Thread: Ezra Pound and Political Philosophy: Personal Reflections

Mary Gibson emphasizes in her study of Ezra Pound’s epic entitled Epic Reinvented: Ezra Pound and the Victorians that one question was at the centre of The Cantos. It was the "question of how beauty and power, passion and order can cohere." This question was one of many that concerned Pound in the same years that Bahai Administration, the precursor of a future World Order, at least as I see it, was coming to assume its earliest form in the last years of the second decade of the 20th century and the early years of the third, a form that was slowly coming to manifest those qualities Pound strove in vain to find in a modern politico-philosophy.

The wider world did not yet see these qualities in the as yet early phases of the development of this new Baha'i System of polity. But in my mind and heart, and certainly in my poetry, I found these qualities and gave them expression. I do not address an unusually cultivated class as Pound did leaving most readers feeling they were faced with a terminus of incoherent arrogance; nor is my work a game as Pound’s Cantos appeared to be to many readers with its absense of direction, but like Pound my work was that of a voyageur who was not sure where his work would end up. My work has been, like Pound’s, thrown up on a shore that I certainly had not planned to visit. Unlike Pound I do not yet have many enthusiasts or detractors of my work. And I may never have. Unlike Pound, my work, my epic, does not possess a disordered, indeed, chaotic structure and is not filled with unfathomable historical allusions; nor do I see my work as dull and verbose, although others may. If Pound’s was a "plotless epic with flux" mine has both plot and flux, but the accretion of detail and the piling up of memory on memory may, in the end, lose most readers. For now, I must live with this possibility.

There is no Christian myth to guide the reader through Pound’s epic, as there was through Dante’s Commedia six centuries before. Pound’s Cantos tell the story of the education of Ezra Pound as my epic tells the story of my education. In my case there is a guide, the Baha’i metaphorical interpretation of physical reality or, to put it simply, the Baha’i myth. At the heart, the centre, of my own epic, then, is a sense of visionary certitude, derived from my belief in this embryonic World Order of Baha’u’llah, that a cultural and political coherence will increase in the coming decades and centuries around the sinews of this efflorescing Order. My work is serious but not solemn and, like Eliot, I am not sure of the permanent value of what I have written. As Eliot put it: "I may have wasted my time and messed up my life for nothing." No man knoweth what his own end shall be, nor what the end of his writing shall be either, I hasten to add.

The poet Wallace Stevens’ expressed his sense of the epic "as a poem of the mind in the act of finding what will suffice. " What Stevens says here certainly gives expression to what is involved in this process, this sense of epic, for me. I am involved in the act of creating a prose-poem of the mind and trying to find out as I go along "what will suffice" to express what is in my mind and my heart, what is part and parcel of my beliefs and what occupies the knowledge base of the Baha’i Faith. This process is, without doubt, at the centre of this conceptual, this epistemological, this ontological, experiment of mine. This epic is an experimental vehicle containing open-ended autobiographical sequences. It is a sometimes softly, indirectly didactic, sometimes not-so-softly and quite directly didactic, intellectual exploration with lines developing with apparent spontaneity and going in many directions. The overall shape of this work was in no way predetermined. In many respects, both my long poem, the thousands of shorter poems and, indeed, all my writing is purely amateur and speculative philosophy, literary playfulness and autobiographical description that I try to integrate into Baha’i and secular history in a great many ways.

Are you an author? Or a fan or something? If you are an author, it'd be interesting to speak to you... especially if you are 63.

Happy to chat any time at my private email address below or here at this site--wherever. The following will tell you a little about me.-Ron:whistling:
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1. EMPLOYMENT & SOCIAL ROLES: 1944-2008

