About Rock Drill

WHY? Most people ask, base a series on a poet with as contervesial background as Ezra Pound. His crazy politics led him to treason charges and 12 years in a mental hospital. He was certainly a difficult character and contraversial for many people. But I remember as a college student reading his imagist poem “In a station at the metro” The poem, only 2 lines long, imprinted an image in my mind that I have never forgotten.

The Cantos have been a part of my life for over 35 years. Do I understand it — no (I’m not so sure Pound did) But I never felt I had to understand it, what I did get from it were images, wonderful images and the great feeling that the poet was looking at the bones of our human culture to make the world a little more coherent.

For me one of the most moving parts of the poem is the section called “Rock Drill”The title came from a work by the sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein. Rock Drill seems to be hammering, hammering Pound’s view of culture and history, drilling to the core of what makes us human. I hope these images can convey to you of what I “see” when I read the cantos. The sweep of human history and culture — all the violence and destruction — ultimately in the second half of Rock Drill coming together in a “sphere of crystal” to illuminate who we are as humans and what we aspire to.

STYX


22″h x 76″w ceramic

The Commentary


54 x 76, mixed-media on panel

Detail

Under The Larches of Paradise

Under the Larches of Paradise

Panel 1
33 x 30 mixed media on paper mounted on panel
Panel 2
33 x 30 mixed media on paper mounted on panel
Panel 3
33 x 30 mixed media on paper mounted on panel

XCV

Whose Mind?

chin
hu
jen

The light there almost solid

Hesperus
meaning to plough

loe comes as lighting
love cannot cease to move the stars

“THAT THE CYRSTAL WAVE MOUNT TO FLOOD SURGE”

NOT STASIS
RETURN

The vocation of the poet - homecoming
the wave crashed
the wave conceled her

XCIV

The universe is alive

Above Prana
the light past light

As gold from the Heilad’s poplar

the clover enuring
a touch stone

ROOT
BASIS

In the long boats east of Abydos

darkness do you want?
birds
flight

Hawk King

XCIII

Applonius

The names rise always….

A man’s paradise is his good nature

Where spirit is clear in the stone

9 knowledges
COMPASSION

Luminous eye
RENEW

holding that energy is near to BENEVOLENCE

the trees sleep , and the stags
and the grass
the boughs sleep — unmoving

the black panther under his rose tree

BLIND EYES AND SHADOWS

XCII

Honour
and from this mount were blown seed

I and rain in us
“in questa lumera apresso” - dante
in that light near me
The trembling of the sea
sapphire
sphere of crystal
the divine mind is abundant, unceasing
Omni formus, unstill
Alchemy -
engrava on gold
engrava on silver


the brown oil and corpse sweat

XCI

Over harm
Over hate

with the sweetness goes my heart

LOVE MOVES THE STARS

green deep of the sea cave

when I see the Lark fly
they who are skilled in fire

timing the thunder
tensile — to be clear

green deep
green deep

light and the flowing crystal
river of crystal

Apollonius

XC

the human soul is not love but love proceeds from it and it does not delight in itself but in the love that proceeds from it.

BENEVOLENCE
rock pool
elms in that temple

love flows from it

“the stone taking form in air”

Trees die and the dream remains

“yet the oak dies as well as the lettuce, but its Eternal image and individuality never dies but renews by seed - Blake

the crystal funnel of air
NOT
LOVE

Not love but that love flows from it

NoT LOVE

Altar in the Forest

ubi amor ibi occulus est
where there is love there is sight

LXXXIX

SHU CHING
the book of history

Chi cresceria

semina motum — seeds in motion

to know the histories of the inarticulate heart

CHI - the inner impulses of the tree


evening darkeness - he set fire to the sea

To Build Light

TO BUILD LIGHT
1945 — 13 years in the hell hole “nut house”
he could never make it hold
“the artist … in whatever age whatever the determined destiny, HAS TO AFFIRM DELIGHT
The rain is part of the process

And there is something decent in the universe -XCV

Eriginia, THE MOON
The name from Epstein

The Earthly Paradise
OUT OF EREBUS

from under the rubble heap — m’elevasti
from the dulled edge beyond pain — m’elevasti
that your eyes come forth from their caves and light then

ROSE, AZURE
the lights slowly moving around her

ROCK DRILL


The west gallery wall. The long thin sticks contain phrases from the cantos. The paintings loosely represent Cantos LXXXIX - XCV