The Bughouse

May 22, 2017
London-based academic and essayist Swift (Shakespeare’s Common Prayers) gives an intriguing, if overwrought, account of Ezra Pound’s 12-year stay in St. Elizabeths Hospital, a federal psychiatric hospital near Washington, D.C. In Swift’s estimation, Pound (1885–1972) had a starring role in 20th-century poetry and the birth of modernism. Swift begins his account in 1945 with Pound’s arrest and imprisonment in Italy, where the poet had made profascist radio broadcasts throughout WWII. Pound suffered a nervous breakdown after being kept for weeks in an outdoor cage and, willing to be declared insane instead of being tried for treason, went to what he called the “bughouse,” St. Elizabeths. Too many digressions and descriptions of Swift’s research experiences blunt this story’s impact, but Swift does vividly describe Pound’s confinement, which lasted until 1958. A stubborn patient who refused the mandated occupational therapy, Pound read and wrote constantly and received a parade of famous guests—Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot, and William Carlos Williams among them. Some leading psychiatrists and admirers (then and since) have thought Pound was faking insanity, but Swift thinks he may not have been. Swift’s unfocused narrative style gets in the way of probing study, but Pound’s ambiguous sanity and larger-than-life personality still make for fascinating subjects. Many readers will be drawn in, even if they find Pound himself detestable.

September 1, 2017
A sensitive investigation into the enigmatic, prodigious mind of poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972).From 1945 to 1958, Pound was incarcerated at St. Elizabeths Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a federal asylum in Washington, D.C. Although sequestered from the outside world, he was hardly isolated: among his many visitors were "tourists, young activists, ambassadors and academics," and prominent and aspiring poets: among them, Robert Lowell, Marianne Moore, Charles Olson, Allen Tate, William Carlos Williams, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, and Archibald MacLeish. Except for T.S. Eliot, who had won the Nobel Prize in literature, many of his visitors were at the early stages of their careers, and they sought Pound's encouragement or advice. "Visiting Pound became a social event and a literary moment," writes Swift (English/New Coll. of the Humanities, London; Shakespeare's Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age, 2012, etc.), who draws on memoirs of these visits as well as interviews, a close reading of Pound's writings, and medical records to create a multidimensional portrait of a celebrated, controversial literary figure. Pound was declared insane after being charged with treason for fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-American radio broadcasts that he made in Mussolini's Italy during World War II. The insanity defense exempted him from the death penalty, but it has confounded biographers and literary critics, who have struggled to reconcile his creative works with his politics and purported mental state. During his incarceration, Pound produced much new work, leading the U.S. attorney, in 1954, to ask Pound's physician why a man "who seemingly is mentally capable of translating and publishing poetry...allegedly is not mentally capable of being brought to justice." Was he insane, many wondered, or was he "a coward and a cheat" who contrived the defense to save himself? Rather than trying to resolve those questions, Swift takes a prismatic view, allowing "rival tellings to sing their discord." The treason indictment was dismissed in 1958 after "a chorus of pleas from cultural celebrities," and Pound left the U.S. for Italy. A shrewd, circumspect literary biography.

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October 1, 2017
Poet, genius, fascist, traitor. Few writers have earned a reputation as controversial as Ezra Pound's. One of the twentieth century's most influential authors, he was an architect of modernist verse, an outspoken anti-Semite, a sympathizer of Mussolini's, and a broadcaster of anti-American sentiments over Italian radio. In this engrossing biography, Swift draws the final chapter of Pound's life into focus, highlighting the decade Pound spent confined to St. Elizabeths Hospital, during which he was brought up on charges of treason that were subsequently dismissed due to a hotly debated finding of insanity. In building this nuanced portrait of a complicated man, Swift assembles an immensely fascinating archive of notebooks kept by visiting literati like Charles Olson, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams, medical records that seem to contradict the official diagnosis, and files prepared by the FBI and the Department of Justice. In correspondence with Allen Ginsberg from 1967, long after his discharge from St. Elizabeths, Pound apparently apologized for his stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism, suggesting that, even to the end, Pound continued to be a compelling, contradictory figure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

September 15, 2017

Swift (English, New Coll. of the Humanities, UK; Bomber County) calls writer Ezra Pound (1885-1972) "the most difficult man of the 20th century," documenting how he was a mass of contradictions during the debate about his alleged madness which, Swift concludes, will always remain an open-ended question. The author presents Pound's life during his years of confinement at Washington's St. Elizabeths hospital for the insane (1945-58) from the perspective of those who interacted with him there. Arrested and indicted for treason for his pro-fascist radio broadcasts in Italy during World War II, the poet was hospitalized to avoid trial and possible execution. While at St. Elizabeths, he was visited by literary greats as well as "disciples" for whom he held court. He was released when the indictment was dropped in 1958, thanks in large part to a campaign by creators in various fields, since he was never convicted of a crime and it was never determined whether he was mad or sane. Interspersed with Pound's story is a history of St. Elizabeths and mental health-care as well as commentary on some of his poems. VERDICT Recommended for both scholars and general readers interested in this most enigmatic of 20th-century literary figures. [See Prepub Alert, 5/15/17.]--Denise J. Stankovics, Vernon, CT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017

Ending up at St. Elizabeths Hospital for the insane after being accused of treason for his fascist broadcasts in Italy during World War II, poet Ezra Pound was visited by the likes of T.S. Eliot and Elizabeth Bishop. The Samuel Johnson Prize long-listed Swift homes in on these literary conclaves to investigate the controversy around Pound.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.