All Saints Day 2014 on the Island of San Michele, Venice

Grave of Ezra Pound & Olga Rudge

(Venice, Italy) 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. That photo is from All Saints Day, so normally that many roses and other flowers aren't there. According to their wishes, the grave is embellished only with greenery. Perhaps people are expecting something more flashy and need to look down, not up, to find it.

Grave of Ezra Pound

By serendipity, I have run into Mary de Rachewiltz, the daughter of Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge, on All Saints Day before, and this year was no exception. Mary lives in Brunnenburg Castle up in South Tyrol, and comes down to visit her parent's tomb. I have had the good fortune to visit the castle a few times where Mary continues her father's work in her own elegant fashion. The woman is 89-years-old, and still radiates grace and charm.

Grave of Olga Rudge

Olga Rudge stood by Ezra Pound when he was arrested for being a traitor by the United States government during World War II, declared criminally insane and institutionalized in 1945 in St. Elizabeth's Hospital for more than twelve years. When Ezra Pound was finally released in 1958, he joined Olga here in Venice, where he died on November 1, 1972, All Saints Day. Two weeks before he died, at a reading he clarified his position:

 "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

Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge and Joseph Brodsky are buried among the cypress trees in the Evangelico section of San Michele, which looks like a graveyard right out of an Washington Irving story -- Ichabod Crane could be buried there. If you stand in the center with your back facing the entrance, turn left. About halfway to the end of the aisle, head into the section there on the left, and you will find Pound and Rudge. If you walk to the end of the aisle, on the right, you will find Brodsky.

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

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog