Clearly, the simplicity of childhood is preferred over to the complexities of adulthood, but the conflict within Lawrence goes beyond the tension between past and present, innocence and experience. This is why the poet uses the word “betray.” That part of him which longs for his childhood betrays his manhood. The more he reminisces, the more pain, and the less pleasure he feels. He knows he cannot reverse the clock, yet it is his true desire to do so. Quite obviously, the memory of the closeness and love of Lawrence’s mother evoked by the singing woman causes Lawrence both pleasure and pain. Whereas Lawrence’s return to the past in “Piano” is motivated by a yearning to recapture innocence, security, and the curiosity of childhood, Pound’s return to the past in “Medallion” is motivated by a yearning to recapture the tradition of Homer and of the Classicists. But for Pound, the return to the past is prolonged and intellectual. For Lawrence, the return to the past is fleeting and emotional. Lawrence and Ezra Pound who seek refuge in the past. It is human nature: to run far away from your fears and problems, though you can never really escape, but, for a moment, you may seek refuge in the past. Warren Tallman, Department of English, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Lawrence’s “Piano” and Ezra Pound’s “Medallion”: Two poems that look back in time in search of refuge and remembrances of things loved and lost. But it all is - intelligence working at a much more than “½ watt rays” intensity. You bring a twin force of perception and thought to bear. “The word for this that comes most readily to mind is “brilliant”. Here are his comments on my original essay: Incidentally, Professor Tallman really loved my essay and gave me an “A” and ever since that day, we got along famously. I’m publishing it here more to get Professor Tallman’s comments recorded for the digital record than anything else. It’s still a nice and easy read 32 years later and not at all academic per se. It’s not a great essay, but it’s not a bad essay, neither. This is also the only one that I was able to find in my mother’s basement. This is one of the first essays I ever wrote for him. Lawrence and Ezra Pound for him in an introductory poetry course that he taught at UBC in 1982. I have already written about Tallman, although rather obliquely and sentimentally in my 2010 essay, “ Why Nobody wants a new Vancouver Art Gallery or gives a ratsass about Photoconceptualism.” In fact, that essay was dedicated to him and discusses in detail his influence not only on the poetry scene in Vancouver in the 1960s and 70s but also on the current visual arts scene and cultural scene in general. Tallman passed away in 1994, but his contribution to the local literary scene and in particular to the poetry scene was and still is legendary, or at least it is among the literati. I took three courses with Professor Tallman at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the early 1980s. Dan McLeod next to Ginsberg’s right side.
Allen Ginsberg is in the middle of the photo, the one with the Hasidic beard, of course. Tallman is the one with glasses, second right in the top row. Poets gather outside the Vancouver home of Ellen and Warren Tallman in 1963.
A Provocative Essay on Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises by Joe Canuck.A Nice Little Essay for Warren Tallman by Joe Canuck.Scott Fitzgerald, Immortality, Marc Lepine and other American Psychos by Joe Canuck Why Nobody wants a new Vancouver Art Gallery or gives a ratsass about Photo-conceptualism by Joe Canuck.
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