1999-2008-Writer/Poet/Retired Teacher: George Town Tasmania
2002-2005-Program Presenter, City Park Radio, Launceston
1999-2004-Tutor and/or President: George Town School for Seniors Inc
1988-1999 -Lecturer in General Studies and Human Services West Australian Department of Training
1986-1987 -Acting Lecturer in Management Studies and Co-ordinator of
Further Education Unit at Hedland College in South Hedland, WA.
1982-1985 -Adult Educator, Open College of Tafe, Katherine, NT
1981 -Maintenance Scheduler, Renison Bell, Zeehan, Tasmania
1980-Unemployed: Bi-Polar Disability
1979 -Editor, External Studies Unit, Tasmanian CAE; Youth Worker, Resource Centre Association, Launceston;
Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour, Tasmanian CAE; Radio Journalist ABC, Launceston
1976-1978 -Lecturer in Social Sciences & Humanities, Ballarat CAE, Ballarat
1975 - Lecturer in Behavioural Studies, Whitehorse Technical College, Box Hill, Victoria
1974 -Senior Tutor in Education Studies, Tasmanian CAE, Launceston
1972-1973 -High School Teacher, South Australian Education Department
1971 Primary School Teacher, Whyalla SA, Australia
1969-1971 Primary School Teacher, Prince Edward County Board of Education, Picton, Ontario, Canada
1969 Systems Analyst, Bad Boy Co. Ltd., Toronto Ontario
1967-68 -Community Teacher, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Frobisher Bay(Iqaluit), NWT, Canada
1959-67 -Summer jobs from grade 9 to end of university
1949-1967 - Attended 2 primary schools, 2 high schools and 2 universities in Canada:
McMaster Uni:1963-1966, Windsor T’s College: 1966/7.
1944-1963 -Childhood(1944-57) and adolescence(1957-63)
in and around Hamilton Ontario.

2. SOME SOCIO-BIO-DATA(as of: 2007)

I have been married for 41 years. My wife is a Tasmanian, aged 60. We’ve had 3 children: ages in 2007-41, 37 and 30. I am 63, a Canadian who moved to Australia in 1971 and have written 3 books--all available on the internet. I retired from full-time teaching in 1999, part-time teaching in 2004 and volunteer/casual teaching/work in 2005 after 35 years in classrooms. In addition, I have been a member of the Baha’i Faith for 48 years. Bio-data: 6ft, 225 lbs, eyes/hair-brown, Caucasian. See my website for more details at: index or go the google search engine and type: Pioneering RonPrice, RonPrice Poetry, RonPrice Bahá’Ã*, RonPrice History,(philosophy, religion, media studies, politics, inter alia)--for additional writings.(ronprice9@gmail.com)
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Hmm... I plan to delve in writing after my PhD (which should start next year I hope, unless I undertake another Masters.... which would be a pain). I would use some information on the issue by someone who has done some commercial work...

Questions, have your work been commercially published? And are you self-promoting your work here? If the first question is positive (I read that you have published them on the internet... what about white papers?) in that case, if you have published something, what do you suggest more aspiring authors do in this regard? Do we need more contacts, or content? Do we need to approach publishers?

My general interest of writing encompasses modern management along the lines of Mintzberg/Drucker. So maybe, I am interested in writing something on Management, focussing on Information Systems. So if there have been things published, what do you have to do to start the process?

Do I approach a publisher while doing my PhD and finishing my thesis? Or do I wait for such offers (which are usually the case, I guess). Or do I have to collaborate, which is insanely difficult, I work very badly with others. I doubt my thesis will get published, but I guess, if a good subject is explored, I may be given some face. So you could shed some light on the issue if someone is interested in authorship. Something I want to explore a little later...

First, Desidude666, let me give you a summary of my current writing and then you can reply:hsnap:
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A SUMMARY OF RON PRICE’S INTERNET PUBLISHING
"HIS CUP OF PUBLISHING TEA"

I have outlined below several categories of my writing, my writing projects of varying sizes, genres and subjects on the internet. You can gradually get into whatever categories of my work you desire, if at any time you do in fact desire, over the next few days, weeks, months, years or decades. Most of the following items went onto the internet in the period 2001-2008. Most of it is free of any cost, although some of the self-publishing material costs anywhere from $3 to $20. There are three general categories of printed matter I have placed on the world wide web. These categories are:


1. Books:


1.1. The Emergence of a Baha’i Consciousness in World Literature: The Poetry of Roger White. This 400 page ebook is available at Juxta Publishing Limited and can be downloaded free of charge.

1.2. A paperback edition of the above book is available at Lulu.com for $11.48 plus shipping costs from the USA. This self-publishing site also has a four volume work, a study in autobiography, entitled Pioneering Over Four Epochs which is 2500 pages long(four 600+ page volumes). I will be making it available as an ebook and in paperback for $10 to $20 per volume very soon after it is reviewed/approved by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Australia, Inc. The cost of these books is set by Lulu.com.


