Sunday, March 10
1 pm ET

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Invoking the Spirits: The Occult Influences in Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos by Katrina Makkouk

Katrina Makkouk’s study of modernist poet Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos is a great introduction to the work of the poet in general, and to his masterpiece The Cantos specifically. Written in incarceration right after WW2, Pound’s Pisan Cantos show his desire to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of history, memory, and mythology.

Drawing from the occult inspiration from his early mentor, W.B. Yeats, Pound went into an inner exile to retrieve whatever he needed to banish the restraining outer circumstances, and to finish his epic poem. The how and why of magic can so often be mysterious and enigmatic. For some, it does not provide entrance into an unseen world such as those sought out by Yeats. Rather, it enables the user to link themselves to the past, present, and future, and to fully connect oneself to what is beyond the ordinary reality in which we find ourselves. These threads of memory and magic that are woven throughout The Pisans makes this set of cantos the most unique amongst the other stars of Pound’s epic writing.

Literchoor, Kulchur and a Damned Fine Friendship: on the Symbiosis of Ezra Pound and James Laughlin by Carl Abrahamsson

The New Directions publishing company was early on a champion of radical modernist literature and poetry. Founder James Laughlin befriended many of these pioneering writers, and the most well-known friendship is undoubtedly the one Laughlin nurtured with Ezra Pound. They fed each other in many ways: Pound brought fame, infamy and many author friends to the publishing company, and Laughlin made sure the words of the great poet were constantly in print. Even during Pound’s controversial American internment Laughlin secured Pound's legacy.

Katrina Makkouk is an author and researcher who lives in California. She earned her Master’s degree in English from Clemson University. Her primary research interests include modernism and the intersection of occult philosophy and methodology in literature.

Dr. Vanessa Sinclair and Carl Abrahamsson curate the Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult series of events, dedicated to exploring the intersections and integration of psychoanalytic theory, the creative arts, occult practices, and folk magic traditions. By inviting psychoanalysts, philosophers, artists, writers, and occult practitioners from a variety of theoretical orientations and worldviews to discuss their work, personal experiences, and areas of research interest with one another, dialogue is opened up between practitioners in fields of study that traditionally rarely engage with one another though often operate in similar and complementary ways. Join them on Patreon!