More Ezra, Walt; reference "you're supposed to be excited to be living, or something"

This was originally a comment, but once I threw in a poem I was afraid the comment field would ruin the line spacing. Sorry folks.

I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I mean, as a poem. I always get uncomfortable when I feel like a poet is talking so directly. More Ezra Pound than Walt Whitman, I suppose. Your man Jack London did have his hand on beat poetry long before it was mainstream, though, that's for sure.

Which reminds me:

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman--
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root--
Let there be commerce between us.

-Ezra Pound

I love it--this is Pound at his most self-reflective: there is no "persona" to be reckoned with. There is no Hugh Selwyn Mobeley, no Prufrock, just himself. But it comes across as sincere, not condescending to Whitman. The line "Now is a time for carving," is so Whitman (mostly just because of the word "Now") but instantly made me think of "Petals on a wet, black bough." from In a Station of the Metro. Maybe it's just the sound, even. Both of these have the same goal of immediacy, of something temporary made permanent. Bringing this to a whole new level, Pound would perform his poetry with a hand drum. He did not (to my knowledge) live in Greenwich Village and wear turtlenecks, but he was a beat none the less (albeit a fascist beat--what's more counter-culture than treason?).

So, I'm an advocate for studying Whitman as a "literary text" (and London, sorry, this got off-topic) but I'm also an advocate for shouting good ol' Ezra while standing in a forest, or maybe at the top of some cliff somewhere.