8.04.2005

I wouldn't want to be stuck with the unwinnable argument that Crane is a greater poet than Pound, etc. My thought, however, is, that Crane's sense of, feel for, the image acts as a kind of tuning-fork (in relation to what's beautiful in Pound et al.). (Just as, for me, Mandelstam acted as a tuning-fork for Crane.)

Hast 'ou seen boat's wake on sea wall,
how crests it?
What panache?
paw-flap, wave-tap,
that is gaiety,
Toba Sojo,
toward limpidity,
that is exultance,
here the crest runs on the wall
(Canto CX)

(note the Yeats in the background)

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