Ezra Pound. Who wants to read Ezra Pound?

I did. Or, at least I thought I did, a week or so back. I heard a voice inside me command me to read Ezra Pound.

Why hadn't I read Ezra Pound for almost 20 years? Well, I opened up a few Ezra Pound poems (say that 10 times fast -- Ezra Pound poems) and realized why I hadn't read Ezra Pound almost 20 years. I don't get it.

So, I meandered about my anthologies for an escape (I popped in on William Carlos Williams as if everything depended on him) and heard another voice calling me -- Alfred Tennyson.

Ah, a booming voice. The voice of "Locksley Hall," "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lotos-Eaters," "Ulysses," "In Memoriam." Tennyson is one of my first loves of poetry, along with Matthew Arnold, Robert Frost, Robert Browning, William Butler Yeats.

I shuffled off to the Fennville library and grabbed the first collection I found -- "Idylls of the King." It seemed thin to me for the collection, but I was in a hurry. Upon arriving home, I found it only had three: "Gareth and Lynette," "Lancelot and Elaine" and "The Passing of Arthur." Still good for me.

I love the Arthurian legends and was happy this collection was small (less than 200 pages) and the pages themselves weren't made of that tissue-paper stuff my old college anthologies are. With those 3,000-page college texts, I feel I'm going to rip a page out and blow my nose after I sneeze or, since I often read in the bathroom. ...

By the way, I do have a collection of Tennyson that dates back to 1878. I'm almost afraid to open it.

Thought: King Arthur -- I get it. Blank verse -- I do get this. Ezra Pound -- still don't get it.