I suggested in my previous post that poetic irritation, or maybe irritability (who, after all, is being irritated here?) has something to do with a tediously citational female word-labor, antithetical to poetry in the case of Nella Larsen’s constantly irritated fictional character Helga Crane, and the very “raw material of poetry in all its rawness” in the case of Marianne Moore. “[W]e discern Miss Moore being a librarian, an editor, a teacher of typewriting: locating fragments already printed; picking and choosing; making, letter by letter, neat pages” (Kenner 98).
fragment of a letter written by Hugh Kenner in 1960
Hugh Kenner's huge (and hugely important) book on Pound was published in 1971. A book of its time? Well, considering the social and politcal context of 1971: maybe The Pound Era is a book running counter to the trend of its time. But never mind those assumptions. The book was first planned in....1960. Eleven years earlier. This startling fact I learned a lttle while ago when I read some unpublished Kenner correspondence in Chicago. Check out my 1960 blog for more.
'a few 'strong wrinkles' puckering the / skin between the ears'
I suggested in my previous post that poetic irritation, or maybe irritability (who, after all, is being irritated here?) has something to do with a tediously citational female word-labor, antithetical to poetry in the case of Nella Larsen’s constantly irritated fictional character Helga Crane, and the very “raw material of poetry in all its rawness” in the case of Marianne Moore. “[W]e discern Miss Moore being a librarian, an editor, a teacher of typewriting: locating fragments already printed; picking and choosing; making, letter by letter, neat pages” (Kenner 98).