The Bughouse: The poetry, politics and madness of Ezra Pound

In 1945, the American poet Ezra Pound was due to stand trial for treason for his broadcasts in Fascist Italy during the Second World War. Before the trial could take place, however, he was pronounced insane. Escaping a possible death sentence, he was sent to St Elizabeths Hospital near Washington, DC, where he was held for over a decade. At the hospital, Pound was at his most infamous, and most contradictory. He was a genius and a traitor; a great poet and a madman. He was also an irresistible figure and, in his cell on Chestnut Ward and in the elegant hospital grounds, he was visited by the major poets and writers of his time. T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Charles Olson and Frederick Seidel all went to sit with him. They listened to him speak, and wrote of what they had seen. This was perhaps the world’s most unorthodox literary salon: convened by a fascist, held in a lunatic asylum, with chocolate brownies and mayonnaise sandwiches served for tea. Pound continues to divide all who read and think of him. At the hospital, the doctors who studied him and the poets who learned from him each had a different understanding of this wild and most difficult man. Tracing Pound through the eyes of his visitors, The Bughouse tells the story of politics, madness and modern art in the twentieth century.

About the Author :
Daniel Swift teaches at the New College of the Humanities. His first book, Bomber County, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Guardian First Book award, and his essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the New Statesman, and Harper's.

Review :
It is Swift’s considerable achievement sympathetically to examine an extraordinary, often troubling, tale...an enthralling narrative An extraordinary book of real passionate research which keeps surprising and illuminating by turns. Lively and searching… He has an engaging authorial presence and his own hesitations and uncertainties about Ezra Pound, both as poet and personality, lend a certain tension and a pleasing piquancy to his narrative Swift is a sensitive and thoughtful reader of both poetry and human psychology... The Bughouse is also a kind of immersive adventure journalism, in which he retraces Pound's steps and tries to unearth new details about his life To understand an artist as compromised by circumstances – and by his own many contradictions – as Ezra Pound, we have to trace a complex path through a maze of half-truths, myth, and simplification. The Bughouse does so with supreme care, critical acumen, and humanity, shedding a whole new light not only on Pound the man, but also on the shape and character of The Cantos, one of the most seriously flawed and truly brilliant artworks of the twentieth century A wonderful portrait of Ezra Pound in all his moods - mad, bad and blindingly sane. Swift does a fine job of allowing Pound’s many contradictions to stay in place and reminds us, too, that 45 years after his death there are plenty of contradictions left in the people who admire him It is a tribute to the brightness of The Bughouse that Swift has revived my interest in the old monster Swift’s strength is his refusal to separate Pound’s writings from the issues of Fascism and insanity... Sharp-eyed and pacey...it highlights memorably the tangled relations between lunatic, lover and poet [A] remarkable study of [Ezra Pound’s] fertile afterlife At the heart of this books lies a fascinating debate about poets and society A powerful and very talented writer…dashing and arresting…the greatness in his subject shines through every dark corner Swift admits that he cannot pin his elusive subject down, but there is no need. By following his instinct he has allowed the poet, with his ‘shifting self-narration’, to lead the way in this marvellous evocation. American poet Ezra Pound… proves an elusive but fascinating subject in this non-linear, impressionistic biography