Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

The poem "Dream of Ezra Pound" by J. Allyn Rosser serves as a complex tribute and critique of the modernist poet Ezra Pound, layered with admiration, melancholy, and a sense of irony. It operates as a dream narrative where the speaker encounters Pound in what seems to be an academic setting. This evocative work tackles themes of poetic legacy, intellectual pretension, and the often-problematic admiration for great but flawed writers.

The speaker begins by setting up the dream's context, humorously confessing that they were reading late at night and had eaten dark chocolate, thus suggesting that the encounter is both whimsical and fueled by an intoxicating mix of literary aspiration and guilty pleasures. Immediately, the speaker admits to not having read all of "The Cantos," Pound's magnum opus, which Pound somehow knows "on sight." This sets up an initial tension between admiration and incompleteness, capturing how one can be both drawn to and intimidated by the genius of a monumental writer.

In the dream, Pound's character is complex. He is "shyly pleased," polite, and has a voice that is "oddly weak." These nuances contrast with the popular image of Pound as a domineering and occasionally controversial figure. The mention of police and "Saint Elizabeths" subtly refers to Pound's real-life incarceration for alleged treason and his subsequent commitment to a mental institution, lending the dream an added layer of historical gravitas.

Perhaps the most telling moment in the poem comes when Pound reacts to the "academicians" and their "flatly mispronounced bêtises," or foolish mistakes. The speaker wonders whether Pound's politeness, his nodding, was something he "learned the hard way" during his institutionalization. Here, Rosser probes the contentious relationship between academia and the poets they canonize, scrutinizing how academic perspectives can sometimes dilute, misinterpret, or sanitize complex lives and problematic stances.

Finally, when Pound does speak, his voice has the "vibrant, hallowing insistence" the speaker expected, but it is also "much softer, bereaved." The poem concludes with Pound's somewhat ironic assertion, "But we believe in order to believe." This could be read as an indictment of blind faith-in a system, in an artistic ideology, or even in a figure like Pound himself. It's a phrase that sums up the perplexities of admiration, capturing the essential contradictions of being a follower or a critic.

Rosser's poem is not just an exploration of an imagined interaction with Ezra Pound; it serves as an avenue for self-examination, inviting us to question our relationships with the authors and works we admire. "Dream of Ezra Pound" serves as both homage and critique, celebrating Pound's poetic mastery while also questioning the ways in which we engage with the literary giants of the past, with all their flaws and complexities

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