2. Internet Site Postings:


Essays, poems, parts of my autobiography and a wide variety of postings/writings in smaller, more manageable, chunks of a paragraph to a few pages are all free and can be accessed by simply: (a) going to any one of approximately 2000 sites or (b) typing some specific words into the Google search engine as indicated in the following:


2.1 Approximately 2000 Sites:


I post at a wide range of poetry, literature, social science and humanities sites across a diverse mix of subjects, topics and intellectual disciplines in both popular and academic culture. The list of these sites is available to anyone interested by writing to me at: ronprice9@gmail.com. But a simpler method for readers to access many of my postings would be to:


2.2 Type Sets of Words At Google:


There are literally hundreds of sets of words now that will access my writing at various sites. If you type, for example, Ron Price, followed by any one of the following words or word sequences: (i) poetry, (ii) literature, (iii) religion, (iv) Baha’i, (v) history, (vi) Shakespeare, (vii) ancient history, (viii) philosophy, (ix) Islam, (x) Australia Bahai and (xi) pioneering over four epochs, et cetera, et cetera, you will get anywhere from a few sites to over 150 sites arranged in blocks of ten internet locations. This last site, "pioneering over four epochs", is a particularly fertile set of words to type into the google search engine.


The main problem with this latter way of accessing what I have written is that my work is side by side with the items of other writers and posters who have the same name as mine and/or the same topic. I have counted a dozen other Ron Prices and I'm sure there are more. You may find their work more interesting than mine! There are some wife bashers, car salesmen, evangelists, media celebrities, a pornographer or two, indeed, a fascinating array of chaps who have different things to sell and advertise than my offerings.


3. Specific Sites With Much Material:


Some sites have hundreds of pages of my writing and these sites are a sort of middle ground, a different ground, between the two major categories I have outlined above. The Baha’i Academics Resource Library(BARL) for example, has more of my material than at any other site. My writings are listed there under: (a) books, (b) personal letters, (c) poetry, (d) biographies and (e) essays, among other categories/listings. The Roger White book is at BARL under "Secondary Resource Material>Books>Item #changes. I find this site useful personally, but some of the poetry is not arranged in a visually pleasing form. Some readers may find the layout annoying.


There are some sites at which my writing is found in a very pleasing form with photos and pictures and general settings to catch the eye. Some site organizers have their location beautifully arranged. I leave it to readers to read what pleases them and leave out what doesn’t. When one posts as much as I do one often writes too much, says the wrong things or upsets an applecart or two. It's part of the process. In cyberspace, as in the real world, you can't win them all. The pioneering over four epochs word sequence is, as I’ve said, a useful word package to access some 150 sites with my writing and has no competition from other ‘Ron Prices.’

Concluding Comments:


I had no idea when I retired from full-time employment in 1999 to write full-time that the internet would be as useful a system, a resource, a base, for my offerings as it has become. There are literally millions of words now on this international web of words that I have written in the last six years(2001-2006). From the early eighties to the early years of this new millennium I tried to get published in a hard cover, but without any success. My guess is that in the years ahead the world will be awash with books and various genres of printed matter from millions of people like me posting various quantities of their writing.


What I write may not be your cup-of-tea. In that case drink someone else’s tea from someone else’s cup. There is something for everyone these days in both hard and soft cover and on the intertnet. If you don’t like my work or someone else’s go to sources of printed matter you like. One hardly needs to say this, but I do not expect what I write to be everyone’s cup-of-tea.


For those who already do or may come to enjoy my writings, I hope the above is a useful outline/overview. For those who don't find what I write attractive to their taste, as I say, the above will give you a simple handle to avoid as you travel the net. I wish you all well in your own endeavours in the path of writing or whatever path your travel down.


Ron Price
Updated:
1st April 2008
(For The Political Hotwire)

You may never really be successful using the internet for the distribution of your writings. It is very very restrictive and for complete comprehension, printing will definitely be necessary - thus the fallacy of this concept.

I doubt any serious writing endeavour can really make it on the Internet - where a good percentage remain casual users. I personally prefer the more usual modes of literature distribution.

