question
re/ analogy of your claim to a mental virginity. I.E.
the iMHH insistance on your never having enjoyed a
moment of your time when fuckin' any character.

probably very typical and indicative of
our bloody virgin republic.

Also may be the source of your
particular talent fer observation.

///

Anny how I hand it to you that you are concerned with
'prublums of life" and not merely the cliches regarding
same that have been sanctioned by time, petrified by usage
stuffed by Harper Bros. and sold by the dozen.

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO
VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

As to practical problems of of pubctn. JHEEZUSSS !!
Where out side of Alexandria Egypt. etc.

and what readers are fit for to read um ?????

what I mean about narrators butting into action.

like two photos on same plate, snapped from dif. positions.

However ..... I admit it does simplify certain attitude.
whole hog no prejudice etc.

Also I spose yr. buggah boys are useful to show up
feminine pussycology in clearer diagram than if
they wuz skeits pure an simple.

probhsm. real question the question of people tryin
to own other people ; or tMHH wrapping 'em up in
rope ( pity , helplessness etc. ) refusing to walk on their
bloody MHH etc.

retur**ning** to H.J. who started that line of
enquiry in the Oh so dif. modality.

advantage of dealing with social rejects ; being that
they look at the thing without humbug.

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

I get back to my own monomania that I shd. LIKE to
see you portray the kinds of senvabitch that RUN things.
The dominant damblasted types. Harder to get at.

Probably bore you to live with. ( incidentally your
damn characters wd. bore me to hellangone if I had to
see 'em in the flesh. They are very diverting on the
page.

Waal waallll . I'll see that Jane in Paris and see if she
has anything already traduced that will suit Van H. and
I will see what he'll stand for up to the most possible.

I onnerstan that Hound and Horn can NOT introduce certain
items into its refined milieuX. BALIZ.

I also observe that the ms. before me is part of the bloody
small quantity of writing that "comprises current amurikun
letters ".

using the honesty of the physical lab.

Despite the lack of grammar it is to me a bloody sight better'n
Proust. oh hell yes. and large tracts and scattered paragraphs
alive enough to insure etc.....

I don't think you need worry about doing UNUSUAL subjects.

I think you can go do and do the damnd ordinary
village store and postmistress and it wd. come out O.K.
You're still young enough to think you have to hunt round
for novelty and fer somethin other people aint doin.

taint so

voz publica, the public convenience

EZRA POUND

On the other hand nobody is doing Hoover, Al Smith,
ambassador Morrow; etc. Simpson.

the fact you can't take your characters simply
by the ballz wd. force greater richness and complexity
into the woik.

Am not pleading fer kulchuh an refinement.
attention to Toodles disproportionate. voul Mons. Balzac.
go to it and fill in the rest of the stage.

or not;
tell yer ole granpop to go to jehannum.

RE/ Events. Antheil opera scheduled for Frankfurt next month.

Hem. as you prob. know is in Florida. some of the best
stuff he has done in his last vol. Farwell to Ahng.

I go on as usual. Mediaeval stuff dragging thru Aquila press
one sheet every six weeks or more.

Nancy has a press. says she is going to print my 30 cantos.
also Bill and Zuk. but first list full of Yengeese, what's
their names Ryder (Laura ) Graves; etc. + Lourenfels ! ! ?? just
Bunting's poems printed.

who tell does constichoot the woild.

Wyndham says his Apés of God will be out soon.
am instigating some traductions of Cocteau and Chirice,
final arrangements not made. Wanted to include Frobenius
and Levy Bruhl but items too long. cant see the financial side.

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

Mr Adrian Stokes the rising art critic, really concerned
with what he is doing. Irish rift in British lute.
Chap names Gordon Macleod has done a good pome 70 pages
long and therefore difficult to place. wot HELLS !!

going to Paris in fortnight as I have said. eKHHHHHH

Europe gettin more ready to lean on America. Russian number
of Varietés very good in photos. weaker in licheroor.

wotcher make of Rodker's Adolphe? I seem to be the
sole reader . At any rate the British critics all afraid
to mention the unclean object.

mr Joyce's work hasn't arrived here for some time. I donno
if it is still proredigressin or whether he has giv
me up as a hard case.

