Readings in the Cantos. Volume 1 /

Ezra Pound's Cantos is formidable--often difficult and sometimes discomfiting--but it is rewarding and continues to attract enterprising readers. This is the first of a projected three-volume series emerging from the work of the London Cantos Reading Group, which since 2006 has been inviting speakers to give close readings of individual cantos. In this volume, Parker has collected 23 essays, by a broad range of scholars, on cantos published between 1917 and 1934. The essays are clearly written and will be helpful both to those making their initial approach to The Cantos and to those who have lived with Pound's poems for some time. Among the essays that stand out are Helen Carr's "The Ur-Cantos," Henry Mead's on canto 4, and Alec Marsh's on cantos 18--19, but all the contributions are of good quality. Readers will also want to consult Roxana Preda's The Cantos Project (http//thecantosproject.ed.ac.uk/), which may eventually supersede Carroll Terrell's two-volume A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound (CH, Mar'81; CH, Oct'85). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Gary R. Grieve-Carlson, Lebanon Valley College