Thesis 6: Whenever somebody cites Gertrude Stein on Ezra Pound, "He was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not," this person will be suggesting that he or she, their poetic community, and you if you are part of it, are Steins not Pounds. This despite the fact that they have just explained something to you. This despite the fact that the vast majority of poets who cite Stein or Pound are windy rationalists of the first water. In general this curious state of affairs is on par with the manner by which it will eventually turn out that everyone was bullied in junior high school, as if the bullies themselves had all risen up in a rapture at graduation so as to make war in heaven with the equally absent village explainers.
Posted by jane at October 8, 2007 03:57 PM | TrackBack