Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

214 A Piece of Ginger
David Oistrakh and Joseph Szigeti in May, the Ballet from the Palais du
Chaillot in June. With the passing years, the small regional academy had
won international renown. As Count Chigi had anticipated, the world’s
great musicians came to him. Olga arranged their schedules and accommodations,
catering to the whims of temperamental performers and maestros.
There was little time for reflection; her hectic schedule was interrupted
by brief respites in Rapallo and visits to Brunnenburg.
At St. Elizabeth’s, a young Texan, Marcella Spann, had joined the
Pound circle. Her reserved demeanor was in marked contrast to the exuberant
Martinelli; her hair caught neatly in a chignon indicated a ‘‘serious
character.’’ She had come to Washington, after college and a job in New
York, to teach at a junior college not far from the hospital. Pound was
impressed by the shy young woman, a student of contemporary American
poetry, and assigned her to compile an anthology, From Confucius to
Cummings.
Meanwhile, Pound’s friends in the literary world were agitating for his
release. As early as January 1957, Archibald MacLeish, T. S. Eliot, and
Robert Frost co-signed a letter to Attorney General Herbert Brownell
requesting a review of the Pound case. After a long delay, Deputy Attorney
General William P. Rogers (who was soon to replace Brownell)
answered, inviting Frost and his colleagues to come to Washington.
But before further action could be taken, a controversy erupted in
February that seriously compromised Pound’s position. The New York
Herald Tribune launched a four-part series of articles under the headline
‘‘Segregationist Kasper Is Ezra Pound Disciple,’’ linking Pound to John
Kasper and the Ku Klux Klan.
It was not until the following October, when the adverse publicity
quieted down, that Frost felt the time was ripe to go again to Washington.
Attorney General Rogers received him but remained noncommittal. Mac-
Leish felt that the petitions to the Attorney General were getting nowhere,
so he wrote to Secretary of State Christian Herter, suggesting that the
poet’s continued incarceration was damaging American prestige in Europe.
At the same time, Frost was carrying on negotiations with the White
House. ‘‘He did a lot for me, I must never forget,’’ Frost was quoted as
saying.