This excerpt from Cohassey's work, Visiting Ezra: An Experiment in Soliloquy, provides some vital background about Pound's confinement. After World War II Hemingway and several others lent their voices to a campaign that greatly influenced the poet's release from St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington D.C.'s federal hospital for the criminally insane.
Unique individuals of fiery temperament, Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound made an odd pair on the streets of 1920s Paris. If the elder cane-carrying Pound appeared the out-of-date poet, Hemingway was the epitome of his generation's Flaming Youth. Meeting on the high ground of art, these two literary giants formed a friendship that survived until Hemingway's death. During their short time together in Paris, Pound edited Hemingway's early work.
Over decades Hemingway considered Pound a major poet and read The Cantos as they appeared in little magazines and published volumes. Eventually living in countries half a world apart, Hemingway and Pound maintained a lively and sometimes contentious correspondence. When Pound was incarcerated in America for his World War II broadcasts over Radio Rome, Hemingway played a vital role in freeing his old poet friend--the man who edited his early work, the "good game guy" whose wit and brilliance he never forgot. This narrative of a friendship lays bare the triumphs and tragedies of two giants of modern literature.
Length: 162 pages.
REVIEWS
Hemingway and Pound: A Most Unlikely Friendship "No psyco-babble here - no cheap Manhattan type analysis here - no settling of old scores - no "opposites attract" nonsense, just the telling of a unique friendship and as for the reasons, the author presents his own while preserving the final judgment to the reader. Wives, women, wars, words, acquaintances and most importantly literary works are mentioned only in how they relate to the friendship of these two icons of 20th century literature. If you seek a more perfect understanding of their friendship, Mr. Cohassey has provided you with a tool. If you want to experience their friendship while not quite getting it, then this is the book for you.”
----Propertius
"Cohassey wisely writes about each artist's complicated relationships with women . . . . Additionally, Cohassey discusses Pound and Hemingway's time on the FBI watch list . . . . Although the Pound-Hemingway friendship was contentious at times, Hemingway did not [typically] . . . nurture his associations . . . . John Cohassey meticulously writes about their unique bond."
----Wayne Catan, August 2020
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