this is going to be a post about an article called “Small Magazines” by Ezra Pound published in 1930
i did a twitter thread on this a while ago, and i guess this is going to be the ‘first in a series’ posts converting these threads into more readable (hopefully) posts
anyways
when i first wrote this thread, i was a bit apprehensive about using ‘ideology’ to describe this, but i do not think it’s a stretch to do a reading with like althusser or mannheim to flesh this out further. but i’m not going to do that! (@ me if you think i should in ‘the future’)
also, as stated in the original thread, i am NOT going to litigate Ezra Pound’s reputation here. (i will NOT be doing this in the future no matter how much anyone begs, yells, or subtweets me) hopefully this will make this blog post more readable as well. As i say in the thread, the main thing to know about Pound here is that he was someone who clearly understood and was consciously trying to manipulate these literary institutions towards his own ends
to begin
Pound starts his article by claiming that the ‘small magazine in America begins with the founding of Miss [Harriet] Monroe’s magazine, Poetry, in Chicago in 1911' because ‘Miss Monroe and her backers recognized that verse, to be of any intellectual value, could not be selected merely on the basis of its immediate earning capacity.’
Pound celebrates that Poetry magazine limits itself to only poetry “Poetry continues as a very meritorious trade journal. It was not open to general ideas. It persists by reason of having limited itself to poetry.”
A few things jump out here:
- Throughout this piece ‘backers’ are alluded to. Occasionally Pound notes specific amounts to and from specific people, but the model here is clear: These are generally philanthropic enterprises
- Poetry succeeded because it ONLY published poetry
- Poetry as a ‘trade journal.’ That’s right folks, poetry as a craft! We love it!
Now, this might all sound well & good, but this is a necessary foundation for Pounds goals: “As I see it, “we” in 1910 wanted to set up a civilization in America” through these small magazines.”
(Quick sidenote here that will be relevant in future posts, Pound notes a few times that a ‘failed’ publication or literary ‘experiment’ is still valuable: “Honest literary experiment, however inclusive, however dismally it fail, is of infinitely more value to the intellectual life of a nation than exploitation (however glittering) of metal mush and otiose habit.” Who else have i heard glorify ‘failure’…)
Until now in the essay, Pound has primarily been referring to these publications as ‘small magazines’, but over the course of the essay, he begins introducing synonyms: ‘impractical publications’, ‘free magazines’ and ‘fugitive publication’
The last twenty years have seen the principle of the free magazine or the impractical or fugitive magazine definitely established. It has attained its recognized right to exist by reason of work performed.
The work of writers who have emerged in or via such magazines outweighs in permanent value the work of the writers who have not emerged in this manner. The history of contemporary letters has, to a very manifest extent, been written in such magazines. The commercial magazines have been content and are still more than content to take derivative products ten or twenty years after the germ has appeared in the free magazines. There is nothing new about this.
Work is acceptable to the public when its underlying ideas have been accepted. The heavier the “overhead” in a publishing business the less that business can afford to deal in experiment. This purely sordid and eminently practical consideration will obviously affect all magazines save those that are either subsidized (as chemical research is subsidized) or else very cheaply produced (as the penniless inventor produces in his barn or his attic).
Literature evolves via a mixture of these two methods.
basically, Pound here is attempting to chart how Literature is Evolved.
I’m going to pause again and highlight a few things
- a clear link between literature and civilizing. notice that literature ‘evolves.’ yikes!
- the term ‘fugitive’ and ‘free’ here are absolutely reminding me of recent black studies scholarship like saidiya hartman’s work
- small magazines were ALWAYS a career path and Pound conceptualized them as such (for baseball fans: small magazines are the minor leagues to Penguin Random House’s major leagues) (again this will be relevant in future posts)
- pound here has a uh certain understanding and let’s say opinion about ‘the public’
To wrap this dang post up let’s talk about one of Pound’s caveats to this narrative and why it is important then & now:
I have not dealt with the work of the New Age or the New Masses or other papers devoted to social and economic causes because they seem to me a totally different subject from that proposed to me.
Pound here explicitly exempts work that is tied to ‘social and economic causes.’ To be clear, im not making an argument that ‘the new masses was good actually’, but rather pointing out that certain kinds of poetry were deliberately written out of this narrative. not only that, poetry magazines that only publish poetry are elevated. to this day, these two practices remain influential. Maybe this is why they were organized by the state as part of the struggle against communism in the post war era? stay tuned!
