Review of 'Ezra Pound in Melbourne', Helix Nos. 3 & 14, ed. Les Harrop and Noel Stock

Abstract

This splendidly presented double issue of the journal Helix has a fittingly double character. At its heart is some fascinating documentation of the 'Melbourne Vortex', the attempt by two of Pound's disciples (who happened to be Australians) to infiltrate various journals and societies with the aim of promulgating Pound's aesthetic and economic ideas, and of the responses of the locals, particularly Meanjin and its editor Clem Christesen to this. This heart is surrounded by a sizeable number of articles in the recognizable tradition of Poundian scholarship. Some of them simply sketch in the small corners of some of Pound's early literary relationships, others concern themselves with Pound's use of his sources in The Cantos and others deal with the question of Pound's behaviour during the war and his St. Elizabeth's period.