I would certainly like to get published in a hard or soft cover but, after twenty years of trying(1981-2001), and after getting published on the internet in the years 2001 to 2008, I am happy with at least some success. I am not one of those writers who can send his work to hundreds of publishers, as some writers do. You may be right when you say: "You may never really be successful using the internet for the distribution of your writings. It is very very restrictive and for complete comprehension, printing will definitely be necessary - thus the fallacy of this concept;" and when you also say: "I doubt if any serious writing endeavour can really make it on the Internet - where a good percentage remain casual users." Like you, I too perfer "the more usual modes of literature distribution." But I got tired of fighting a literary war it did not look like I was going to win. The persistence was not in me after two decades.

The Emergence of a Baha’i Consciousness in World Literature: The Poetry of Roger White is available at Juxta Media in Hong Kong on the internet. The book is attractively printed and I just could not get a publisher to take the book and run with it. This 300 page ebook is available at Juxta Publishing Limited, called Juxta Media on the internet, can be downloaded free of charge.

In addition, let me put my internet writing in another perspective--as follows:

My literary activity on the world-wide-web is a personal and quite industrious enterprize. When I can find the time, I am engaged in creating across this global internet a tapestry of poetry and prose. Readers come across my work initially at one of my many journals, diaries or blogs. These various terms are used by various internet sites for a series of posts by one writer/author. The series of posts at this one site is just one of the many parts of this tapestry of prose and poetry I refer to above.


This literary creation, this literary industry, has been created in the early evening of my life, in the last years of my middle age(56-59) and the first years of my late adulthood(60-64), by a retired teacher and lecturer who is now 64. He attempts to endow many a theme from the social sciences and humanities, from spiritual and secular subjects, with many layers of meaning. He tries to combine a high seriousness with a light and humorous style when appropriate. This literary goal is difficult to achieve and has been a slowly evolving ambition since settling into Australian society in the 1970s after moving from Canada where I was born in 1944.

Enough for now...I rest my case.....for now...Ron:whistling:

So what the goal for you as a author? Maximize readership? Or fame and recognition?

Let me give you a more complete raison d'etre, a more thorough account, for my writing in the paragraphs which follow. I have written a great deal about my reasons for writing and I am happy to add to the following, but this will do for a response to your question today.-Ron
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This thread, a host of others threads, my many internet blogs, the forums I post at, the message boards, my website that has been on the internet for the last seven years, 2001-2008—are each and all part of a tapestry of poetry and prose that I have created across the internet. This literary creation by this self-employed individual, this retired teacher and lecturer who is now 64, attempts to endow various themes and a wide range of social science and humanities subjects with many layers of meaning. In these seven years on the internet I have evoked a complex range of responses in readers who come upon my work at various points in the warp and weft of this tapestry, responses which range from lavish enthusiasm to utter indifference and quite intense criticism.

I have tried over the many decades of my life to develop a writing style which, while fusing together material from many academic disciplines, from my own life and my religion, the Baha'i Faith, aims to be both provocative and intellectually stimulating on the one hand and light and entertaining on the other. This is no easy mix to achieve. There are now several hundred thousand readers engaged in reading some part of this literary tapestry, this literary product, this creation, this immense pile of words that I have created. One result of all this is that I now correspond with hundreds of people on an occasional basis.


This amazing technical facility, the world wide web, has made this literary activity and what for me is clearly a literary success possible. If my writing had been left in the hands of the traditional hard cover publishers, where it had been without success from 1981 to 2001, these results would never have been achieved.


It is my conviction that the Baha'i Faith has a significant role to play in the growing unification of the planet in the years, decades and centuries ahead. I do not engage, though, in any sort of aggressive proselytising at the more than 4000 websites that are part of this personal and industrious exercise. I do possess an obvious enthusiasm for my religion, my values, beliefs and attitudes or I would not have been associated with them for 50 years as a member of the Baha’i Faith; nor would I be promoting them in a multitude of forms, subtle and not-so-subtle, on the internet. I have been increasingly engaged in this leisure time pursuit since retiring from FT work in 1999, PT and casual work in 2003 and most volunteer work in 2005.


It is my hope that what I write as a result of this self-employment, this literary vocation and avocation, this pleasurable occupation of my time, resonates with both the novitiate and the veteran Baha'i on the one hand and the great diversity of people who are on a multitude of paths in their journey through life.....this is enough for now.-Ron

So, can I confirm that the actual reason for the authorship is to create awareness for your theological beliefs?