Aldington is the rising Brit. crit. the Sunday Referee lets him
say whatever he can think of. Mostly re/ horrors of
the late war. wot ells ?

aged scholar greets white hope of american letters.

yrs.

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

3 April 1930

Dear Bob

WHEREAS I have prob. wasted as much of my time
thru one sort of pigheadedness as you have of yourn
thru another.

And WHEREAS I have sfar as I know never
bothered you with academic crit. and WHEREAS I think the
method of takin a fresh canvass or sheet of paper each
time and startin afresh is justas good as fussin over
each bloody sentence,

and WHEREAS your writin is no longer
and you are no loner in the semi-or unconscious-or
incipient state you and it were in some years age in Paris
when you in order to assure me you wdnt. pick my damn
pocket because you werent a pickpocket and also because
you thought it was either empty or half full etc.....

( I remember the occasion

distinctly and enjoyed it.

At any rate I dont think I
have hitherto tried to cramp yr. style.

Nevertheless in 1930, and considerin that I have prob.
wasted a helluva lot of time and energy overcomin obstruction
caused my own disinclination to TYPE ms. in what
the fullin printer and subsubedtrs think is orderly fashion.

EZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

I submit for yr. KONsideration the ijee that your freedom
wd. not be impaired and that no superlative or excess strain
wd. be putt on yr. "creeative faculty" if you wd. learn
one or two very simple mechanisms of prose writing.

1. that you shd. ( save fer due reason in special cases )
start the sentence with the subject.

2. follow it by the verb in the ACTIVE not PASSIVE mood.

3. then present the object or thing smacked.

I don't care a damn if you use a verb needlessly in the
passive and end the sentence with WITH.

But the trouble of avoiding
clumsiness is in some places so slight THAT it might as well take it. Saves waste energy. Just as much
waste energy to repost a ms. as to rewrite a sentence.

////

That is an avoidable block.

THE BLOCK IN "BUSINESS FAMILY" is the other kind. JUSTICE NARELLY, JUSTICE SMITH, and I, eliminate the most suitable "REVIEWS" from its list of where-to-print-it.

ÉZRA POUND

RAPALLO

VIA MARSALA, 12 INT. 5

if I had any b...y distribution points I cd. publish?.
yrs. mss. and letter reed. this a.m.

Am writing this at once. havent had time
to read the long stories. my own proofs and whale of a mss.
to pref. for printer.

more as soon as.....

oh yuss. send on a fottygraft of yr. fyce ;
or a romantic postcard of you and the governor of Texas
swapin hesses. or any damn thing to putt us on the
map of de woild.

I've got a peacherine of hoover and of a segar store
injun. what about a few good bars in prohibition belt.

a flashlight of fotty drunks or somethin cheery.

Have plenty of factory machines; still short of farm
machinery.

ETC.

might have been better to wait till I'd been thru whole mss.
however ......

Anny how I'll take the whole mss. up to Paris and see what I
can do.

Yes me deah RRRobertus

It is a bit better than I eggspected /
I mean that he shd/ actually hv/ done a bit of work /
the yung Jarge hit high with the pyanny sketches, Vienmnaaaaa 1927
which went into the opry done in Frankfurt . He was too dam lazy
to revize same/
 hadn't the culture necessary to tackle a Shxpr/
and I givvv up when he started writing letters ABOUT

***
with no musical and thematic FACTS / that wuz YEARZ ago /
cant hv/ been much later than 1930/

Thankz fer the nooz itemz / as fer his naughtyboyOG/

waaal Gaby Picabia once remarked anent x,y,z, etc
" comme charactere ils sont au dessous de TOUT ".

Had a HHHH message from Ann France two days ago/ BUT
no address to reply to , so dunno if she ever got a nanser.

Nowt but er married name: Wilson, withoutinitials /
I spose Bill n Sal are in Marok or zummerz.

Of course if you know WHAT Mrs Wilson's husbands front name is
etc/ but she dunt seem t hv left either phone no/ or address
" down stairs ".