**
it's strange, this furor and anger directed by Goldsmith and the other avanties at Paul Zukofsky for asserting his ownership under the copyright laws—
isn't he simply claiming what others enjoy, other heirs of literary estates?
why is he any different, any less entitled than the heirs of Robert Lowell?
I'd love to publish a volume where all of Lowell's "imitations" were collated chronologically with notes, but!
I know the reaction to Paul Zukofsky has something to do with the history of avantgarde esthetics and its bizarre delusions of outlawry—
or perhaps the contempt and disregard directed at him has other historical precedents, left over from eras when a Zukofsky was granted less rights than a Lowell——
no, it's probably not antisemitism, per se,
but rather the outrage felt toward a traitor to one's cause—
our comrade has betrayed us, the avanties cry,
hurt by what they feel is disloyalty to the holy tenets
of their faith . . . they feel wounded by his, Paul Zukofsky's, renunciation
of their sacred creed ...
As always the faithful hate an apostate more an unbeliever,
a heretic more than a heathen.
**
