Ole Ez as a jurr-nuh-list

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Thomas McGonigle’s tribute to novelist George Garrett yesterday, which included a link to other tributes at Virginia Quarterly Review, led to my inevitable lingering at VQR and the discovery of this gem: John Schneider on Ezra Pound’s (sort of) career as a foreign correspondent.

Hemingway he wasn’t. Pound spent a year, in the late 1950s, writing for the Richmond News Leader. The Virginia newspaper published only one article, an editorial attacking economist John Maynard Keynes under the headline ‘Keynes Brainwashed Electorate with Economic Hogwash.’ Schneider traces the circumstances that led to this odd development for the poet, who was indicted for treason for his infamous anti-American radio broadcasts from Rome during World War II. News Leader editor, James J. Kilpatrick, and local businessman Harry Meacham worked for the poet’s release from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (where he was incarcerated after being deemed unfit to stand trial). When Pound was finally released, he offered to write for the newspaper once he returned to Italy, and Meacham assured the paper’s editor, ‘Don’t worry about his incoherence. This is eccentricity. In formal correspondence he is magnificent.’

Well, not really. Pound typed messy, rambling pieces about the sorry state of U.S. presidential politics, Italian boxers, French elections, ‘The Mind of Europe’ (of course he assumed he knew what everyone was thinking) and more. It’s clear why the editors managed to salvage just one piece from the bunch: Pound’s attack on Keynes takes the form of a mercifully brief anecdote, in which the poet encountered Keynes at ‘a tee party.’ Schneider’s fascinating piece is followed by images of Pound’s eight submitted articles. Check them out. As I looked at them, one thing was clear to me: I’m glad I never had to edit Ole Ez. What a nightmare it would have been.

Nick Owchar