York Staters in Poetry: Ezra Pound

In an obscure canto of the world-renown poet Ezra Pound's mildly obscure work, The Cantos, we find two references to Upstate New York:

Canto CXIV

...Gems sunned as mirrors, alternate.

These simple men who fought against jealousy,

as the man of Oneida.

Ownership! Ownership!...

...to reign, to dance in a maze,

To live a thousand years in a wink.

York State or Paris--

Nor began nor ends anything...

Pound received his masters degree from Hamilton College(Clinton, NY) in 1905, before living abroad and settling in Italy. York Staters has talked about the Oneida Community before, so I won't go into that, but he also refers to George MacLeod's Iona Community which was founded about 50 years after the Oneida Community turned into Oneida Glass and was influenced by the the Oneida theory of living spirituality.

Because of his seemingly stream-of-conscious writing I can't really tell you what he's talking about; since he starts by quoting Voltaire then laughing at a Scottish economist who died in poverty, then ended this section with the dream of a young fruit seller who wants to write. Oh yeah, there's a chinese character, some french and italian too in this rather short three page poem.

Submitted by Joe

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