[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry

(ps. I can't help but notice that all my examples here are masculine. So one last one: why don't we see these same kind of arguments in women's poetics?)

Well, consider the political activities of the following women poets, who were contemporaries of Pound...all of whom, by the way, were then, and are still, regarded in some quarters as "not really women"--or were even complimented as "honorary men" (by those who feel that womanhood = inferiority)--because these individuals were genderqueer or lesbian or bisexual. Of course, a "proper," i.e. apparently hetero-normative, woman of that time would have devoted herself wholly to the demands of her husband and children, rather than selfishly pursued a literary career.

From a 1997 New York Times book review of The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore:

Moore was a radical for her time, calling herself in 1909 a Socialist ''but not a Marxian.'' At Bryn Mawr she championed equality for women, influenced by Bryn Mawr's president, M. Carey Thomas, and by a performance of Ibsen's ''Doll's House,'' with its theme of individual liberty. To John [her brother] and her mother she recounts arguing for suffrage and equal pay, and she praises England for giving women power. Later, preaching to farmers as a member of the Women's Suffrage Party in Pennsylvania, she boasts to John that ''every man but three said they would vote for suffrage in November.'' Her early feminism continues in her persistent appeals for women's education, though characteristically she holds contradictory views, such as frowning on a married woman's use of her own name. In this regard, I think she does not change her mind so much as entertain simultaneous opposites, as she does throughout her life. In early letters to John she refers to herself as ''he'' and signs off, ''Your affectionate brother.'' At the same time, she apprises her family of a new stylishly feathered hat.

Beyond those apparent contraries, there is a rigorous moral rectitude. She knew no contradictions to friendship, loyalty, religion or equality. The poet, who had protested anti-Semitic remarks at Bryn Mawr, was to fight intolerance ever after. When Bryher was rescuing victims of fascism in Europe, Moore wrote, ''I am willing to sign or have you put my name to any paper in any country protesting against this persecution.'' She rebuked Robert McAlmon for anti-Semitism in 1921, criticized Roosevelt in 1932 for cooperating with ''the anti-Negro South.'' And in 1939, writing about the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr's concept ''that intolerance is at work in us all, in all countries,'' she called for the ruthless self-examination that appears in her later poem ''In Distrust of Merits.''

It is not surprising, then, that she was torn between outrage against and loyalty to Pound, with whom she corresponded since he first admired her poems in 1919. Indeed, Moore's 1919 letter still offers the best clues to the origins of her departure from conventional verse by using conversational speech rhythms and natural word order. Later, Pound's anti-Semitism and indictment for treason stunned her, and she reproached him directly for being ''intolerable,'' ''foolish'' and ''brazen.'' Finally, though, she supported Pound in his treason trial of April 1958, believing, as she told him, that ''misfortune does not alter friendship.''

From the Wikipedia article on Edna St. Vincent Millay:

During the first war Millay had been a dedicated and active pacifist; however, from 1940 she supported the Allied Forces, writing in celebration of the war effort and later working with Writers' War Board to create propaganda, including poetry. Her reputation in poetry circles was damaged by her war work. Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."

Two relevant sections of Gertrude Stein's Wikipedia article are too long to quote here, but they are certainly eye-opening in light of Pound's advocacy of Mussolini. Stein was quite vocal about her advocacy of Philippe Pétain, the prime minister of Vichy France. But her comments regarding Hitler are so hard to parse that no one seems sure whether she intended them ironically or not. (I might echo Nigel's verdict on Pound's having raved "convolutedly and nonsensically"; then again, this IS Gertrude Stein, so a certain degree of convolution and nonsense seems de rigueur.) See Political views and especially Stein during World War II.

Okay, I'll just quote one little snippet which seems particularly damning:

Although Jewish, Stein collaborated with Vichy France, a regime that deported more than 75,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps, of whom only 3 percent survived the Holocaust. In 1944, Stein wrote that Petain's policies were "really wonderful so simple so natural so extraordinary". This was Stein's contention in the year when the town of Culoz, where she and Toklas resided, saw the removal of its Jewish children to Auschwitz. It is difficult to say, however, how aware Stein was of these events. As she wrote in Wars I Have Seen, "However near a war is it is always not very near. Even when it is here."

I suspect that there may be less attention paid to the perceived political morality of female poets of that era because 1. to those discussing perceptions of morality, these women's deviance from sexual norms has been of more interest than their politics, and 2. they are often regarded as notable mainly for the gimmick of having been women in a man's literary world, so fewer people are inclined to scrutinize what they thought about current events.