Poetry Foundation
Poetry Magazine
December 2008
Poems by Roddy Lumsden, Todd Boss, Joan Houlihan, Ange Mlinko, Fred D'Aguiar, R.S. Gwynn, Glenn Morazzini, Lilly Poetry Fellows: Nicky Beer, Michael Rutherglen, Roger Reeves; and more More
Harriet

Linh Dinh
YouTube Pleasures

Angela Rawlings in Reykjavik, Iceland, 2007:



Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl on Icelandic television, doing his "Pol Pot Pantun," 2007:




K. Silem Mohammad in New York, 2006:




Amiri Baraka in Medellín, Colombia, 2003:



Allen Ginsberg sings to William F. Buckley, who responds, "That's the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard," 1968:



Pier Paolo Pasolini reads Ezra Pound's Canto LXXXI to Pound on Italian television, 1967:


The relevant passage:

[...]

What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
    or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
   Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
   Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
   Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.

"Master thyself, then others shall thee beare"
Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst'ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
   How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
   Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
   I say pull down.

But to have done instead of not doing
  this is not vanity

To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
   To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
  Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered ...


04.17.08 | Comments (0)



Comments


Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Your name and a valid e-mail address are required. Thanks for waiting.)



Poetry Tool






OR SEARCH
Events
Poetry Presents
"What use had I for hands":
A Theatrical Interpretation of Five Poems by Dana Levin



Links Hall
3435 N. Sheffield
Friday-Sunday, December 12-14
Free admission

More

Email Sign Up
Sign up for updates from the Poetry Foundation. Click here to learn more, or enter your email address to sign up!