Word: pisan
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...member of Italy's Chamber of Deputies casually inquired of Premier Mario Scelba if he "intends to ask the U.S. Government for an act of clemency" in behalf of the pixilated U.S. poet, Ezra (Pisan Cantos) Pound, 68. After more than 30 years as an expatriate. Pound began spouting the Fascist line for Mussolini in World War II broadcasts from Rome and Milan. But it was hard to define just what might constitute "clemency" for Pound. In 1945 he escaped trial for treason because he was adjudged insane, and has since whiled away his declining years translating Confucius...
Died. Titta Ruffo, 75, famed Italian baritone and onetime (1921-29) Metropolitan Opera star; of angina pectoris; in Florence, Italy. Son of a Pisan ironworker, Baritone Ruffo turned from blacksmithing to opera, during three decades earned critical raves and $1,750,000 before he retired...
...Pound." Mr. Pound at that moment was 1) in an insane asylum and 2) under indictment for high treason against the U.S. for serving Mussolini as an anti-Semitic propagandist in World War II. In addition, there were many who thought that the poetry in his prizewinning Pisan Cantos was not worth a damn, or an award either...
Poet Ezra Pound, 63, rheumy-eyed expatriate follower of Mussolini and fascism, now living out his days in a Washington, D.C. insane asylum (if he ever recovers, he will be tried for treason), won the Bollingen Prize of $1,000 for The Pisan Cantos (TIME, Oct. 25), "the highest achievement of American poetry" in 1948. The election committee, which includes Conrad Alken, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Robert Lowell and Katherine Anne Porter, "aware that objections may be made," explained their choice: "To permit other considerations than that of poetic achievement to sway the decision, would destroy the significance...
Ezra Pound, godfather-emeritus of modern verse, came through in his old age with some of the best-and worst-poetry of the year. In his Pisan Cantos he ranted, as of old, about usurers, Churchill and Mussolini; but a new, touching note of sadness and humility crept into his verse...