Grave of Ezra Pound & Olga Rudge |
Grave of Ezra Pound |
Grave of Olga Rudge |
"re USURY / I was out of focus, taking a symptom for a cause. / The cause is AVARICE."
We can also thank Olga Rudge's advocacy of Antonio Vivaldi for much of his popularity today. I have written about Vivaldi before; here's a post from April 18, 2009:
Antonio Vivaldi, Venice Hometown boy - The Flaming Red Priest
Grave of Joseph Brodsky |
Another grave I am often asked about is that of the Russian poet, Joseph Brodsky, who was also institutionalized by his government, the Soviet Union. (An amusing aside: After I, myself, had been institutionalized back in 2010 by an over-funded rogue section of the US government here in Italy, the sculptress, Joan Fitzgerald, who carved the headstones of Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge, comforted me: "All great writers have been institutionalized," to which I replied, "Well, I'd better write something great. They seem to be taking precautionary measures.")
The Barque of Dante by Georgy Frangulyan Photo: Alloggi Barbaria |
I have written about All Saints Day and All Souls Day many times before. But for those of you who missed it, you might enjoy the post about when the Biennale Contemporary Music Festival ended on the Island of San Michele:
Cemetery Party in Venice - Music Amidst the Graves
Gods' aid, let not my bones lie in a public location
With crowds too assiduous in their crossing of it;
For thus are tombs of lovers most desecrated.
May a woody and sequestered place cover me with its foliage
Or may I inter beneath the hummock
of some as yet uncatalogued sand;
At any rate I shall not have my epitaph in a high road.
---from Homage to Sextus Propertius by Ezra Pound
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
That is what the grave of poet Ezra Pound and violinist Olga Rudge looks like on the Isola di San Michele, Venice's cemetery island. Nearly every time I go out there, someone asks me where the grave is, and even when I indicate the general direction, they still can't find it.
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