Irving Layton and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, 1953-1978 9780773561717

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Note on the Text
Illustrations
The Correspondence: 17 February 1953 – 14 November 1978
Notes
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Z

Citation preview

Irving Layton & Robert Creeley

This page intentionally left blank

Irving Layton & Robert Creeley The Complete Correspondence,

1953 - 1978 Edited by Ekbert Faas & Sabrina Reed

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo

McGill-Queen's University Press 1990 ISBN 0-7735-0657-8 Legal deposit second quarter 1990 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Layton, Irving, 1912Irving Layton and Robert Creeley: the complete correspondence Includes index. ISBN 0-7735-0657-8 1. Layton, Irving, 1912-Correspondence. 2. Creeley, Robert, 1926-Correspondence. 3. Poets, Canadian (English)—20th centuryCorrespondence. 4. Poets, American-20th centuryCorrespondence. I. Creeley, Robert, 1926II. Faas, Ekbert, 1938. III. Reed, Sabrina. IV. Title. PS8523.A95Z542 1989 C811'.54 C89-090201-1 PR9199.3.L39Z483 1989

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Permission to reprint poetry included in the correspondence has been given by the following: "The Dissolving Fabric" by Paul Blackburn: from The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn, copyright ® 1985 by Joan Blackburn, reprinted by permission of Persea Books; "The Operation," "The Immoral Proposition," "For Irving," "Song (Were I Myself More Blithe)," "Alba," "Like They Say," "The Lover" by Robert Creeley: University of California Press; "The Bird," "For I.P.L." by Louis Dudek: Louis Dudek; "In Dedication" by Robert Graves: A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of The Executors of the Estate of Robert Graves; "Park Avenue Psychiatrist," "Enemies," "Admonition and Reply," "Love's Diffidence," "Factory Town Mist" by Irving Layton: McClelland and Stewart; "Canto XXXIX" by Ezra Pound: The Cantos of Ezra Pound, copyright 1934 by Ezra Pound, reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation; "All Devils Fading" by Martin Seymour-Smith: Martin Seymour-Smith; "The Lion" and "Sometimes it Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They are Beautiful" by William Carlos Williams: Collected Later Poems, copyright 1944, 1949 by William Carlos Williams, reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Contents

Introduction ix

Note on the Text xxxi Illustrations following pages xxxii and 121 The Correspondence: 17 February 1953 - 14 November 1978 1

Notes 259

Index 289

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

The publication of this volume was made possible by a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, for which the editors wish to express their gratitude. Special thanks are also due to Holly Hall, head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Washington University Libraries, and Anne Posega, Manuscripts Assistant, for their help in providing photographic material on Robert Creeley. As well, the editors must thank the following for their assistance in providing access to various correspondences: Gael Turnbull; the Layton Archive, Concordia University; the Robert W. Creeley Papers, Special Collections, Washington University; the Gorman Archive, Lilly Library, Indiana University; and the Paul Blackburn Collection, University of California, San Diego. We would also like to acknowledge the invaluable help given us by Terri Doughty and Mary Lou McKenna with the proofs, the index, and the photographic materials.

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

"There will, if I am not mistaken, be a battle," William Carlos Williams predicted in 1956. "Layton against the rest of the world. With his vigour and abilities who shall not say that Canada will not have produced one of the west's most famous poets?"1 The prophecy proved true except for one circumstance Williams could hardly have been aware of at the time. By 1956, the battle was already won, to a large extent due to Irving Layton's contacts with Robert Creeley. As Layton put it, it took an American to find that his work was worth publishing.2 In the Midst of My Fever, brought out by Creeley's Divers Press, was also Layton's first collection of poems to win major critical acclaim. In Northrop Frye's opinion, the volume settled "the question of whether Mr. Layton is a real poet or not." A number of the poems, wrote A.J.M. Smith, "are as fine as any written by a poet of Mr. Layton's generation in America."3

I Whatever Creeley and Layton achieved together was done through a correspondence that covers perhaps the most seminal period in recent Canadian and American literary history. 1953, when the two poets started to write each other, marks an important step in Canada's gradual entry into "Postmodernism." This was done mainly through two avant-garde journals.4 Contact, which Raymond Souster founded in 1952, was a self-proclaimed International Magazine of Poetry. As such, it gradually came under the influence of Cid Gorman's Origin, the central outlet for Charles Olson's and Robert Creeley's work at that time. Gorman supplied Souster with translations of works by European and South American poets and put the Canadian in contact with many of his English and North American contributors.

Introduction So before long, Contact would print Phyllis Webb and Irving Layton back to back with Vincent Ferrini and William Bronk; or feature Layton's attack on Canadian "gentility," "propriety," and "respectability" alongside Charles Olson's programmatic "These Days," a poem suggesting that whatever you have to say leave the roots on, let them dangle And the dirt just to make clear where they came from. "A Note on Origin" in the third issue of Contact called Olson the author of a "brilliant article" on "Projective Verse" and "the key figure in this resourcing of creative effort" among the poets surrounding Gorman and his magazine. Contact ceased publication early in 1954. But at that time, Civ/n, Montreal's "companion magazine" of the Toronto-based Contact, was already in full operation. Founded early in 1953, Civ/n derived its cryptic title from a statement by Ezra Pound that appears on the magazine's opening page: "Civilization is not a one man job." Initially, CIV/n hardly lived up to this program: Pound himself observed that the journal's early issues were "o.k. for local centre" but little else. Only with the fourth issue did Civ/n expand its list of mainly Canadian contents to include members of Gorman's Origin group, a development continued through the final three issues. The fifth issue of March 1954, for instance, printed Louis Dudek's lengthy, though highly critical, review of books by Paul Blackburn, Charles Olson and Robert Creeley, followed by "A Note on Poetry" by Creeley himself. Meanwhile Creeley, then resident in Mallorca, was planning a journal that was to become one of the major organs of early "Postmodernism" in America. The Black Mountain Review made its debut in the spring of 1954 and ceased in the autumn of 1957, but not before Creeley had discovered the newly emerged Beat movement in San Francisco and printed a selection of works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac et al. in the magazine's final issue. By that time, exchanges between Layton and Creeley had passed the peak of their greatest intensity. There is little more than the occasional greeting after that. Finally, almost ten years after they first started writing each other, the two poets met in Vancouver. "Irving is something else again," Creeley reported to Gael Turnbull: X

He came in quickly one night in the fall, sponsored by Canada Council, at war with the chairman of the english department etc., and came to our house with his 'agent' — a sort of bland man etc. ... and we sat drinking, sizing each other up. It was impossible not to like him, and I was really much biassed in his favour anyhow. I love that intensity, and the size, i.e., the whole man so compact and vigorous.5

There had been several efforts to bring about earlier encounters. After a long distance phone call from Charles Olson on 21 September 1953, Lay ton repeatedly toyed with the idea of teaching at Black Mountain College. "It seems [Olson] has big plans," he wrote Creeley, "which include, I'm happy to say, the two of us." Only Creeley, of course, went to teach at the college, but Layton had hopes that on his way there from Mallorca, his friend would pay him a visit in Montreal. Due to his past political activities as "a hot left-winger," Layton himself was not allowed to cross the us border. The problem lingered on until Layton, over three years later, asked Creeley to write a "sober epistle" about him and send it to American Immigration — "something about mutual cultural contacts as how I'm a good poet, etc., etc. ... It seems they're in a more melting mood now, and would let me cross over if I can get a couple of Americans to say my appearance in the U.S. wd be beneficial" (L-C, 23 Sept. 1953; 9 Oct. 1953; 26 Jan. 1957). But, for whatever reasons, no personal meeting before 1962 materialized. The closest the two poets came to sizing each other up in the flesh was by exchanging photographs. Irving's wife Betty was so impressed by Creeley's "fine sensitive face" (L-C, n.d.) that she was dying to do a portrait of him. Creeley's reaction to Lay ton's appearance was more ambivalent: "yr picture [is] staring at me here, over the table," he joked. "The other I have hidden under some papers - you frighten me in it!" (C-L, 28 Feb. 1954). While at Black Mountain, Creeley, who had not written Layton for quite a while, received an unexpected phone call from his friend. "Irving called up last night," he reported to his wife Ann. "His voice is very controlled really, very sure - and much 'politer' than I had expected."6 //

Also, there was what the two poets told each other about their personal lives. Both of them have an infallible flair for revealing what is humorous or striking even in trivial or depressing incidents, and neither Creeley nor Layton seems to have suffered a moment of real boredom during the years of their correspondence. But in terms of XI

Introduction

actual circumstances, Creeley's life was far more eventful than Layton's. 1953—63 marks perhaps the most tumultuous decade of Creeley's career so far. Travel in Europe, across the United States, and into Central America; activities as editor, publisher, Black Mountain College teacher; life as a bohemian vagrant in the artistic communities of Manhattan and San Francisco; finally, a new marriage as well as a regular job first as school teacher, then as professor: much of all this is discussed in these letters. And given his addressee's Rabelaisian temperament, Creeley shows himself at his most colourful and often hilarious. By contrast, Layton's life during the same period was relatively uneventful. One of its more unconventional episodes, which he hastened to report to his friend, happened in honour of their Montreal magazine CIV/n when they "all undressed and sat about holding each other's privates." But Layton's immediate memories were not those of a gloating bacchant: "sounds gruesome now," he added in parenthesis. "And I thot to myself This is our wedding anniversary and the first time my wife has ever touched another guy's penis." Ordinarily, he and Betty simply enjoyed a happy sex-life in a conventional marriage. At least in appearances, there was little to distinguish them from their hard-driven, renovating, and overdrawn suburban neighbours around 8035 Kildare Avenue, Cote St. Luc, Quebec. Though struggling to make ends meet, with crippling monthly payments on his house and car, the ex-Marxist even showed some distinct astuteness in investing his money. "I've added an extension of three more rooms to my house as well as a vestibule in the front," he reported. About four years ago I prudently purchased the adjoining lots to our place, and the value of them more than quadrupled. This simple transaction is now almost paying for the labour and materials. What a system! (L—C, 24 Aug. 1954)

Except for the odd sale of a painting at one of Betty's exhibitions, most of the money to support a family of four came out of Irving Layton's labours as a teacher. By September 1953, he held a regular job at the local High School and, in addition, taught several courses at college level plus a course on the history of political theory at a centre of adult education (L-C, 23 Sept. 1953). Layton was a devoted teacher, but ever so often we hear him groan about the drudgery of marking papers, about the "donkeytrot" routine of meetings, or later, when at Sir George Williams College, about the internal guerilla warfare that tends to erupt in the ivory towers xn

Introduction of academia. Predictably, Lay ton's iconoclastic attitudes attracted the attention of some of his colleagues. There was a move, Layton reports in March 1955, to boot him out, mainly because of his "unorthodox opinions in the lecture room": one or two dead-beats (so-called profs) who couldn't stomach my rather large popularity among the students & wd I think like to get me out so that they could go back to their former somnolence. Amazing this is: Prof. Compton so much didn't like my [The Long Pea-Shooter], that he wrote a scorching letter to ClV/n. slanging me all the way to hell and back. But fair play is fair play, and as long as I can get the students excited about English poetry he doesn't give two hoots what I say or do outside the class-room. Pretty broadminded of the chap, decent all around. (L-C, 31 March 1955; 19 March 1955; n.d.)

It's hard to imagine how Layton, burdened with all this, found time for anything else. But he did, time even for "vigorous games of handball once and sometimes twice a week" or for teaching himself to ski at age forty-three, though with somewhat unfortunate results. Regarding his proper metier, he helped plan and edit Civ/n, organized poetry events, read his own poetry for radio, carried out numerous correspondences with fellow poets like Creeley, and published his own verse. In terms of the actual writing, Layton, in fact, had never been more prolific. Most of the poems in the four collections published from 1954 to 1955 were actually written during the period of his most intense correspondence with Creeley. "There are forty poems in my folder," announces an interim report of early 1955, "and by the end of the summer if I have another brain-burst as last year, there shd be sixty or more" (L-C, 5 Dec. 1953; 9 Jan. 1955; n.d.). He had what he wished for, but still could not find a regular publisher for his poems. Yet Layton managed to keep up his spirits. In the Midst of My Fever, put out by Creeley's Divers Press, had been the first of Layton's collections of verse not financed by the poet himself. For some time to come, it also threatened to be the last. So Layton, once again, resorted to paying for his own publications. The Long Pea-Shooter, The Cold Green Element, and The Blue Propeller appeared in quick succession, the last as a Contact Press book designed and printed by Creeley's press in Mallorca. But problems did not stop there. At one point in 1957, Ryerson Press offered to act as Layton's distributor, but suddenly reneged on this proposal. After stocking some 200 volumes they even refused to let their author and owner take care of distribution himself: Xlll

Introduction the office lady in charge spits out at any one who asks that not a single copy will leave their hallowed precincts. I say 'hallowed' advisedly for RP is the publishing arm of The United Church. It seems that one of my poems hints that Christ may have had BALLS and that such a frightening thought had never entered the scrubbed minds of the assorted crew cuts & clerical collars who form the committee on book publications. (L—C, 26 Jan. 1957)

Even life in his small circle of kindred spirits was not without setbacks. Most of that was centred around Civ/n, "a little mag.," as Layton explained to Creeley, "devoted to poetry and reviews of current books ... with illustrations for some of the poems." Though ClV/n was officially edited by Aileen Collins, according to Layton, he and Dudek were "the active spirits behind it." No wonder that Layton rose to Dudek's defense when Creeley attacked him: Next to Ray he's been the only chap in this country with whom I could make common cause in the war on gentility and that kind of parochialism here which is a blend of God, the British flag, and having the best pork-andbeans in the world. (L-C, 31 March 1953; 1 Jan. 1954)

Within scarcely a year, Layton came to share Creeley's attitude. Even a "very damn good & kind letter" (C—L, 21 Nov. 1954) that Dudek was reported to have sent to Creeley did little to change Irving's distaste for his former friend. "I'd be a lot happier with the boy," he wrote back to Robert, "if he were a consistent fighter and didn't veer with the wind as it blew this way and that... I like a good fighter, I like good haters. Too much grape juice in Dudek." But more depressing than the actual break with Dudek was a related event, "civ/n is kaput," Layton announced to Creeley (Tuesday, n.d., p. 216). Without a mag, this huge country of ours becomes a frozen cemetery, a waste, a derisive epithet. Someone must give battle. (L-C, 28 Nov. 1954; 19 March 1955) ///

It was in times like these that the desire to join Creeley in Mallorca became all the stronger. By January 1955, Irving and Betty were "thinking quite openly of making a break." "As you describe the climate - ah, sun and water - I envy you," Irving wrote during the same winter. "If we cd ever straighten out our financial affairs, I'd join you as fast as the first tramp steamer could take us across" (L— C, 15 Jan. 1955; n.d.). There was obviously more to Mallorca than sunshine and Mediterranean coast lines. xiv

Introduction Here was Layton, resident in one of the world's major cities, but more or less isolated, and fighting his way inch by inch against a hostile surrounding; and there was Creeley, living on an island, but in close vicinity to a celebrity like Robert Graves, receiving visits from others like novelist Godfrey Blunden and writer Edward Dahlberg, and attracting poet friends like Paul Blackburn and Robert Duncan to join him in his obscure village. This younger poet was obviously on top of things. In the same way in which he had searched out Gorman, through Gorman had found Souster and Contact, and, through Souster, Layton and Civ/n, Creeley had established other, worldwide contacts. Before he started to write to Layton, he had been published in such esoteric journals as Katue Kitasono's Japanese Vou and Rainer Gerhardt's German Fragmente. That one of Creeley's stories had appeared in the Kenyan Review was as impressive to Layton as the way in which Creeley casually passed on a Layton poem to Alexander Trocchi's magazine Merlin in Paris or reported that Frederick Eckman, another of his many literary contacts, admired Layton's poetry and might do a review of it. Creeley was never condescending, but one's own naivete when measured against his know-how could be slightly embarrassing at times. Such a situation arose when Layton proposed to start "a movement to get [Pound] released from St. Elizabeths" (L-C, 5 Dec. 1953). He and his friends thought of drawing up a petition to the American President to be circulated in all English-speaking countries. Generally speaking, Creeley was, of course, in favour of such a move. But he had his reservations. It might be preferable to send the petition to UNESCO ("the most effective single unit of authority for receiving and registering such protest") and not to the President who might shrug it off as a crank protest from non-Americans. They might also remember that the Pound issue had been argued with great bitterness some four or five years ago. At that time Robert Hillyer, for instance, had turned the whole matter into a campaign against "modern" verse in general, while Peter Viereck had attacked Pound's alleged anti-Semitism. But since then many responsible, and some unexpected persons like Allen Tate, had argued in his defence. Some of Pound's works had been reprinted and his books given good reviews in magazines like The New Yorker (C-L, 12 Dec. 1953). More than all else, however, Layton and his friends ought to have realized that Pound's present status was by no means clear. There had been some reliable comment that Pound wanted to stay where he was. Once released, he feared, he might be gunned down by secret agents or persecuted beyond endurance. There was rumour that T.S. Eliot and others had desisted from their efforts to have Pound xv

Introduction

released for these reasons. This, of course, might just as well be "sheer bullshit," Creeley granted: but I think you might well check it, and/or write to Eliot, c/o Faber & Faber, etc., tell him your intentions, and ask him — beyond questions of whether or not the thing will actually work - if it is his opinion that Pound would, in fact, be willing to leave, etc. (C-L, 12 Dec. 1953)

No wonder that Layton was more and more drawn into Creeley's orbit. When Cid Gorman came to stay with him in June 1953, Irving found himself exploring the virtues of "open verse" in poems by Creeley, Olson, and Gorman himself. Layton had strong reservations, and he stuck to them for nearly two years. But Creeley was nothing if not tenacious in arguing his and his friends' position. So Layton finally saw "the light re Olson's prose": It came all of a sudden - a kind of revelation it was - and on the strength of my enthusiasm I was able to sell the books to members of my class. I even used two paragraphs from said book to illustrate the evolution of Eng. prose. However, I intend to hold on to my commas, for there's no point in imitating a style so individual as his. But he has made me see some things I was blind to before and I am grateful to him. (L-C, 19 Dec. 1954)

Layton proved less adamant concerning a poet who did not belong to their inner circle. "Does Robert Graves happen to be a neighbour of yours," he wondered in one of his earliest letters. To Layton, Graves' Collected Poems 1914-1947 were "Virile, intelligent, individual," and he particularly praised the British poet's revisions of "Rocky Acres" for Cleanth Brooks' and Robert Penn Warren's Understanding Poetry, something Layton had recently analysed in a class at Sir George Williams (L-C, 17 April 1953). But Creeley was unconvinced. Granted he knew the man, but Layton was "too kind." Robert Graves was really "one hell of a bore, albeit kind enough." Regarding revisions, there was at least one example, "In Dedication," incidentally Creeley's favourite, where later changes had practically killed the poem. All the particulars of the original poem had simply been generalized. Understandably, Layton, working more from within the English tradition, would find greater interest in this British poet than Creeley. Equally, Graves' use of halfrhyme was more up Layton's alley than Creeley's. But even here Creeley found Layton's practice far more moving than Graves'. Altogether, this man's poems struck him as "very damn dull, and slight finally" (C-L, 26 April 1953). xvi

Introduction

Though reluctantly, Layton was "forced to agree" (L-C, 26 May 1953). In his reply, he more or less rephrased what Creeley had said about Graves' "cute flippancy" and "pretension in the address" (C— L, 26 April 1953), adding that Graves' poetry lacked spontaneity: it "smells too much of the midnight oil, has too conscious an air about it" (L-C, 26 May 1953). Even the reservations he maintained regarding Graves' novels were reversed in a subsequent letter. "Finally I get a feeling of unreality from anything he has written as though he had seen everything from a very long distance off. Too bad. A novelist can't afford to be an egomaniac; he's got to rub shoulders with humanity" (L-C, 25 Aug. 1953). While gradually persuaded by Creeley's sense of Graves' writings, Layton was instantly thrilled by his new friend's descriptions of the man himself. "I could just see him putting his hand on your shoulder," he wrote Creeley, "and looking beyond you into the blue" (L-C, 10 Aug. 1953). He particularly liked Creeley's account of Graves taking a walk through the countryside, "swinging along with very long legs, and simply blotting out everything in the progress." Graves, Creeley wrote, walks with a sort of antagonistic thrusting movement, never too easily, i.e., he always strides. He is impatient out of nervousness, and his voice has a desperate edge to it, and again nervous. He speaks in rushes. He can, at times, be utterly kind, and he is always, I think, well-intentioned. But he is a very damn blind & closed man. Hence one must not trust him. (C-L, 17 Aug. 1953)

Layton was delighted. During his morning walks around Cote St. Luc he could virtually see Graves thrusting ahead along the road beside him. Creeley's description of the man had brought him truly alive. The same was true of other people and events. Where Creeley's stories and poems tend to dissolve reality into a few, almost impalpable contours, his epistolary accounts of things are dense with sharply drawn and psychologically revealing detail. Layton erupted in laughter at reading his friend's description of Graves' meeting with Pound: "it was T.E. Lawrence who introduced them, saying, Robt, this is Ezra, Ezra, this is Robt — you will not like one another. Which they did not." Even more glacial was Graves' encounter with another of Creeley's famous friends. Edward Dahlberg was "as bitter a wanderer" as Creeley had ever met. One of these men who never compromised, Irving - god help him ... He fought with everyone, yesterday refused Graves' hand ... He also is a misoXVll

Introduction gynist, or tends very much to be one. Ann & he were at loggerheads almost from the first word — finally they fought, and he left — and I don't know. I can't say I'm a peaceful man, etc., but he never gets tired. (C—L, 17 Aug. 1953; 15 Dec. 1954; 27 Nov. 1954)

At this point, Layton, of course, was not unaware that Creeley had quite a bit of Dahlberg in himself. Strictly literary disagreements that erupted over some critical comments on Theodore Roethke and Dylan Thomas in the Black Mountain Review had already lost him Kenneth Rexroth who, like Layton himself, was one of the magazine's contributing editors. The defection of yet another, Paul Blackburn, Creeley's recent neighbour in Mallorca, had more palpable reasons. Ever since Blackburn had gotten married, things between him and Creeley had not been the same, and at one point Winifred Blackburn's needling reached the point where something more drastic than bitchy repartee seemed called for, at least to Creeley. Now that this row was a day old, Creeley, writing about it to Layton, felt, "to put it mildly, a little silly." But to have landed one "on the sneering face of this bitch" Blackburn had for a wife, was something he would "damn well savor till the grave" (C-L, 12 Sept. 1954). IV

No wonder that Layton and Creeley, more than once, came close to having a break themselves. Between two poets who published each other's works there was plenty of reason for dissent. One such disagreement erupted over critical material Creeley had solicited for the Black Mountain Review. Layton spoke to Dudek about it and both concluded that neither of them had time for such writing. Dudek also argued that a review of a Canadian book published so many hundreds of miles away would do little good, and Layton felt his friend had a point there. No doubt Layton was taken aback by Creeley's response. The American was more than just disappointed by his friend's refusal: "by god I am insulted that I am given back the argument that a notice of a Canadian book 'appearing in a mag so many hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime ...' is, by that, worthless. And where the hell does [Dudek] think / am? The FOOL" (C-L, 21 Dec. 1953). Layton, while turning down Creeley's request, had enclosed some poems by Dudek, adding that he thought they were good and hoping that Creeley would agree. But the suggestion only added fuel to Creeley's irritation. "Well," he wrote, xvin

Introduction I am in no damn state of mind to say anything about his work, except that I dislike it. I dislike the pompous riding on metaphor which has nothing to do with the source from which it comes (FOR I.P.L.), I dislike the lumpiness of the Sappho (which is NOT her characteristic) and I dislike the man, very much, who argues, to me, that "When I have carded the wool of your thoughts / and found the physiological knot... O well - why bother????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????? He may be a lovely man - but goddamn me if he is a poet. (C-L, 21 Dec. 1953)

A day later, Creeley admitted that he had "flipped" and asked Layton to "forgive [his] virulence" re Dudek. But the attempt to explain his dislike of Dudek's poetry only resulted in Creeley's perhaps longest exercise in close reading. In tone, it hardly differs from the earlier letter. What he found in Dudek's "For I.P.L." was "a scramble, really of half a dozen divergent 'opinions' and 'feelings.'" Besides its "hodge-podge of misused Pound reference" the poem was "one writhing mass of generalities" and "phoney diction," "the damn sense vague, unclear - and the rhetoric swallows us up" (C-L, 23 Dec. 1953). Particularly irksome to Creeley was a line about sailors having "salt spray in the eye-balls." Its author, he felt, should be forced to spend an entire week at the docks "asking men who do work on boats, how the hell the salt-spray in their EYE-BALLS is today." To cheer himself up, Creeley concluded this six-page single-spaced tirade with a little drawing of "Mr. D." in a boat plus a poem entitled "Tight in the Halyards or The Canvas Belly" (L-C, 23 Dec. 1953). No doubt it never occurred to Layton that his refusal to contribute criticism to the Black Mountain Review would be interpreted as a betrayal, but this was clearly how Creeley felt about it. As soon as the plans for the magazine materialized, Creeley had "wanted [Layton] in at the very first," just as he had wanted to publish his poetry earlier. "I liked it. And thought that, by god, here is a man who can make it, and who has made it... In any case, it is you now that I want, in, on this thing." Layton must have felt, and rightly so, that Creeley had talked himself into a crisis without real provocation. But he also realized that, ultimately, this man would not take no for an answer where it mattered to him. "Write soon," Creeley concluded his letter. "I'm sorry to be so dreary, on this. But I can really think of nothing else, nor feel myself allowed to, until such time as I see it fall one damn way or the other" (C-L, 21 Dec. 1953; 23 Dec. 1953). To someone on tenterhooks as Creeley was at this point, Layton's answer must have come as a great relief. Layton reassured Creeley that he was one hundred percent behind him and offered to provide

xix

Introduction the requested critical writings. But the letter took a full week before it reached Mallorca. So Creeley, during the interim, wrote one more letter. He once again apologized for having "flipped," assured Layton how much they needed him, dropped a hint that none of all this, of course, would jeopardize the publication of Layton's book, and casually mentioned that one or two short reviews, of anything interesting to him, off the cuff, and in as free a tone as he wished, "would be a tremendous help" (C-L, 2 Jan. 1954). After finally reading Layton's letter, Creeley dropped his request for review material altogether. He was happy enough just to appoint the Canadian poet as one of his contributing editors. Although Layton had called him "a bit harsh on D and, finally, unfair" (L—C, 1 Jan. 1954), Creeley was more than glad to forget the whole matter. In fact he hoped to be able to see them both soon and, if possible, "haul Olson along" to Montreal too. Also, his review of the Contact Press books and magazine would be in the Black Mountain Review, and he felt sure that both Layton and Dudek would find it "fair." Otherwise, Layton's "very damn kind & generous" letter simply added to the shame that had grown in him for over a week now (C-L, 8 Jan. 1954). The friendship between the two poets only grew stronger from all this. Nonetheless, it reached another impasse towards the end of the same year. This was over some remarks Layton had made about Creeley's review of William Carlos Williams in the Black Mountain Review. Again, Layton must have been disconcerted by Creeley's response. After all, Creeley knew all too well about Layton's problems with Olson's prose, and all Layton had wanted to say was that he had similar difficulties with Creeley's: You, Olson, and Gorman have developed a strategy of syntax, a method of leapfrogging nouns and verbs, a detective game of missing connectives which makes the greatest demands upon a reader's alertness.

Layton's "motive in writing so plainly" was his honest feeling that Creeley and his friends produced "the freshest, most vital writing today in the States." So why spoil all this by some unnecessary or even "phoney" stylistic mannerism (L-C, 24 Oct. 1954)? Layton, of course, might well have anticipated Creeley's reaction. Harsh as the American had often been in criticizing Dudek's poems or Layton's own, his comments were always specific and to the point. No wonder that he expected the same from his friend. Moreover, Layton had no right to lump him, Olson, and Gorman together as if they formed a clique. Though one of recent literary history's most

xx

Introduction powerful strategists, Creeley has always despised mere cliquishness, especially when enshrined in some self-protective "little" magazine. So Layton had obviously hit a sore spot. "Anyhow, please never say again: 'You, Olson, and Gorman,'" he warned. Layton ought to have given specific comments. As it turned out, his so-called "motive in writing so plainly" seemed to be nothing else to Creeley than "to lump, fuddle, generalize, & slide off from" the specific matter under hand (C-L, 30 Oct. 1954). Particularly, Creeley felt hit below the belt by Layton's suggestion that his criticism was "phoney." No doubt he had again talked himself into a crisis mood, where no less than his entire friendship with Layton seemed to be at stake. But this time there was little of the hysteria that would make the writer apologize in a subsequent letter for having "flipped" or come on too strong. Creeley's indignation, though somewhat unexpected, was genuine and understandable in a man so deeply committed to his literary values. And Layton understood. "Your letter," he wrote Creeley, "brought tears to my wife's eyes, and moved me more than letters have the right to. You're in a class totally by yourself, and my letter to you was not intended to take your measure ... You're the liveliest eel kicking about in the waters, Spanish or anywhere, the one real hope for American writing today" (L-C, 9 Nov. 1954). The words sound like flattery, and no doubt they were partly prompted by Layton's eagerness to save their friendship. But the circumstances in which they were written prove their sincerity. In the Midst of My Fever was already out, and, if his friendship to Creeley had ever depended on mere self-interest, there was nothing of comparable importance that a break now might have jeopardized. So Layton simply expressed his joy when Creeley, after a period of silence, started to write him again. What's more, he offered to dedicate to his friend his most recent collection of poems. "Take it as my very real and very earnest desire," he added, "to express my admiration for you both as writer and person. You're the best thing that has happened to me in years" (L-C, 21 Nov. 1954).

V What most kept their friendship going through these crises, of course, was Creeley's and Layton's conviction of each other's poetic and other talents. Creeley, from the start, had left no doubt as to how much he liked Layton's poems. After all, it had been this admiration that had started their correspondence. "Raymond Souster," it begins, "was kind enough to send me copies of The Black Huntsmen and Canadian xxi

Introduction Poems; and I very much liked your own work in each." Soon such praise became more specific: I like your poems ... because you do damn well invest formal or traditional metrics ... with your own immediate presence. And you also experiment, within this area, to such an extent that you make a lot of so-called 'avantgarde' types look that much the sicker ... Anyhow, you are the one. You have a very damn melodic line, I haven't heard poems making this literal music for god knows how long. (C-L, 17 Feb. 1953; 5 April 1953) Within seven months of their acquaintance, Creeley wrote a poem "For Irving," a gesture reciprocated by Layton when he dedicated The Long Pea-Shooter to Creeley. Lay ton's praise of Creeley was equally to the point. "I like very much the crispness and honesty of your poems; they are direct without being simple; and the emotion is penetrative in the way a birchtwig shorn of the irrelevancies of leaf and bark might be, whittled down to bare white sharpness." Layton also admired the poems' "gnomic quality" and their peculiar kind of "deep wisdom" such as could only come from "very passionate natures." There is much skill behind the simplicity and in the best poems a tightness which prevents a single drop of superfluous emotion from spilling over ... I look upon your poems with the same fascination that I do at a surgeon's knife: all the more so since the drops of blood I see on the blade are most frequently your own. (L-C, 10 Aug. 1953; 25 Aug. 1953; 5 Dec. 1953) In addition to being a great poet, Creeley was also a superb prose writer, critic, and, last but not least, editor. Layton quickly realized that this man would not just publish his book: instead, he would make him carefully screen and rewrite his poems as well as arrange and rearrange the whole volume. "It's uncanny how well you appear to know what I've tried to do in my verse," Layton acknowledged in an early letter; "every poet wishes for somewhere to be an ideal reader. I think I have found mine" (L-C, 17 April 1953). So much was Creeley the ideal reader that he instantly made fun of the compliment while taking issue with other of Lay ton's arguments in the same letter. The exchange is typical of several critical debates in their correspondence regarding Lay ton's poems. Creeley had wondered if "Vexata Quaestio," his favourite among Layton's poems, was "self-satiric" (C—L, 5 April 1953). This prompted Layton to give a detailed account of the poem. Its subject or theme, he replied, is

xxn

Introduction Hebraism vs. Hellenism; modern man torn between the Hebraic/Christian impulse toward good and the Greek impulse toward beauty and selfexpression, ends up by having neither the one nor the other. The soul of the modern is a battlefield where the two dominant cultural strains of Western Europe have been fighting it out for supremacy: The poem is selfironical, of course; springing, as it does, from an ambiguous experience and an awareness of its implications, but it's self-ironical in the sense that it speaks, at least I hope it does, for Everyman. (L—C, 17 April 1953)

This poet, so Creeley must have felt, had obviously little critical sense of what he was about in his poetry. In fact, intention and result seemed to be clearly contradictory to each other with Lay ton. While thanking him for his "very interesting" notes on "Vexata Quaesdo," Creeley had to admit that his own reading of the poem was quite different. Granted there was the "disillusion" Layton spoke of, but whether one, or the reader, more precisely, would be willing to extend all this immediacy to the abstraction: "Hebraism vs. Hellenism ..." I can't quite now grant you. Well, bear with me in this wild character of Ideal Reader, etc. I know that can't very well last. You don't ever want to speak for 'Everyman,' when you can speak so damn finely for yourself. Or tell me if it isn't the precision of the emptiness, or just yourself, that makes any of it possible. Or that any emotion, clearly, is first found in one's own body, etc. (C-L, 26 April 1953)

Layton had little trouble unearthing a deeper sense of his creativity from underneath his more traditional ideas if criticized in this way. Or so at least it must have appeared to Creeley. No poem, Layton explained, was "really paraphrasable." In saying that "Vexata Quaestio" was about a specific conflict in modern man, he did not mean to suggest that he "started out with any two such abstractions": No poem is ever made that way, as you know. The origins of poems are obscure ... For myself, I find when I'M really 'hot' that the commencement of a poem takes place with a rush of images to my head which I put down on paper as swiftly as they occur. When the stream stops coming I look at what I've written and try to decipher as best I can what it is that my 'unconscious' is trying to tell me, and only when I detect some pattern trying to realize itself to my mind do I sit down to the actual composition of the poem. (L-C, 26 May 1953)

Wherever he criticizes Layton, Creeley speaks with the authority of someone who in previous correspondence with Olson and others xxin

Introduction

has evolved a significant body of new poetic theory. In fact, Layton could have found notions, similar to Creeley's, in Olson's 1950 essay on Projective Verse. Here Olson advocates a psycho-physiological spontaneity of poetic expression springing from the poet's individual physical constitution of breath rhythm, heartbeat, etc., rather than from some abstract mental principle.7 Equally reminiscent of the same essay is Creeley's criticism of the descriptive nature of Layton's "Composition in Late Spring." Olson had warned that descriptive functions generally have to be watched, every second, in projective verse, because of their easiness, and thus their drain on the energy which composition by field allows into a poem ... Observation of any kind is, like argument in prose, properly previous to the act of the poem, and, if allowed in, must be so juxtaposed, apposed, set in, that it does not, for an instant, sap the going energy of the content toward its form.8

To Creeley, the trouble with "Composition in Late Spring" was that it is over-descriptive of an emotion, rather than truly expressive of it. Taking the opening lines - "When Love ensnares my mind unbidden/I am lost" - to contain the "base sense of the poem," he found that the rest "expands this in terms of the complex possible, but doesn't go by it, or on, etc., as a definitive action, etc. ... I think it is a problem of movement, that it is all about this sensation, a description of it, and doesn't make the actual thing, itself." In this, "Composition in Late Spring" differed from "Vexata Quaestio," which has "a present action" or "active line or movement all thru." In other words, the poem lacks speed — a criticism that keeps recurring in Creeley's comments on Layton's poems. In general, Creeley liked them for their "literal verbal quickness." Such speed he found in, say, "Love the Conqueror Worm," while another poem was a "headache" to him in "that it takes the time it does, to say what it does" (C-L, 26 April 1953; 5 April 1953; 27 Feb. 1954). In general, Creeley also liked Layton's "tight firm structures" "that clarity, and condensed-ness, of & in form" - but only as long as such form was maintained by an inner dynamic tension. Thus "For Governor Stevenson" did not have "the steam up, to the extent the others do - and it breaks out of 'form' by said fact" (C-L, 5 April 1953). In other cases, lack of dynamic action had the poem bogged down in superimposed symbols. Or genuine speed might come to a final, unnatural halt in a poem like "Love's Diffidence," which Creeley otherwise liked very much. Here the last line, or more precisely its rhythms - "Then strike, witless bitch, blind me"9 - seemed to him

to be "sort of dull, really, for what is, or has, been building to that XXIV

Introduction pt/." For similar reasons he disliked the end of "Fiat Lux," which otherwise struck him as rather powerful. "I only boggle, a bit, on the present heavy conclusion sense, of those last lines, or better, the last line. Because it seems 'wound up,' i.e., almost too much 'said,' by that point" (C-L, 26 Feb. 1955; 21 June 1955). Layton always listened to and frequently followed Creeley's criticism. He was particularly pleased to find how skilfully the American had picked out the last two lines of his "Sancta Simplicitas," for instance. He revised "The Birth of Tragedy," wondering if he had "gotten more tension into it." He also agreed with some of Creeley's more general theoretical notions, for instance, assuring him, though tongue-in-cheek, that he "had always been writing open verse without knowing it" (L-C, 8 July 1953; 22 July 1953). Most importantly, he more or less left the editing of In the Midst of My Fever to Creeley's critical and editorial discretion. With one possible exception, Layton was pleased with Creeley's tentative list of contents conveyed to him on 17 August 1953. Instead of "Priscilla," Layton preferred Creeley to include "Maxie," which he had recently revised. "But you're the boss, and can see these things more objectively than I can" (L-C, 25 Aug. 1953). Layton was equally agreeable when Creeley suggested that they should only include new poems in the volume. The actual printing would not be started till sometime after December. Judging by his friend's prolific output, Creeley felt confident that Layton would easily write a few more before then. Layton, to all evidence, only had to pull these few out of his folder and, in his reply, asked Creeley to add seven more poems to the projected volume. Otherwise, he was all for the ones Creeley had chosen "without a single reservation" (C-L, 25 Sept. 1953; 1 Oct. 1953). Creeley complied with his friend's request, but Layton had to put up with further delays and some moments of real doubt before he actually held the printed book in his hands. Creeley's extended silence early in 1954 made him suspect, however ironically, that there was no Black Mountain Review, no In the Midst of My Fever, no Robert Creeley. "It was all, all a lovely dream" (L—C, 5 June 1954). This was subsequent to their disagreement over Dudek. But the actual reason for Creeley's silence was his stay at Black Mountain College. In fact, just a few days before Layton voiced his impatience, Creeley had written him apologizing for not having answered his letters. From then on things proceeded at a more rapid pace. The cover was ready by August, and the book itself reached Layton in September. Despite some bad misprints, Layton was delighted. "It's wonderful beyond expectation. Try as hard as I might I could not tell you the pleasure XXV

Introduction it has given me" (L—C, n.d.). Before long, he would also realize and acknowledge that the book, thanks largely to Creeley's maieutic skills, established him as a major poet. "I am sensible," Layton wrote Creeley on 26 January 1957, "how much I ... owe to you, and I want to say so now. You started the ball rolling when you brought out IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER ... For the which, believe, I have had you nightly in my prayers and called down blessings on your head countless of times." VI

Even Layton, in spite of his great admiration for Creeley, would at times insist on how much his work and outlook differed from the American's. Even though he withdrew much of what he had said about Creeley's review of William Carlos Williams, he insisted that Williams himself (and to an extent even Creeley) would benefit from "MORE IRONY, for GAWD'S sake, MORE HUMOUR, MORE OBJECTIVITY." Williams, as Layton had to confess, also struck him as slightly ridiculous in his attitude to women. A chap of seventy who speaks of his knees knocking together in this context tickled him "in the funniest bones" he had (L—C, 9 Nov. 1954). In this case, Layton even managed to convince his friend, something more often characteristic of Creeley's influence over Layton. In his reply, Creeley conceded that it would only be sane to develop a more natural relation to women, and not to obscure their real nature by turning them into "goddamn monoliths." He also confessed that Williams was a "problem" he faced generally. On the one hand, there were Williams' Selected Essays, which were full of trivia, on the other there was the man and his poetry, both of which had left an indelible imprint on him. "I feel and have felt great sympathy with & for him, probably all too simple. But I did learn a great deal from his sense of structure, etc., and that invariably gets into anything I can say about him" (C-L, 21 Nov. 1954). Nor did Layton withdraw what he had said in defence of some of his poems. Creeley had suggested that he should end "The Buffaloes" with the last line of stanza four and drop all the rest. But to do so, Layton felt, would be to "castrate the poem." What Creeley wanted to cut supported "the entire meaning and structure of the poem" with its sexual symbolism. Why did the two poets differ so radically in this case? To Layton, the answer was inevitable. There was no question that Creeley's criticism was "invariably fair and to the point." So when a poem Layton himself liked left his friend cold, it was simply because the two poets travelled, at least some of the time, "on different wave-lengths and that's that": XXVI

Introduction Poems like BIRDS AT DAYBREAK, THE RED AND THE BLACK, SARATOGA BEACH und zo veiter I go for them in a way that you don't because I know the central urgency that shaped them, the organic substance and symbolization behind them. Your own poetry has an astringency, a pressure gauge which puts them at the far end of poems like those above. That's that, that's it. It's the gods, the fates, our different breaths etc. (L-C, 24 Oct. 1954)

Creeley never, not even in letters to other friends, spoke of his disagreements with Layton with equal intransigence. In fact, his admiration, even identification, with the older poet's work only intensified over the years. Just after he had begun to correspond with Layton, Creeley voiced major reservations about Layton in a letter to Gorman, wondering if it "may be digression to take him on": He is not the end, I guess — but I like his sound, i.e., very cool at times, and seems an honest man. At least he does kill all such as Wilbur, etc.10

But his esteem for Layton increased rapidly all around. Nor did their first major quarrel over Dudek and the critical material for the Black Mountain Review detract from this development. On the contrary, just shortly after these rows, Creeley reported to Gorman how much he had learned to appreciate Layton's "goddamn confidence" and "lack of shit" in the process: "no man ever came back at me cleaner."1l Much later, on 15 September 1959, writing to Gael Turnbull, Creeley confessed that he missed his old friend "very much at times" even though he still had never met him in person. At one point Creeley even called Layton his "touchstone": "when I think I can manage, by my own character of statement, etc., to stand level with his own tone, then that's it, for me."12 Creeley's one major misgiving about Layton concerned not so much his friend's poetry as what he saw as his Canadian provinciality. In this, Creeley proved consistent throughout. "It's odd," he wrote to Paul Blackburn on 26 April 1953, "that a man so clear at least in his poems, with his wit, should be ... so damn provincially self-conscious." In fact, his letters to Layton himself repeatedly voice the same concern. Creeley's eventual meeting with Layton in 1963, while deepening his fondness for the man himself, confirmed these worries. After admiring Irving's intensity and vigour in private, Creeley was taken aback by Layton's public persona. "Later, at the reading and after, I got some of the other side — the vague, and now unhappily habitual. But he is certainly a godsend in that environment, just that he insists on his senses. The rest of it is as much Canada's fault as his, no doubt."13 xxvn

Introduction This, of course, was said at a point when Creeley's sense of the Canadian cultural scene, subsequent to an extended teaching spell at the University of British Columbia, was at an all-time low. Vancouver, and particularly the university there, were "pretty bleak," he wrote Gael Turnbull, so he finally ended up feeling "impatient, often confounded by manner, and at last bored and a little paranoid."14 But at that point, Creeley had already made his escape back to New Mexico, though not without deeply affecting the TISH group, through which he, Robert Duncan, and others once again exerted an important, though perhaps more controversial, influence on Canadian poetry. What Creeley hoped for, in 1963, has come true to the extent of dismaying several Canadian writers, including Layton himself: "I'd love to see some active liaison reestablished now between the younger Canadian writers and those here," Creeley wrote Turnbull, on 20 November 1963, "elsewise the former stay bitterly cut off, or [are] offered the specious 'success' of the provincial context - as Al Purdy and even Irving now stay stuck." NOTES 1

2 3 4

5

6 7

8

William Carlos Williams, quoted in Irving Layton: The Poet and His Critics, ed. and introd. Seymour Mayne (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson 1978), 53. J.L. Resnitsky, "An Interview with Irving Layton," Le Chien D'Or I The Golden Dog 1 (jan./Jan. 1972), n.p. Northrop Frye and A.J.M. Smith, quoted in Irving Layton, ed. Mayne, 38, 43. See Ken Norris, "The Significance of Contact and ClV/n," civ/n: A Literary Magazine of the 50's, ed. Aileen Collins with Simon Dardick (Montreal: Vehicule, 1983), 253-67, passim. Robert Creeley to Gael Turnbull, 27 June 1963. Creeley's letters to Turnbull are in the possession of Mr. Gael Turnbull, whom the editors would like to thank for his collaboration. We would also like to express our gratitude to the following institutions for giving us access to their materials: Irving Layton Archive, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec (Creeley's letters to Layton). Robert W. Creeley Papers, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri (Layton's letters to Creeley; Creeley's letters to his wife Ann). Gorman Archive, The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (Creeley's letters to Gorman). Paul Blackburn Collection, University of California, San Diego, California (Creeley's letters to Blackburn). Further references to letters by Creeley to Layton (C—L) and letters by Layton to Creeley (L-C) appear in the text. Robert Creeley to Ann Creeley, 18 April 1954. See E. Faas, Towards a New American Poetics: Essays and Interviews. Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Robert Creeley, Robert Ely and Allen Ginsberg. Santa Barbara, Cal.: Black Sparrow 1979, 46 ff. Charles Olson, Selected Writings, ed. Robert Creeley (New York: New Directions 1966), 20. XXVlll

Introduction

Irving Layton, The Collected Poems of Irving Layton (Toronto:

McClelland and Stewart 1971), 15. Robert Creeley to Cid Gorman, n.d. Robert Creeley to Cid Gorman, 17 Feb. 1953. Robert Creeley to Gael Turnbull, 4 Nov. [1957]. Robert Creeley to Gael Turnbull, 27 June 1963. Ibid.

XXIX

This page intentionally left blank

Note on the Text

The correspondence between Irving Layton and Robert Creeley consists of more than 150 letters, most of which are typewritten and fall mainly within the period 1953 to 1956, with a small number of letters written after that time. While Creeley's letters to Layton are nearly all included in this edition, a few of Layton's letters to Creeley are missing. The occasional gap in Layton's letters may be explained by Creeley's many moves during the time he corresponded with Layton. He went from Mallorca to Black Mountain College and back again, and later, after his divorce from his first wife Ann, he spent some time travelling in the United States. Possibly missing letters are indicated in the endnotes. Throughout our editing of the Creeley/Layton letters we have tried to keep editorial changes to a minimum. While most spelling mistakes have been corrected in the interest of a clear text, we have left any irregularities that, if corrected, might change the meaning of the text. For instance, Layton dates a letter (written shortly after 24 August 1954) "Satyrday." Though the letters "u" and "y" can easily be confused on a typewriter keyboard, it would also be in Layton's character to make this sort of pun. We have therefore not corrected the spelling, allowing the reader to decide on the best reading. This edition has been annotated in order to explain difficult points in the letters as well as to provide background information concerning the authors and the period in which they wrote. Generally, it follows the editorial practices set out by George F. Butterick in his Charles Olson & Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, and his article "Editing Postmodern Texts" (Sulfur 11 (1984), 113-40). Thus marginal comments by Creeley and Layton that refer to specific points in the letters have been incorporated into the published text at these points. All other marginal comments are included at the end of each

Note on the Text

letter. To indicate these additions we have used square brackets and a short notation. Otherwise square brackets within the text are meant to indicate words obscured in the original text. Layton, for instance, had a habit of pounding two holes through the top of Creeley's letters to him, thereby sometimes deleting part of the text. We have only included address headings where they appear in the original letters.

XXXll

First letter by Robert Creeley to Irving Layton, 17 February 1953 (Layton Archive, Concordia University)

Creeley in Banalbufar, Mallorca, n.d. (Robert W. Creeley Papers, Special Collections, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri)

EarliestextantletterbyIrvingLaytontoRobertCreeley,31March1953 (RobertW.CreeleyPapers,SpecialColections,WashingtonUniversity,StLouis,Missouri)

Irving Layton in the mid-1950s (Photo Brian Merrett; by permission of Elspeth Cameron from Irving Layton: A Portrait)

Layton at Sir George Williams University, Montreal, in the late 1950s (Photo Brian Merrett; by permission of Elspeth Cameron from Irving Layton: A Portrait)

Games at Fletcher's Field near Herzliah in the 1950s (Photo Brian Merrett; by permission of Elspeth Cameron from Irving Lay ton: A Portrait)

Graves in the doorway of his house in Mallorca, n.d. (The Granger Collection, New York)

Graves in Mallorca, n.d. (Photo Douglas Glass; The Ma la hat Review)

Edward Dahlberg with wife R'lene, 1956 (By permission of R'lene Dahlberg from Charles DeFanti's The Wages of Expectation)

This page intentionally left blank

Creeley with son Dave in Mallorca, c. 1953 (Robert W. Creeley Papers, Special Collections, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri)

Charles Olson at work at Black Mountain College, August Wtii (Photo Jonathan Williams; Journal of the Charles Olson Archive)

Olson and wife Constance at Black Mountain, c. 1954 (Photo Jonathan Williams; Journal of the Charles Olson Archive)

Banalbufar, August 1953: Creeley's first home in Mallorca (Photo Jonathan Williams; Robert W. Creeley Papers, Special Collections, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri)

Final page of Creeley's letter to Layton of 23 December 1953 (Layton Archive, Concordia University)

Robert Graves with Martin Seymour-Smith at a Palma bullfight in 1952 (By permission of Martin Seymour-Smith from Robert Graves: His Life and Work)

The Correspondence: 17 February 1953 — 14 November 1978

This page intentionally left blank

The Correspondence

THE DIVERS PRESS, BANALBUFAR, MALLORCA, SPAIN February 17, 1953 Dear Mr. Layton, Raymond Souster1 was kind enough to send me copies of The Black Huntsmen and Canadian Poems;2 and I very much liked your own work in each. To be more particular, I thought that VEXATA QUAESTio3 was the best poem in the latter book, although such 'prize-giving,' etc., is hardly more than my own vanity. In any case, would you have any interest in submitting material for a small booklet of poems, to be issued by us here. I can't guarantee acceptance, prior to seeing the material, etc., but should be very interested and very grateful to have something from you to look at, with an eye to that end. Circulation would be, primarily, in the United States, although we will distribute in Canada and England as well. If your work has little or no circulation in the us, perhaps you'd agree to a selection of past work — although reprint is not finally to the point, i.e., much greater to have it new work. Anyhow, it could be 16 pages, say, or 24, or 32 — it depends on what you may have available. If all goes well, we'd plan to publish it during the second half of this year. (For the first half, we have books by Paul Blackburn4 (Provencal translations), Charles Olson (Mayan Letters — prose),5 etc., etc. I'll send you a booklist as soon as we have some ready.) I think we can do a decent job of production; all poetry is handset, and it looks very, very well. In any case, we won't kill you that way. Please write when you have time. Yours sincerely, Robert Creeley

THE DIVERS PRESS, BANALBUFAR, MALLORCA, SPAIN March 8, 1953 Dear Mr. Layton,6 I was very grateful to have your letter, and think we can work something out simply enough. Since distribution of your work in the States has been minimal, I think perhaps the best plan will be a selection from past work together with whatever new work you can let us have. At present we have our hands full, i.e., with booklets, etc., we want to get done by summer, so I won't go into any discussion of details for format and so on. Better to do all that when you've had time to send on the new poems, and whatever now comes, etc. Please don't feel rushed in any case, there's no hurry - if you want to wait till the end of the summer, to see what's come of it, etc., it 3

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley is fair enough with us. We would plan to issue the book sometime this year, and that would be the only time commitment as far as a manuscript goes. One other thing I'd wanted to ask you about — we are trying to start a quarterly broadsheet sometime this summer, 7 and should very much like your help both with poems and also with notes or short reviews, etc., of whatever seems to you relevant. It is very damn hard to find out what goes in Canada, i.e., CONTACT8 is the only source that seems reliable, and their reviews, etc., are of course aimed in the other direction. Well, think it over and if it does interest you, then so much the better for us. It is very damn pleasant here, most of the time, but there is always the problem of being a foreigner etc. Though it must seem remote at this distance. Anyhow I often wish we were back in New Hampshire, where we'd come from, etc., in spite of the difficulties. No way at present to get back, so to hell with that. Don't worry about money, etc. Time enough. If there could be that kind of sale in Montreal, very damn great indeed. But anyhow no need to bother with that end before we have the book - and not at all your responsibility in any case. Ok. Souster was good enough to send me copies of CERBERUS, THE BLACK HUNTSMEN, the ANTH/, and has sent (on the way) LOVE THE CONQUEROR WORM9 - so don't send copies, if you haven't. Otherwise I'll get them to someone who can use them. This for just now, write when you can get to it. All my best to you, Creeley

8035 KILDARE AVE., COTE ST. Luc, QUE., March 31, 1953 Dear Robert: Thank you very much for asking me to become a contributor to your forthcoming brain-child. Perhaps I can do some sales promotion for it in Canada, Montreal anyway. Have you thought up a name for it, or hasn't the infant been formally baptized yet? When is your opening number going to appear? I don't remember now whether I sent you a copy of civ/N 10 or not, probably not. It's a little mag. devoted to poetry and reviews of current books, mimeographed, but neatly got up, with illustrations for some of the poems. Louis Dudek11 and I are the active spirits behind it, our idea being to see how much money can be lost in a venture like that in one year. So fortified, we hit the astonished eyes of no-onein-particular with our first issue three months ago. We sold every 4

The Correspondence one of the eighty-odd copies we mimeographed, losing about twenty cents on every copy we sold. You can imagine that we look upon the possibility of increased sales with rather mixed feelings. CIV/N number 2 will be out in about a week, I'll send you a copy, and would be glad to get your critical comments. Give me some dope on your baby, we'll run an ad for it or anything-you-say, in our third number. Did the books I sent reach you? By all means pass them on to anyone you think might be interested, and if you should care to comment, I shall listen open-eared. It's all right with me if you think the best plan is to make a selection of my previous work and combine that with some of my new poems. I'm glad to hear that you intend to bring the book out some time this year. That gives me something definite to work for, and I am eager for the summer vacation to begin, so that I can get my penpoint into it. There's a recent poem of mine appearing in the forthcoming issue of Civ/N 12 which I am sending you; that'll give you some idea of the kind of direction my poetry is currently taking. In my next letter to you I shall enclose some more new poems as well as a revised edition of'WEEKEND JOURNEY' which I retouched in the volume I sent you, but left out a complete line in doing so.13 Have you seen Hoggart's book on Auden? 14 Pretty sound exposition I think; cuts him down to size, but still leaves enough substance for the crows to peck at. Can't say I like Auden's recent 'theologizing'; but Eliot's started another fashion and the other poets seem to think they must follow through. Send me a photo of yourself if you have one handy. And let's have your views on this and that. Cordially, Irving Lay ton April5, 1953 Dear Irving, Very great to have your letter, and many thanks for offering the help, etc. For the time-being, and/or until the broadsheet is more of a piece, I don't see much use in advertising it, i.e., it may take till fall to get a decent first issue together. Mails take time, and I'd hate to swamp it by jumping in too soon. But if you will think of notes, etc., re anything there seems worth it, and get them to me whenever it seems relevant, etc., that would be the biggest help for right now. I want to cover as much ground as possible, with the given space — and to that end, want materials condensed, and likewise aimed, as strictly as possible. Tho, again, I do not see any necessity for limiting the area to 'literary matters' - or in their usual conception, put it. 5

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Really, what you think relevant — that is the most exact sense I can give you of what's wanted. I don't want to limit either yourself, or anyone, by suggesting this or that 'theme', etc. I'd rather you did it on the basis of your own attentions, and so on. Ok. I did see civ/n #1, Raymond S/ was kind enough to send me a copy, and very interested by its energy, etc. Likewise thought Mandel, for one, was coming up ok. Last verses of his Leda poem very cool. Likewise liked what you had there.15 Otherwise maybe a little bloopy, but not at all discouraging. And who the hell am I to be discouraged, etc. The cover was a little heavy, for the insides, but that's the only difference I'd hold to. Very great you got it moving. It seems what counts. Thinking of Auden and all - I am damned if I can get interested anymore. It is so damn dull, and so fucking much of a pastiche of other men's usage, etc. To hell with it. Someone told me this anecdote, about A/ and Spender16 at Oxford - and apparently A/ used to turn up every now & then with 'poems' done to date, and S/ would go thru pointing out the 'good lines,' etc., after which A/ would abstract these 'good lines' from the divers 'poems' in question, and make one or two 'new poems' in that fashion. It's all like that. Dull, floating usage - generalities of emotion, and 'intellectual' pursuits, etc., etc. Dull, dull, dull. I hate it. I don't like Eliot either, or nothing beyond his earlier poems. I think the Sweeney poem is very cool indeed.17 But, later, it all goes flabby, and yearning, in some sense. Well, 'it is Holy Week in the Spanish nation ...' and I am in open revolt, etc. Voila. In fact, to damn well thank you for your books - all in ok - it is that you can use these forms with a tenseness, and thus a 'rightness,' utterly the issue of your own emotions. And all that does 'sound' general — but I'm damned if it is. I like, for example, the title poem of Love The Conqueror Worm, for this fact - the kind of quite literal verbal quickness in that fourth stanza, that it does go, right there, into a sound altogether the fix of what is 'being said ...'A lot of poetry doesn't, or buzzes on, irregardless. Death, Love, Hate, all the christly blah — all the same. Again, I like your poems for that same quickness, as, again, in one like the Vexata Quaestio. Damn fine first verse, and all that hardness. That kind of cataloging might be the wrong way into it. But I was thinking of you, in any case, reading collections of poems by F.T. Prince, Ian Fletcher, and Charles Madge — all of same submitted to another friend here with a press (English, etc.)18 for possible printing thereon, etc. And they were godawful, every damn one. Madge, finally the best — i.e., most 'experimental' in that certainly non-experimental 6

The Correspondence condition of having to feel, to some extent anyhow, the impetus of the content under hand. But Prince, for one, has, or had, a series of love poems, written I think not many months after the act of marriage, etc., and testifying to perhaps the weariest reaction to coitus I have ever met with. In Donne-like conceits, and close couplets ... Fletcher, who wants to be good, had about a half dozen villanelles one line of any one of same utterly interchangeable with line of any other, on the basis of rhythms. This is no progress - they say Empson19 started it. So it goes. I like your poems, anyhow, because you do damn well invest formal or traditional metrics (viz, that sense of an established basis for line & stanza structure, etc.) with your own immediate presence. And you also experiment, within this area, to such an extent that you make a lot of so-called 'avant-garde' types look that much the sicker. You kill that bogey, in any case: that it is necessary to look strange, to make it. Now and again I would bang on you, and only this by way of a comment on how the books strike me, and not poem by poem, etc., - as leaving yourself too open by including such as "Satires of Circumstance." Not not to laugh, etc. But level here should, I think, be up to an item like the Execution, or the Half-Crazed Nihilist one - I mean, that sharp, and that depth, of humor. It's not to bug yr premise.20 There is a like problem with certain of the poems, otherwise. I.e., you make a standard with any one of these following: The Black Huntsmen; Vexata Quaestio; Love The Conqueror Worm; The Execution; Mrs. Fornheim, Refugee; Terrene; and so on.21 And the problem is, not to hold to that 'standard' as regards, say, some conceptual standard of 'content,' but to keep to that clarity, and condensed-ness, of & in form. I.e., all those poems, above, range all around - and are not, any of them, precisely 'one way' of doing it. But they are all tight firm structures, - i.e., are a poem, in each case. Anyhow that, put it, to say I think a poem like For Governor Stevenson,22 for one, is too loose, viz too open & unresolved (there) a content - and hence, a 'form.' It doesn't have the steam up, to the extent the others do — and it breaks out of 'form' by said fact. Anyhow, you are the one. You have a very damn melodic line, I haven't heard poems making this literal music for god knows how long - tho I am god knows ignorant, etc., etc. Ok. But I hope you keep making it. I think the tighter, the more the condensation & arrest of any floating out or off, etc., can be made - the greater. But they are very great right now. Your wit is likewise very great indeed — and damn well do tell me, since it came up via a man writing me, 7

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

if Vexata Quaestio is "self-satiric"23 - if it isn't of course here I am with my pants down, but I would obviously take that chance. Ok. Anyhow tell me, I like it very, very much. (In fact, if it is - it is, etc. — anyhow, would you do me the tolerance of damn well saying it, on a small single piece of paper, "I, Irving Layton, declare sd poem to be "self-satiric." This 15th day of April, etc." Or how you will. Voila.) Fucking well bushed right now. God knows from nothing, etc. In any case. Let me stop this, and will write soon again. Please do likewise. I cannot say, or get to, half I want to, here, because the poems are done, and behind you in books, etc. Let's make it what now comes, i .e., those I'll be into up to my elbows. Everyone hates me eventually. Ok. No photos either. Will get you one sometime. I will also keep you on re the press. Just now done with Olson's book (for Cid C/s ORIGIN),24 and they like it ok - which gets me over that hump of the first book I ever had to do with & can now begin on our own. All my best to you, Bob April 17, 1953 Dear Bob: You're okay, you've got a good eye, you're the only one so far who seems to have spotted the fineness of a poem like the Execution. If you had missed that one I think I would have been in despair. And your remarks about my tenseness and melodic line are, if I may say so, right on the nose. It's uncanny how well you appear to know what I've tried to do in my verse; every poet wishes for somewhere to be an ideal reader. I think I have found mine. I certainly don't take exception to your criticism on Satires of Circumstance; it's justified, of course. I think I included them as a sort of defi to the current practice of publishing those thin volumes of poetry which aim at a kind of artificial and somewhat antiseptic unity - museum pieces, cut flowers: the smell of the poet's personality is gone out of them. This is badly expressed, I feel; but I hope you get the drift of what I mean. The second issue of Civ/n is out and Ray ought to be sending you a copy before the week is over. There's a new and somewhat different poem of mine in it on which I should like to get your comment. It's called SEVEN O'CLOCK LECTURE, the outcome of my recent experience as a lecturer at Sir George Williams College, the happy hunting ground for easy diplomas, etc. Anyway, I'm enjoying my experience; have been asked to take on several more courses next year. Which 8

The Correspondence reminds me. Does Robert Graves25 happen to be a neighbour of yours? He does live in Majorca, doesn't he? Reason I ask, we took his poem Rocky Acres for analysis (I think it's a fine poem) and then as luck would have it I walked in to a bookstore right after the lecture and picked up the solitary volume of his poems. COLLECTED POEMS 1914-1947. Virile, intelligent, individual. I notice that he made a number of revisions in the poem Rocky Acres for the Brooks & Warren book which I'm using as the textbook.26 The revisions are commendable in every single case: a poet can always be known by his attitude toward revisions. Vexata Quaestio: subject or theme, Hebraism vs. Hellenism; modern man torn between the Hebraic/Christian impulse toward good and the Greek impulse toward beauty and self-expression, ends up by having neither the one nor the other. The soul of the modern is a battlefield where the two dominant cultural strains of Western Europe have been fighting it out for supremacy: The poem is selfironical, of course, springing, as it does, from an ambiguous experience and an awareness of its implications, but it's self-ironical in the sense that it speaks, at least I hope it does, for Everyman. The poem I'm enclosing has a kinship with Vexata Quaestio.27 What I've tried to do here however is more complicated. By means of ambiguous imagery (suggesting elation and disgust) I've tried to communicate what it must feel like to be a middle-aged man having a late spring. How well I've succeeded I can not say. All I know is that the poem is a well-integrated constellation of images, but I'm not certain whether it packs the desired punch. Perhaps you can tell me that in your next letter. Do write soon. I look forward very much to your letters. Irving April 26, 1953 Dear Irving, Very great to have your letter - damn dull day here, about to rain, etc., and can use the lift to something else again. Very happy I didn't bug you with the comments, and in any case never take them as anything more than one man's opinion, etc. Which is apt to be very damn shaky at that. Ok. Yes — I know Robt Graves. You are too kind, as it happens. He is really one hell of a bore, albeit kind enough, or would mean to be so. But he seems to suffer from the same damn thing that almost all of the Great Men get hung with, viz an impossible egomania. He is a hell of a dull man by virtue of same, and one tires very quickly. 9

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Anyhow I don't think he is all that important. And there's one instance, at least, of a revision that kills the poem in question, i.e., dedication poem from 1st & 2nd editions of THE WHITE GODDESS. In the first he's got this (which is my own favorite, of his poems — and not too good at that): IN DEDICATION

Your broad, high brow is whiter than a leper's, Your eyes are flax-flower blue, blood-red your lips, Your hair curls honey-coloured to white hips. All saints revile you, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean; Yet for me rises even in November (Rawest of months) so cruelly new a vision, Cerridwen, of your beatific love I forget violence and long betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.28 I don't have a copy of the revision, i.e., what he used in this 2nd edition published last year, but it comes to a generalizing of all these present particulars. I.e., works it out into a 'we' sort of address. And dulls it altogether. (I hear he's now gone back to this first version, which I guess can be granted as another 'revision' of a kind.) Certainly he should have interest for yourself, i.e., his use of halfrhyme and such assonance, etc., is very much up your own street. But I am damn well more moved by your usage, than I am by his — however graceful, and god knows he is very cool with his rhythms, he can be. (He claims to have 'invented' the usage of half-rhyme, etc., in english verse, although allows that Owen was only late by a month or so.29 But he got it from the Welsh, where such had been used for years & years & years, etc.) I find his poems very damn dull, and slight finally. Likewise or at least often, there is a hell of a pretension in the address. I am by no means a sober man, etc., but do get bugged by a cute flippancy, when I can't see the call for such. Incidentally, THE WHITE GODDESS is a very cool example of him, how he works, etc., and if you can make it, then perhaps you'd enjoy his company somewhat more than myself. He calls it a literal grammar for present would-be poets, etc., etc. I would say, read Laura Riding, who seems to have given him all the impulse he ever managed, and who is a hell of a lot better than he is. (Check, say, contributions of each to Michael Roberts' Faber Book 10

The Correspondence Of Modern Poetry,30 or whatever the title is - see hers about tigers, etc. I think it's very damn fine.) Well - 'only emotion endures, etc., etc.' I don't think he makes it. Horrible poem of his in current POETRY, and also HUDSON REVIEW. 31 He gets worse as he goes, etc. I saw proof copy of new book of poems he is about to get out,32 and not one literal poem in the whole damn thing. Half are a series of horrible 'love' poems, addressed by himself to a young girl, and him trying to be likewise 'young,' etc., and so pompous you'll lose your supper. It doesn't move me at all. He is a nice man, i.e., meeting him you would probably like him, although he is an aristocrat, like they say, and often a pretentious & silly man. Any woman can twirl him round her little finger, etc. One time we were at his place in Deya, and he showed us a very wild little Etruscan sculpture, of just a man's body, etc., and my wife said it was the nicest dug-up thing she'd ever seen — whereupon he was completely nonplussed, and amused, etc., because he'd never thought of it that way. Everything for him, is going backwards, i.e., like the sculpture he thinks of it as a going back, at best, and never gets to see whatever 'value' any such thing could have, it would have first to be here & now. I also know him, really, by way of Martin Seymour-Smith, man who tutors G/s oldest boy - and who G/ now suspects, I hear, I have a somewhat bad influence on. Poetry included, etc. M/ is very wild, and his wife likewise. One of his poems I like: ALL DEVILS FADING

All her devils here tonight, Duly expected: a sour mouth, And ache in the head, and her voice Ceaseless in anger. In blurred sight Angels on her wall rejoice At a sudden end of drouth; But here, still this blight. There were no easy years: Always, in glut, a vague hunger At spring. "You were never divine," She says, "and over your affairs The shadows will always incline, Closing in. It is your anger At nature," she says, and stares. 11

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Why then, with her slight smile, All devils fading, does she give Me her hand? and close her eyes, Thus in her sorrow to beguile My death. It must be she too dies, But with no love to forgive Me for her own betrayal.33 I think it is closer, than almost any of G/s poems, although there are places here and there, perhaps, one would want to whack at, were it one's own poem. But I think them minimal, i.e., perhaps 1st verse rides out too much from the center, and by that seems off, etc. But 2nd & 3rd verses strike me as very close & fine work. And I love the rhythms & line, of the 3rd. (It is, as well, very much the man who is writing it, as it happens - and also his wife.) It is hell, finally. Perhaps here I bang at G/ by virtue of my own ambitions, etc. Take that into account. I like him sometimes, but equally don't at all trust him - nor his work. Perhaps because you are closer to an english 'tradition,' i.e., because same might be your more obvious point of departure, like they say, you can find him more of use than I can. But I am not moved. And against his technical grace, etc., I'd put even two or three poems by Hart Crane, for some - ISLAND QUARRY, THE MERMEN, AND BEES OF PARADISE, etc.34 Who has,

I think, a similar fineness, in his structure, and much, much more strength. At least I think he is a great deal better. As for rhythms & all, even something this quick, by Williams, strikes me, or sounds to me, more what I am interested in, than any poem G/ ever wrote: SOMETIMES IT TURNS DRY AND T H E L E A V E S FALL B E F O R E THEY A R E B E A U T I F U L

This crystal sphere upon whose edge I drive turns brilliantly — The level river shines! My love! My love! how sadly do we thrive: thistle-caps and sumac or a tree whose sharpened leaves perfect as they are 12

The Correspondence

look no longer than into the grass.35 It doesn't seem necessary to work always at that level, either of address, or simplification, but I distrust the man who slides too far from it. In even that quick sense of how the one thing, so sided by another, compels a third which is both. Well, to hell with it, i.e., beating the dead horse, etc. Not cool. Your notes on VEXATA QUAESTIO are very interesting, and many thanks for taking that trouble. I don't, finally, read the poem with those implications, or if I do they are anyhow so submerged in the content I feel them call it, but don't actually come to this form of identification. After all, the poem has a sharpness, and a kind of pulled-in humor which is very much the surface incident — and 'surface' in no way to intend a diminution of same. I mean, it is primarily you & the going-on, here, that pulls me up short, and makes for my own respect & admiration. There are damn beautiful ironies, in the poem, and these I think exercised most clearly on the man writing, — say, the last line. Or the wind which becomes the 'tree-dismantling' wind, etc. Or 'the bites of insects, etc.' God knows the 'disillusion' is there, like you have it here, in the notes but whether one, or the reader, more precisely, would be willing to extend all this immediacy to the abstraction: "Hebraism vs. Hellenism ..." I can't quite now grant you. Well, bear with me in this wild character of Ideal Reader, etc. I know that can't very well last. You don't ever want to speak for 'Everyman,' when you can speak so damn finely for yourself. Or tell me if it isn't the precision of the emptiness, on just yourself, that makes any of it possible. Or that any emotion, clearly, is first found in one's own body, etc. For example, you say, by way of comment on the Satires, etc., "the smell of the poet's personality ...," and doesn't that insist on his own corpus being ground of the comment & act. Perhaps it can, afterwards, be extended as a General Case - but hardly with the same impact. I think the point is really what you say of this poem (V/Q/), all these notes, "modern man torn between the Hebraic/Christian impulse, etc., etc." and then what you then say of the one enclosed ... "What I've tried to do here is somewhat more complicated ... to communicate what it must feel like to be a middle-aged man having a late spring ..." God knows it is more complicated, and always will be. It is damn fine, and lovely, that it is so. I like the line in the one enclosed as much as ever, likewise as you say images all well integrated. My kick is that it is too much about an emotion, rather than the issue thereof. I.e., is, in that sense, over13

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

descriptive. I take the active line, i.e., base sense of the poem to be: "When Love ensnares my mind unbidden/I am lost ..."36 The rest then expands this in terms of the complex possible, but doesn't go by it, or on, etc., as a definitive action, etc. All of which is most dull & sodden comment on my part. But anyhow I think it is a problem of movement, that it is all about this sensation, a description of it, and doesn't make the actual thing, itself. For myself, there is an active line or movement all thru VEXATA QUAESTIO, i.e., a present action, etc. That makes the tension, etc. Here, not so much. And bunches of simile & metaphor then apt to bog, since action isn't pulling them along thru. Well, fuck it. I don't think it makes the "punch," in short, however much I damn well respect it line by line. This just for now. Will write again soon. Looking forward to the poem in civ/n. Ok. Write when you can. Hope it all goes well there. All my best to you, Bob May 26, 1953 Dear Bob: At last my little daughter is asleep sucking her thumb, there is quiet in the Layton household, and I can get down to answering your letter. Another such opportunity may not present itself for awhile, I'm not only referring to my daughter's convenient sleep, but that my wife is out for the evening — gone to a sketch class. Which leaves the coast clear ... I found your remarks about Graves interesting. Reluctantly, I'm forced to agree with you about the quality of his poetry. Little spontaneity in it, smells too much of the midnight oil, has too conscious an air about it. It's surprising really how little pleasure his poems give for all their at times surprising technical excellence. I don't find in him what I do in his masters, that identification of thought and object, he's always the sour bystander, commenting .... But I remember his I, Claudius with affection, and recently I picked up his THE WIFE OF MR MILTON, which I expect to read with considerable pleasure and some profit. He's not the first, nor I am sure will he be the last who having gifts of one kind mistakes them for those of another. I have in mind Richard Aldington,37 whose DEATH OF A HERO and ALL MEN ARE ENEMIES are superb novels just missing greatness, but whose excursions into poetry, saving two or three splendid lyrics, have been disastrous. Of course, no poem is really paraphrasable, when you've said this is what the poem is about, there's always the residue, the POETRY, 14

The Correspondence that escapes through the web of words. Saying that VEXATIO QUAESTio is about the conflict engendered in the modern's mind by Hellenism and Hebraism, I did not think to suggest that I started out with any two such abstractions in my mind, and constructed the poem with any blueprint in front of me. No poem is ever made that way, as you know. The origins of poems are obscure; only when the poet is uncommonly self-analytical can he trace the beginnings, the obscure urges or irritations, behind the finished work. For myself, I find when I'M really 'hot' that the commencement of a poem takes place with a rush of images to my head which I put down on paper as swiftly as they occur. When the stream stops coming I look at what I've written and try to decipher as best I can what it is that my 'unconscious' is trying to tell me, and only when I detect some pattern trying to realize itself to my mind do I sit down to the actual composition of the poem. The quality of irony which you rightly detect in the poem is the self-ironic smile of a man who sees the drift of the joke — and sees that the joke is on him. But all irony in poetry, I believe, is the consequence of the two antithetical roles the poet embraces, that of passionate participant and detached observer. It springs from his ability to keep a number - the more the better - of contradictory thoughts and emotions in suspension. A really good poet is capable of going off vigorously in several directions at once. I do not say he does, only that he's capable of doing so. The distinction is important. Before I forget: please send me on anything which you publish. I saw a recent volume of Charles Olson's poems — were they put out by you? If they were I want to shake your hand warmly over a job splendidly done. My wife who's the artist in the family thought the book — to use one of your words — cool. Very cool. If you do as well by me, I'll wring your hand off. Dudek and I spent a good part of an evening reading the Olson book. For myself, I may say I started out with some antipathy to the poems, but gradually as I saw what he was trying to do my antipathy changed to admiration, though I'm not prepared to say just what it is I admire or that I believe his poems have staying power. But the things I read were fresh and excitingly different, his ellipses and quick turns of thought as of a man in passionate meditation being something he got from Laforgue or Eliot and put to good use. He's got lots of explosive force and originality. He should go places and do things. [Added in margin: I see by your April 5 letter that you put on the bk. for Cid Gorman. Congrats.] I liked your friend's poem. Has that all-important quality of intensity and concentration. [Added in margin: Would he object if we 15

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

published the poem in Civ/n?] Does he write much? Off-hand, judging by the lines, I'd say he didn't. Write me and tell me I am wrong. This past month I've been up to my ears in work, trying to get a revised and enlarged edition of CANADIAN POEMS 1850-1952 out before the summer vacation begins and no one is interested in anything but in getting away from the heat.38 We've had some success with the book, several universities having adopted it as a textbook, and the reviews being rather favourable. The revised edition is really something, though. We've added several new poems to the older fellows, giving them a more accurate idea of what they were up to and achieved; and we've added a slew of notes explaining the poems the 'uninitiated' would find difficult and obscure. If it catches on, something like a cultural revolution will have been started in this icebound country. As usual, your criticism of the poem I sent you was acute and perceptive. I go with you the whole way in what you say said about it. I'm enclosing another. What do you make of this one, my good sir? Please write soon. I look forward to your letters very much. Yours, Irving [Added in margin: Any chance of your visiting these parts during the summer? We could put you up for as long as you'd care to stay.l May 31, 1953 Dear Irving, Very much like this poem just sent. Very quiet and beautiful thing.39 I think you make it altogether. Last verse is the greatest, and way you play end sounds a very great pleasure. Well, ok. I haven't a damn thing to say against it. (Would you tell me what you plan to do with it, i.e., maybe could get it out in the us - know one man on the Adantic Monthly who might take it, or him failing, maybe New Mexico Quarterly, or Kenyon. Or at least would like to try, if ok with you.) Very happy you liked Olson's book, I was scared as hell about all of it. Cid C/ wrote he's almost sold out the edition, which was good news, i.e., usually complaining how he can't sell any of them. Anyhow will do much better by you, wait & see - upwards & onwards, etc. Voila. Just now doing proof on Blackburn's Provencal translations — going ok. Doing it in Bodoni, long page - I think it will be a nice one, but it is very damn hard to see it all-of-a-piece when it isn't, etc. I don't know fuck-all about making books, it is really the printer with many vague and airy sort of suggestions by us. The cover on O/s book was by a man who must have been dead for at least 5000 16

The Correspondence

years, i.e., from rock engravings in the Alps back of Nice - that way you save copyright, etc., etc. I'll send you what we get done as it comes, B/s book and my own ought to be ready in about a month. Then this short book by Larry Eigner, and the prose book by Olson.40 The latter will be the most work. I think, by fall, we'll be ready to take on yours, and the one or two others we've planned (i.e., one nice one by Katue Kitasono,41 with drawings by him, this poem included: A SOLITARY DECORATION

I lightly dodged, today too, from my destiny and went across a bridge of melancholy, passed through a small pagan town which smelt of onion and leek; then there came to be seen scattered under the cloudy sky, decayed pails, boards, and roofs: such a sight soothed me and gave a balance to my heart. I tread on the seaweeds, the drifting fragments, and look at the waves bristling up, the sea-gulls on the wing: I lie on the poor nettles like a withered coolie to recollect my little fame, my dispute, and my time of pleasure that are gone, I muse on my light boat, my body, and my liquid medicine, with my cheek against the slope of this dark century of calamity I sadly call for an eternal cure. I showed it to an englishman who was here — briefly.42 But it's all cliches ..., he said. They don't write like that in Liverpool... Anyhow, I like it. K/ did translations, the works. I think it will be a good book.) Your comments on O/s poems seem very damn sensible. I like The K/s myself, Preface, Move Over, ICH, Ode on Nativity, La Chute, 1st part of a Round & Canon, etc.43 I.e., those I think will stick it. The K/s is a very big one, I would say. They are all interesting, tho that word never really makes it, in point of technique. But content seems to me likewise major, i.e., of a basic kind. He's been put off too long as a kind of 'callow Pound,"44 someone said that, etc. Anyhow he is a very interesting man. (If you can get it, read his book on Melville, CALL ME ISHMAEL - I like it very much. Published I think 1948 by Reynal Hitchcock, later taken over by Harcourt when former folded.)45 17

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

Martin Seymour-Smith, i.e., man whose poem I sent you, could make it. Now about 25, not that I am 80, etc. I'll try to make up a batch for you, and get them off soon. He published a pamphlet in England this past year with two other people46 (Rex Taylor, horrible — Terence Hards, who is real, real ro-mantic, but good on occasion, like opener of one poem: Forgive me that you hear no word from me. Stagnant waters and dark ivy Permit no hospitality ... Well, ok, etc.) All englishmen so damn slow, & dragging feet, etc., that it's apt to look as if they never wrote a line, ss/ is also under Graves' thumb, not literally, but has been tutoring G/s oldest boy, and hence a lot of 'help,' etc., etc. This past fall he's been getting beyond it. Not writing much, but thinking anyhow. He wrote a novel that's very funny, and now working on another. Anyhow I'll send some on - if reprint isn't an objection, I think you could use what you want - will ask, and see. Most of them have been published in England, and some in us. But very few (about three, two in NMQ and one in New Yorker) in latter place.47 Etc., etc. I should damn well love to get to QUEBEC! In fact, I would very happily move in on you, with wife & three kids, for ever & ever & ever, etc. Ok. But it is damn well impossible, we haven't even loot for the boat to Barcelona, much less all that distance. Here we get a house for about $10 or less a month, food likewise very cheap and sea close, etc. So I can't kick - but aura of the tourists & all is deadly. But Banalbufar, at least, so far off, and such horrible roads that they don't get this far often. What is Civ/n policy on reprint, i.e., could pick up some here & there, etc. Would it be worth sending them. God knows so little to choose from, perhaps there'd be that excuse. How much circulation of US mags/ do you get there? Is Louis D/ coming over here this summer? Raymond S/ said he was, etc., and wondered where he was going to. France HORRIBLY expensive just now. Italy very pleasant. Spain the wildest — in spite of Franco. If they can laugh, etc., - or that sense of it. Here, on the island, he is much less pressure. People too agrarian to get what it's all about, yet. Tho was some resistance in parts. Ok. This just to get back, will write soon. All our best to your wife and daughter, and yourself. Send as many poems as you can, very damn good, Bob 18

The Correspondence June 16, 1953 Dear Bob: You have yourself to blame and your friend Cid Gorman for the week's delay in replying to your last, very welcome, letter. A sentence in your own letter made me think that another letter was on the way and so I put off a few days; then one evening last week when I was sitting down to a chat with you, Cid phoned to let me know he was in town and wanted to see me. I put him up for the several days he was in Montreal and I did nothing over the week-end and the day after but to argue the virtues of 'open verse.' Argue perhaps is not the right word, explore would be better. We read a quantity of verse, his own, yours, and Olson's. All of it fresh and exciting. It makes the stuff of Ciardi, Nims and Brinnin,48 to pick a few names at random, seem slick and mechanical: not that I was at any time great admirers of theirs. Cid left me a pamphlet NINE AMERICAN POETS which contains several poems by yourself and which I am most grateful to have.49 By way of cultural ambassador, Cid did some excellent work for his mag. and the new poetry. He got to see a number of poets in Montreal, a lecturer in English at the local college, and the editor of Civ/n. He left copies of ORIGIN wherever he went and picked up a couple of subscriptions. I think we all gained immensely by his coming. He's a very sincere, very forthright person, and his concern for poetry is genuine. It's good to know that there are still people like him around. I shall remember that the next time I become too depressed over the state of contemporary civilization. Thank you for your good opinion of the last poem I sent you. I think it's a fair thing. Of course, I should be pleased to see it in Atlantic Monthly or the New Mexico Quarterly and grateful to you for placing it in either one of them. Through diffidence or laziness I don't send my stuff out but let it gather dust on my table. Then at the end of the year I gather whatever I think is half-decent and get it out in a bk. I'm projecting such a bk. for next spring or autumn - one like an earlier bk of mine which will contain several short stories and about twenty-five new poems.50 All this is predicated upon the hypothesis that my wife doesn't clout me on the head for being such an unsociable beast who spends his vacations staring into space and muttering insanely to himself instead of taking the family to the beaches. But I do her an injustice. My wife is the most understanding woman a writer could have. Poem by KK VERY GOOD INDEED. I'd like to see more of his. When will his bk. be out? Civ/n would certainly have no objection to reprinting a good poem; as you say, good poems are so rare, and what's the hurt if ten or twenty more people see them? Very curious about 19

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

M.S.S. and interested in his work. If you can lay your hands on any good poems — and don't exclude your own - send them along. Louis D/ left for Europe ten days ago. Must be in England by now. He was rather vague about itinerary. Plans France and Italy, I know. But he didn't say anything about Spain. He'll certainly drop in on you if he does pass through there. The poem I'm enclosing was written about two wks ago. It's made up of a number of ideas I got from Nietzsche (hence the title) and others.51 But the main ideas are my own: the necessary antinomies of action and thought, love and death, the relationship between intellect and passion ('the sensual moths,' 'the insurgent blood,' the ascending orders), poetry that holds everything in suspension and reconciles all contradictions, the 'genius' of the universe (I'm no mystic, though) who blows birthday candles for the world (N's doctrine of the eternal recurrence) and for the artist. Well, let me know what you make of it. Regards, Irving [Added in margin:] I'm interested in getting the stories in bk form; the poems can't be very good, I'm afraid; being the leftovers from your selection. But what's the sense in publishing stuff that isn't any good? I'd rather leave that project alone for a couple of yrs. June 27, 1953 Dear Irving, Finally able to answer you, Ann is now out of the hospital, operation all over, and a hell of a relief for all of us. It was a great deal more serious than anyone expected, the ovary on right side, tube, womb and appendix were all involved, and took very careful surgery to straighten it all out. But it is the damn end of it, which is something. Voila. Thanks for sending the three poems, all of them are interesting, but think you have done better. The Birth of Tragedy is the most interesting, i.e., in point of content. What finally bugs me is a kind of isolation in tone, that is, you don't seem on it, or in it, to the extent you were in somewhat like poems (at least in point of address) Vexata Quaestio & Love The Conqueror Worm. For example, look at a few lines from each, juxtaposed: A quiet madman, never far from tears I lie like a slain thing under the green air the trees 20

The Correspondence inhabit, or rest upon a chair towards which the inflammable air tumbles on many robins' wings ...52 I fixing my eyes upon a tree Maccabean among the dwarfed Stalks of summer Listened for ships' sound and birdsong And felt the bites of insects Expiring in my arms' hairs ...53 Now lofty for the spinning year, For the stripling I see pass Dragging the summer by the ear; The flooding sun, And the green fires in the grass I pardon Nature her insanities, The perversity in flesh and fern; I forget her lecheries, Her paragram: LOVE THE CONQUEROR WORM ...54

In short, the tension implicit in the line &f literal word-sounds of the second two is not so much in the first. Well, it is another poem, etc., etc. But the T seems too much a convention, and the actual T is the man writing the poem, not the T referred to - and hence that dilemma when the reader comes to identify him. I only suggest, in any case, the first is too much of an intellectualization, that the thought occurring in it finally occurs outside of it - and that means of tension, a reasonable tension, etc., is not used with the same character of grace, etc., you manage in the latter two instances. Anyhow, to hell with that. Just now looking at all three quotes, I get softness out of the first, i.e., literary-ism, a little. I think the last verse is the coolest, I like it very much, that last image. But think the best of all of these three is ending of Sancta Simplicitas: But a breath later, catching Behind his curved back My face's pale reflection In the windowpane I became confused And to his elation Bitterly silent. 21

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creelev Last two lines are it. (I think lining, otherwise, is a little arbitrary, or when you do have a form like this one, how about making more of the openness possible. This is not sheer arrogance, but, anyhow for example, etc., etc. But a breath later, catching behind his curved back my face's pale reflection, in the windowpane, I became confused and to his elation bitterly silent.

God knows that is not it. Tho I wonder about efficacy of capitalized first letters of each line, etc., in such a poem. Well, to hell with that too.) Much is very much you, here, i.e., that same pleasure. But none move me as much as some of your others. I have that Madonna tacked up over the table, I can't damn well dent it yet.55 Anyhow you make it. If I balk at this or that poem, please don't figure it a question of a bad dinner, tho god knows that could be possible. (Sancta Simplicitas is fair enough — it don't tackle as much as the longer one, but what it does try I think it makes ok.) Very great you met Cid & all. Glad it all worked out ok. KK/ best written to directly, about use of poems: Kitasono Katue (that's his first name), Vou Club, >1649 1-nisi, magome, ota, Tokio. [Added in margin: Send him a few of yours, maybe could use them in vou.] Martin SS/ ought to have something, sometime soon. I'll ask him. Everything I have at present is going either into ORIGIN, or else this little booklet. You are welcome to reprint from any of them. I also wanted to send you a copy of a booklet out last fall, Le Fou, but I damn well don't have a copy and takes months to get one out of Emerson, etc., who published it (GG/ press).56 Well, sometime. Ok. I'll try to get that Madonna into someplace, I am battling with Lash at present, but should be cool enough shortly.57 Or else, if agreeable, I would very damn much like to have it for the broadsheet (KK/S poem in the 1st issue, etc., also one by SS/, so hope the level, etc., is ok). Anyhow will keep my eyes open. Write when you can. Have a wild summer. All best & will write again soon. Bob

22

The Correspondence July 8, 1953 Dear Bob: Glad to get your letter, and glad to hear that Ann is well again. I know what a worry that can be, having lived on the rack for five months two years ago when Bet was struck down by endocarditis. She came down with it, just after giving birth to our little daughter. Well, I learned a good deal about diapering and lullaby-singing, I can tell you. I managed finally to get a housekeeper, but she was no damn good, she didn't feed us properly, her idea of a meal being heaven-knows-what, a mystery, so that I had an attack of boils that made me sympathize deeply with Job.58 Poor soul, she died several months ago, probably from eating one of her own concoctions. It must be good to have your wife up and around again. You've got a good eye for poetry, Bob, or have I said that before? I would have said the same things about the three poems I sent you as you did. By-the-way did I send three?59 I can't recall the title of the third one. It can't have amounted to very much since you don't mention it and I can't remember it. Here's an idea for a Hollywood film ... The Third Poem with music by the Mr. B. Fleashoot. I've revised THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, but I don't know whether I've gotten more tension into it. Like yourself, I don't care how ambitious a poem sets out to be, or what the assortment of ideas that is offered, if the emotion isn't there, the poem's a failure. I was particularly pleased to see how skilfully you had picked out the last two lines of SANCTA SIMPLICITAS. The irony of the poem, of course, is in them; the ambiguous of the 'elation' of Reb Magid puzzling and disturbing. What do you mean by 'open'? Cid Gorman has left me on loan Olson's essay on Projective Verse, but I find his prose abominably affected and opaque. So unless you, or someone else, explain to me what is being meant I'm afraid I shall never know. I think your suggestion that capital letters at the beginning of each line be dropped is a good one and will likely adopt it. But what in the hell was the third one? KK appears with me in New Directions 14, this year's. I shall write him and send him some recent poetry. Of course, you can use THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT in your broadsheet if you wish to; I'm glad you like it that much. I don't mind making a confession to you. I like it myself. Where can I get a copy of your book, Le Fou? Is Emerson a place or a person? Can it or he be written to? I intend to use some of your poems in the next issue of CIV/N: BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY (large letters were unintentional) I'm planning to bring out an anthology of recent American and Canadian poetry, and I'd like to have your bks. handy. If you know of any American poet now writing whose work seems 23

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

good to you, at any rate promising, I wish you'd let me know. The bk might be brought out sometime next spring and I think it should do something towards breaking down the tariff walls between the two countries with the celebrated undefended border. What do you think of this poem, it's by Louis Dudek? THE BIRD

Like the bird in the mind of Paul Klee's cat This bird will live in my mind, with blood On his small throat and a white nail in his eye, For he has shown how quietly a bird can die. I assume he died. This is the perch where he sat, His water here, his midday meal; but he is not. Because he went so quietly in the jaw of a cat, He will live like Klee's bird in a tree of thought. For love. To be called to love is no pleasure. I have no pleasure remembering this bird. The pleasure I had, I had; so had the third, The cat; and some no doubt was reserved, in measure, For the bird. The rest is only an abstract stir, Neither suffering nor having joy, in my thought of fur. 60 What have you been on lately, I mean in the way of writing? I wonder you get any time to do any at all, with family, publishing, etc., I mean. My summer vacation has begun and I'm soaking in the sunlight like an old bum and trying to find my good writing arm. This poem I am enclosing I finished this morning;61 I had a lot of fun writing it, started it yesterday afternoon and it went easily with me, usually a good sign. I've done a few more things which I'll send along to you after I've done a job of trimming and revising. Goddam it but I'd like to get down to a short story for a change, but it seems that everytime I do it's lines or phrases of poetry I jot down rather than the opening bars of a scintillating dialogue. You write much prose? Which gives you the greater satisfaction? Well, I'll stop here and get this letter down to the post office before they close and I can't get the air-mail stamps. I hope you, Ann and the children have a good summer. Write me whenever you can, I look forward to your letters. Aff'ly, Irving 24

The Correspondence July 11, 1953 Dear Irving, Very great to have your letter, it came just before we went down to swim & in an inspired moment, like they say, I decided to take the car, which was made in 1927 & has four damn old cylinders, etc. Walk to the sea is like going down a ski-jump anyhow, & on the way back we encountered the somewhat expected difficulty. But here I damn well am again, nonetheless. Ok. Thinking of Olson's open verse. Perhaps that is a hard introduction although he doesn't at all mean it to be such. I don't have a copy here, but it's been such a bible for me in many ways that I can almost quote it by heart. The concept of 'open' verse (granting the obvious perhaps antithesis of 'closed') bases itself on the assumed necessity (or proven as you will) of making each poem autonomous - which is nothing very new. But the further assumption is that forms accepted from another time or usage carry with them a predetermined character which may or may not prove inimicable to the given poem under hand. All of which is goddamn vague I know. In any case, the point is, the poem under hand, just then - how the hell best to effect a structure (in the language) most the issue of the content which has impelled it. It's here that the base sense of'open' comes in, i.e., in the attempt to find an alternative to such accepted and partially at least predetermined forms such as sonnet, villanelle, 8c so forth. Taking it further, there is the like problem of a predetermined metric, of iambs, & so on & so on. Which already have too much the character of an a priori observation; rather than a present base for actual rhythms in any possible poem. So what can serve as alternative. The answer clearest to hand is, or lies in, the breath — the way a man says a thing, or anything, and how his own breathing affects the disposition of his language in any given instance. Using this for the poem, the line can then be made to score (or literally relate to) the effect of this breath-sense, and so provide a further tension for the line itself. At this point maybe best to give one or two examples, both of the so-called older way of it, and what might be done with this other: "A lantern light from deeper in the barn Shone on a man and woman in the door And threw their lurching shadows on a house Nearby, all dark in every glossy window."62 I.e., line here considered as a given 'metrical' unit, of so many 'feet,' etc. (With all such some variation is impossible to avoid, human beings 25

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

being what they are, etc.) But anyhow the line is taken as a constant, in the poem's structure, and each line has the same 'length,' sd length being determined by the number of 'metrical' 'feet' occurring therein. Whether or not such a concept of the line, and particularly its use here, has any relation to the content in hand is something else again. At least the position "Nearby" gets thrown into shows one of the possible headaches. Taking it over into some alternative sense (the adjective 'open' is probably mainly defiant, although descriptive at least of the antithesis which the other way represents) - anyhow, what other sense of structure is possible, both for the line, the content which may be used to determine it, that complex of breath which must of necessity both relate to its creation qua poem & its reading by anyone thereafter, & again so on & so on. Ok. "Traffic, the lion, the sophisticate, facing the primitive, alabaster, the new fallen snow stains its chastity the new shade. Use defames! the attack disturbs our sleep. This is the color of the road, the color of the lion, sand color — to follow the lion, of use or usage, even to church! the bells achime above the fallen snow! - all follow the same road, apace."63 Which may be unfair, because it's the whole, the other being only opener of a fairly long narrative, etc., etc. But at least this can serve as illustration of the alternate sense, or what is meant by 'open' verse. Like it or not, several things are clear. The first being, I think, that a more comprehensive & particular usage of language (i.e., words one by one & in aggregate) is involved, because the poem's structure is intimately, particularly, related to the precise character of each word as it comes, and, then, as each word then serves as condition to that which precedes & which follows. The line, here, is not the determinant of a stress which the words occurring in it will bear but rather they determine what the character & stress of each line 26

The Correspondence

shall be, each one as it comes, and also in total. In other words, the poem, or this one, starts with the first word - and not with an assumptive 'metrical' pattern. I don't say that any poem, worth it, doesn't do just this — and doesn't bear, finally, just such a relation to its parts. But I think it somewhat knuckled-headed not to say so, i.e., to write an "iambic-pentameter line," etc., etc. Granted that a line can have this utterly different character. Well, I hate the fucking dogma, either way. It seems to me that the given breath component, in any group of words (having sequence, etc., etc.), can well be used as a partial or even total means for their scoring in 'lines.' That has given me, if I make it to begin with, a clear means of dealing with that part of structure in a poem. Either one of us would agree that two words may have the same number of letters, but it may take hours to say one, or seem so - and only an instant for the other. The usual sense of metrics says that any word having two syllables, the stress for which falls on the last, may serve as one foot in an iambic line. But, and almost of course, that is altogether ridiculous. And no poet writing in iambs even would finally feel able to defend it. Anyhow I've found breathing, i.e., how does my own breath find its way through any given aggregate of words, a surer means to handling the line than this other way of it. Now, or to hell with that - anyhow, nothing is this simple. A hundred and one further conditions can attach to the line, both by way of the given sense, say, at a particular point, or any number of similar things. To use the sonnet form may likewise be the means to gaining an implicit irony, say, not possible in something less patterned. At this point one can haul in, form is never more than an extension of content64 - and a sonnet would be such an extension in the above case. But what Olson wants to emphasize, insofar as I understand him, is that a poem suffers too much if it is considered as anything but the given poem, under hand. That, further, a poem is an actual high energy construct, and that said energy can declare a multiplicity of forms, all depending on the circumstances involved. One job is to allow for that complex of possibility, and to work more accurately and closely in our own apprehension of what 'form' can literally be. As well, Williams' sense comes in here too: "Therefore each speech having its own character the poetry it engenders will be peculiar to that speech also in its own intrinsic forms."65 All of which to put weight on the one apparent fact, that, writing, we have our surest materials in the particulars of our own speech, and that the acceptance of generalized or abstracted systems of 'form' lessen that edge 27

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

to a sometimes disastrous extent. (Your own victory, put it, consists in a hell of a great part, in not having ever dulled the edge of your own speech for any purpose - and still it is the dismal tragedy of almost all the flops in both the us and Canada. They never learn.) What else Olson is after attacks, although perhaps after something else, the dullnesses that have got in along with this use of patterned & ready-made 'forms.' I.e., the padding in the line, the over-use of description, the clumsy manipulation of rhythms. A good poet in either area, call it, avoids that by character — but a tone is set nonetheless. Sometimes Robt Lowell is ok, but try reading The Mills Of The Kavanaughs,66 i.e., it is a triumph of this whole hideous dullness inform. A 'form' for a poem declared before sd poem is even written is a bad form, or sense of form. The generation of form in a poem seems to me conjoined quite literally with the act of its writing - and I do not take that as any excuse, or occasion, for what is called 'inspired writing.' Any more than such a description would provide for the kind of capability demanded of a doctor, say, no matter that he doesn't know what or who his next case will be. The sense, one perception must lead immediately to a further perception,67 is perhaps as useful a check for one's reading as it may be for one's writing. If a man hems & haws, etc., he is no damn good. Well, Pound has been all thru this part - and grants it may take hours to say one kind of thing, and seconds to say another, etc. But the resistance, & how it's dealt with, has to be taken into account. And lines like this would dull me altogether, because they are fucking around: "Words, words, and words! What else, when men are dead, Their small lives ended and their sayings said, Is left of them? ..." Too little & too late, etc. Hence that one value for Olson's point. 'Open' verse may very well be a disposition of the mind, rather than a formal methodology for dealing with the problems of poetry. But I think one can amount, very nearly, to the other. Williams again useful, "The poet thinks with his poem, in that lies his thought, and that is the profundity ,.."68 It is horrible to think of one's actual thought limited to the forms of other men's perception & occasion. Or I am damn well too much of an egoist to allow it. I don't know that any of this helps much, i.e., to get any of it clear. It would be a hell of a loss to have the whole bizness go concrete, & become a 'school,' etc. And that is likewise a formidable kind of'optimism.' It is a sense of the poem, that matters. I.e., a sense that frees it from the associations of a perhaps not quite so useful past. That 28

The Correspondence allows, altogether, for the given pressures & character of each man writing, and what, just then, he has on him. No one can clear himself of all tradition, etc., or of other men's practice, and I should think it damn silly to want to. Well, so much for that. Ok. No time to say much else. I like your poem,69 almost all of it, i.e., only bug for myself is in one or two of the verses, where it seems to go a little slow. First three very great, next ok - but then one after seems not to be giving as much. Next one, very great again, but one after, with the 'You'll see' stressed as it is seems slow again. Next one cool - and I would jump the verse following, and move directly to last? Who the hell am I, etc. Anyhow think, or I think, problem is, maybe, one of present length, and maybe to pull it in a little - not to make it whoppo, etc., but to cut out a little of these extensions: You win in any case. Voila. Louis D/s poem I don't make, i.e., had seen the collection, and didn't like it very much. I can't make the damn tone, the "I assume he died ..." Goddamn arch, etc. Of the book, like An Air by Sammartini — also sense of last poem, tho drags, but honest. There is pretty much emptiness, for me anyhow, otherwise.70 I am very damn shame-faced abt not sending you a copy of Le Fou. The fact is I don't have one, and would take yrs to get it from E/. I've tried, etc. Maybe you cd work it, say you need it for antho/ (which sounds very gt & will write more later re same, etc.), etc. His address is, Richard Emerson, Golden Goose Press, Box 583, Sausalito, Calif. (He also has a decently printed mag, very good looking; send him some poems if you have some free.) This for right now, I'll write again this coming week. Also will send copies of Paul B/s PROENSA, and also my own booklet. Ok. All best to you, Bob Ann ok now, still tired but more or less done with in any case. You sound as tho you had a hell of a mess to go thru yourself. It is never very damn simple. Finally - not to junk what technical means we have gained, but to junk the preconceptions attaching to any 'formal' system of metrics & the form-patterns which such have generated. Instead of pushing 'new life' into old formal arrangements, etc., to make new forms in each case particular to the given content. July 11, 1953 Dear Irving, Somewhat later, I can't put any more in that other envelope, etc. To hell with it. I felt silly writing all the biz about 'open' verse, etc.

29

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Maybe I don't know any better than you do, if at all. It is a state of mind I think. Likewise, that a state of mind, call it, or a disposition is all one wd possess, of so-called 'character' any time anywhere. Do you believe in auras ... I've also felt very damn secretive about my own work, i.e., always this self-protective biz of holding out, waiting to be asked, waiting for the right moment, etc. There isn't any right moment. I was just now looking thru what I've got, other than the booklet now coming. Maybe it isn't 'open,' etc. Who knows. The idea about the anthology is ok. Some kind of liaison could be very useful, or a common front at best. As for knowing any other people, etc., the work that interests me is yours, Paul B/s, and Olson's. Also poems sometimes by Martin - tho he smells very ripe these days - and things like KK/S, that simply come in. Anyhow that would be it, for anyone for this anthology you're planning. Almost everyone else I would dislike actively. Tho please don't say so, ok. In some ways I wish such a thing could be utterly selective, even if it meant my own neck, etc. I.e., the strength of such an item, to be active disposition of what is actually worth it & unknown, etc., should, or I'd think so, base itself on substantial selections of work that can take that weight. Further — I got that damn word in my head this afternoon, etc. I got the 'etc' about two years ago & haven't yet got rid of it — some kind of damn careful juxtaposition between the various men used would again be a means to pointing the whole works more sharply. By that I mean siding each man not so much with his opposite, or nearest friend, but with a man who best demonstrates what's up by virtue of the contrast, and/or the singleness of each one so got. Well, maybe that's Utopian. Such a thing would be best figured as eight to ten people. Without notes of any kind, or any help for the reader but the poems themselves. Not even an identification of, us or Canadian. To get by that dodge, best not to mention it at all. Perhaps even an Active Anthology, like Pound had - not at all to say that one was it. But it was a good idea. Perhaps chuck all senses of Canadian & us, and make it only what your own taste comes upon, in the given category of new work by people who aren't known. One could give say, 10 to 15 pages to those he thought big enough - and if one man, for example, had written a half dozen respectable poems, and one really fine one, that could be got to by printing the one or two that were the fine ones. What I do go in fear of is 'comprehensiveness.' In the one for Canadian verse you had a reason. This time it will be open water. 30

The Correspondence

Notes on the kinds of 'school,' etc., any of the men might 'belong' to, etc., would only kill them & sd amorphous groupings. The latter would be no loss in any case. Perhaps this is too anarchistic, but anyhow I think the whole thing well-limited, and each man given what room he can carry, etc., would make a good case. I've been writing mostly poems for the past year or so. I wrote a couple of stories a month ago, or thereabouts. I like to write same very much, but haven't been able to this last year. Before that I wrote a good deal more prose than poetry. Even so they don't total many, i.e., the stories, after they got cut down. ND #13 printed some,71 other than that I got some in a few of the magazines in the States, etc. Cid has been very decent on them. Prose is or seems just as much a problem as poetry, I've knocked my head on the whole biz of sequence, and what can be done with it, for a good two years and don't see much light yet. I think the big hints are not in any of the novels, but in such sources as Wms/ IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN, a good deal of Lawrence (short stories, & STUDIES IN CLASSIC AM/ LIT/),72 and just now reading T.E. Lawrence SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM73 I thought it one of the greatest prose books I ever read. It is an incredible close piece of work, it seems at your throat every instant of it. And the sequence is at times the end. Well, that don't much matter. Did you read Nathaniel West's Day Of The Locust. Something about his sense of sequence. Real master always seems Stendhal — I can't stand Joyce at present, I hate his fucking deadliness. Kafka likewise. I mean I don't read them because I don't like either man's mind.74 Anyhow I wanted to enclose some poems, from stuff done lately. After all the 'open' biz, I am wading around in two-line stanzas, socalled. Figure them low & persistent meanings, etc. Etc. Ok. THE OPERATION

By Saturday I said you would be better on Sunday. The insistence was a part of a reconciliation. Your eyes bulged, the grey light hung on you, you were hideous. My involvement is just an old habitual relationship. Cruel, cruel to describe what there is no reason to describe. 31

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley T H E I M M O R A L PROPOSITION

If you never do anything for anyone else you are spared the tragedy of human relationships. If quietly, and like another time there is the passage of an unexpected thing: to look at it is more than it was. God knows nothing is capable nothing is all there is. The unsure egoist is not good for himself.75 Wednesday, July 22, 1953 Dear Bob: Your two letters arrived at the same time and made very pleasant and instructive table reading for my wife and me, breakfasting late. We had been talking about open verse, and it was welcome to have your voice in the discussion. To be quite frank with you, I was somewhat down in the mouth about the whole thing, since Gorman wasn't illuminating and Olson's essay I found too hard a nut to crack, my idea of prose being somewhat derived, I suppose, from the French essayists of the 18th century. Anyway, I seemed to see a dogma taking shape before me, a new coterie of mystifiers complete with banners and slogans, pressing their thumbs to the eyeballs of other poets. What a relief to find myself completely mistaken! The nightmare ended. More, to find, like that famous character in one of Moliere's plays,76 that I had always been writing open verse without knowing it. I like your statement of it, Bob, about as well as any I've seen or heard. It's a disposition of the mind, rather than a methodology. Good. Very good. And certainly in my own practice I've never imposed a dead form upon what I happened to feel and want to say at the moment. I've always allowed the emotion to seek out the necessary form, so that for me each poem was a many-sided invasion of the unknown, with the final product, the poem, as much of a surprise to me as to anyone. This, of course, goes only for the good poems. Successful poems are the happy union of form and content, these are the fertile unions .... but the partners to the union must be anarchistically free. It's the legal point of view in the writing of poetry 32

The Correspondence that we both want to end. It certainly makes sense to me, it always has, to ask why the contemporary poet should wish to be restricted to ancient forms of expression: it's like wanting to use the snotrag of someone else. He must find his own medium, which really means, his own way of carrying his voice. Since no two people talk, breathe, eat, walk, copulate in the same way, with the same rhythms, why should we expect them to write poetry in the same way, i.e. with the same breaths. My God, to me that's the veriest commonsense, and something which in my own way of writing poetry I've tried to show some of the convention-bound Canadians here. But enough of that. Thank you a million for drawing my attention to West. I picked up his two books published by the New Directions press, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, and read them both through at one sitting. Magnificent poetry. Something Dante might have dreamed up and written today were he with us. I suspect that for him as for myself his bible was Freud's essay, CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS.77 He stands out from the reformer boys of his generation by the quality of his savage pessimism, though he saw the same social evils they did. The critics say that of the two bks Miss Lonelyhearts is the better. I don't see it. It's the other way round with me, the Day of the Locust having much more body and construction, though the quality of mordancy and lacerated pity is the same in both. Glad, very glad, to hear Ann is up and about. Give her my best. Your poems wonderfully express you: integrity, intensity, insight. I am writing away for your book, Le Fou. Aff'ly, Irving July 31, 1953 Dear Irving, Very great to have your letter and poems. Thinking of dogma & all, I've been sitting here for the last two goddamn days, sunk in dreary thoughts of how too, too bitter it all is. I.e., probably usual reaction to any one thing done, in this case my little book,78 and sending you copy of same along with much more monumental PROENSA. Anyhow it is damn dreary. And when one thinks of Wilbur, & of Jarrell, & of Roethke, etc.79 I.e., what the hell becomes of the man who finds it literally impossible to understand the basis of recognized greatness. Eh, etc. I wish you were nearer, i.e., could get drunk, or at least sullen with an audience, etc. As it is, have more or less blank wall, with one window, also with blank wall, etc. But be that as it may. I like BACCHANAL very much, very damn graceful, and clean, and not at all easy with that content. I think it 33

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

makes it altogether. The next one, for me, is PORTRAIT OF AiLEEN, 80 but think that literal seriousness, to call it that, of the last line breaks the tone, and/or rides back on the tone up to there & makes it seem brittle in retrospect. I.e., wd seem coolest either to end with same base of wryness, used up to there, or else work back over and change tone to go with said last line more than it now does. For me anyhow, your tone is so strong, i.e., so pervasive, that it has to be modulated with a hell of a lot of care - and when as here, there is an abrupt change (to simple literal statement, as opposed to character of statement up to there: "Though an incredible wound in the air, etc., etc.") it leaves the reader straddling two 'atmospheres' and unable to hold on to either one. Anyhow see if that makes any sense, I only object to this thing of the last line, & go with you completely up to same. Ok. Other poems don't strike me as being as much. PRISCILLA poem very funny, but somewhat slight for weight of the writing involved in it. But very sharp, god knows. EROS WHERE THE RENTS ARENT HIGH is a hell of a shock, and good by that - but same quality almost breaks too much into 'anecdote' at the expense of its character qua poem. I.e., because content has this strength, as anecdote, i.e., in the character of anecdote, danger seems to be it will come out: anecdote given in arbitrary form of 'poem.' And/or, that formal nature of poem, in this case, doesn't seem to me quite locked up - and it's the 'story' aspect of the poem which I take as giving the trouble. The last one (LACHINE QUE) is, for me, a little too slow & slow because it seems mainly description. Having the line that short, the details get a weight I don't think they can carry, i.e., reader is forced to go very slow, and apt to bug at it. I.e., "rows of red-bricked/houses/whose guardians/their bellies/full of apple and lard, etc., etc." doesn't seem enough for the emphasis given it by virtue of the line. Where it is enough, in Priscilla poem: "I recall you tight/and impervious/as a pebble/and prototype/of your unmagnanimous sex ..." Viz, that sounds, rhythms, etc., all working clearly on the short, abrupt line - whereas other one is a lot slacker. Also, that content of the latter is more for the money, etc. I think short line makes it best where you want maximum weight on rhythm, content & sound aspects (phew ...) of single words occurring therein. Anyhow, Priscilla seems to me prototype of the usage, for sd line, or one character of it. What it can do, etc. But Lachine poem by virtue of its base character of description, and openness of its detail, etc., not as happy in the pulled-in lining. Amen.81 Very great you like Nathaniel West. I like THE DAY OF THE LOCUST the best too. It is thicker, etc., and very great sense (and use) of 34

The Correspondence sequence. Latter is a hell of a problem finally. That end biz, of the mob scene - enough to make you wake up screaming. Anyhow, too much. Thinking of Freud, & all, maybe you would like three novels (trilogy) by another American, Paul Goodman. Mainly known for his stories & criticism, I think, but these novels are a hell of a lot better. The general title is, THE EMPIRE CITY, and titles of each in order: THE GRAND PIANO, STATE OF NATURE, DEAD OF SPRING. Viking published

the first two, and G/ published the last privately, in 1950 or 51 I think. They are very funny, and very shrewd & clever man. ND published a collection of his short stories, THE BREAK-UP OF OUR CAMP, and one or two are cool, but novels much better. He has published another novel since, but haven't seen it. Anyhow those three are worth it.82 The only other present, call it, American novelist (young at least) who seems to be on, is Jack Hawkes, and he is very damn uneven in point of content — mostly forms, i.e., sentence to sentence, or paragraph, or whole plan of book, that is wild. First novel probably the most interesting: THE CANNIBAL, published by ND. His second, for me wilder in certain effects but hardly worth it for content, etc., is THE BEETLE LEG83 — anyhow very interesting book if you're writing prose yourself. Goodman probably the much better writer, finally, tho H/ has formal means that are, at times, all his own, and the end. And H/ is much younger, or abt 10 or 15 yrs younger, etc. I think he will make it very great one of these days. He has the great, great virtue of writing, rather than talking, about it - for which I envy him, very damn much. I used to see him when we were in the us, but haven't heard from him since last fall - he lives in Cambridge, Mass., etc., and was working on another novel, part of which was in ND ANN/#13,84 but didn't look too great. But he could be. Well, who else is great, etc. I saw Graves a few days ago, and he shook my hand four times, held me painfully by one shoulder for abt 3 minutes, and didn't, I think, see me. Very friendly man in any case. Just back from England, sold a book, radio talks, the works. Our time will come ... Press going ok. I've had to put off the broadsheet for the time-being, what with medical bills, etc., but maybe this winter or spring I can try it again. In any case it isn't effecting the books, which are it. Larry Eigner's booklet done this Tuesday, then Olson's goes in.85 Have the ms. of Kitasono after that,86 and not very much else (i.e., am doing no less than a book on pigeons by a man in Missouri,87 and already have man who wants exclusive distribution rights for 750 copies — how abt that). So things should be clear by fall to start figuring yours more closely, but don't let the hot breath bother quite yet. Ok. Very great you liked the poems sent. I hope

35

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

LE FOU makes it for you, best poems are, I think after, or beginning with, A SONG. Tho I like HART CRANE (1), STILL LIFE OR, and LE FOU before same. But later ones were written quite a bit later, and think they are a little cooler. Anyhow, to hell with that too. Write soon. All our best to you all, Bob

8035 KILDARE AVE., COTE ST. Luc, QUE.,

August 10, 1953 Dear Bob: It would be splendiferous to have a glass of beer with you and to hear you talk. If your talk is anything like your letters, as I suppose it must be, as idiosyncratic I mean, I can think of few things I'd like better. I'd love to hear you say 'cool' or 'cooler.' I once knew a girl in my adolescent pimply stage who had me all agog because of the way she pronounced the word 'prunes,' her favourite word for showing contempt or rejection. At one time, I thought there was nothing more wonderful in the whole universe than her use of that word, and I would literally turn handsprings or stand on my head to get her to say it. Sounds silly, doesn't it? I suppose I connected the two of you, because of the intrinsic 'intriguery' of the two words, but more likely because I've been re-reading Proust and I've caught his habit of linking even the most disparate things together. A thought strikes me, that some bright aspirant for scholastic honours might do a thesis on Proust and Whitehead88 - both are impressed with the 'togetherness' of things. I'm glad that you liked BACCHANAL and PORTRAIT OF AILEEN. I think I prefer Bacchanal of the two, but the latter is the more ambitious poem. What I wanted to say in that poem is that the capacity to destroy without scruple is one of the constituent elements of perfection, the line you picked out, THOUGH AN INCREDIBLE WOUND IN THE AIR, ETC. But this person is tortured by her awareness of the Fly, symbol of corruption, and that Death is omnipresent: the flowers choke the weeds. The problem is one that is faced by every sensitive, moral personality of our time and one that threatens to split human consciousness apart. The sudden realization that there are no easy answers to this moral dilemma, that the quicksands of awareness threatens to drag us down into the bogs of weakness and futility, if not of desperation, is what 'has taught me severity, strictness of speech.' The other poems, as you say, are slight things in a dry season. Finger exercises, if you will; though the Priscilla poem is interesting psychologically, and intended to be moving, in the last line, anyway.89 36

The Correspondence Your description of your meeting with Graves damn funny. I could just see him putting his hand on your shoulder and looking beyond you into the blue. Have you ever shown him any of your poems? What does he think of his contemporaries, say, Eliot, Auden, Mann and so on.90 Or perhaps you never get the chance to get into tetea-tete literary discussions with the old boy? You sound, in any case, as if you didn't have much of an outlet for sheer talk, to judge about your bleak description of the blank window and the blanker wall. Well, I can't say I'm any better off here where I am, now that Dudek is on his travels. But when he's here we have some great rows. Sorry to hear about your broadsheet, but medical bills come first, as I have some reason to believe also. Anyway, the bks ARE the thing, and if you can keep those rolling off the press, you're well away .... From now on if I see a pigeon I shall think of your customer from Missouri, anyway it will have flown out of the bleak air or the blackgrey rooftops that I've always associated pigeons with, into a cultural complex of Creeley, Spain, Missouri and bks that sell to the tune of seven hundred. You've really done a great deal for the bird, I'd say. Send me whatever you publish and bill me for them. I'm more than interested in anything you put out, and I might even be able to place your publications in the local bookstores. As for my bk, of course I'm excited to see it come off as soon as possible, but don't strain a testicle doing it. Whenever I hold it in my hands will be a good day. What I would ask of you, Bob, is to tell me what poems you intend using so that I might have a chance to make any changes or revisions, should those be necessary. I have no thought of quarrelling with your selection, which is strictly your own bizzness. Of course our day will come. Do you doubt it? Concerning the anthology, I've decided to follow your idea and make it a fighting one. Some of the boys that Cid has been publishing in Origin interest me and there are three or four Canadians that are worth considering. I would very much appreciate it if you told me of anything you found interesting in your readings, so that I might put my hands to it. My intention at present is to publish about six Americans and six Canadians, though that's not meant as rigid unbreakable commandment; there might finally be eight of one and four of the other. But what I mean is that we don't want too many names, only those that really have something new to say or a new way of saying it. I like very much the crispness and honesty of your poems; they are direct without being simple; and the emotion is penetrative in the way a birch-twig shorn of the irrelevancies of leaf and bark might be, whittled down to bare white sharpness. THE BLIND GIRL ALONG WITH THOSE YOU MENTION ARE MY FAVOURITES.91 (large

letters unintentional). You and your poetry are going places. 37

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Did you receive civ/N, No. 3? What's your reaction to it? We're going to put some of your things in the next issue. I wonder if you have any prose handy, say, a review, or a short article on the state of present-day poetry. Anything you feel like getting off your chest. We want to raise the dust with this and succeeding numbers. Or what's a magazine for? I'm enclosing five more poems recently done. As always I'm looking forward to your say about them. My warmest regards to your wife and bambinos. Aff'ly, Irving August 17, 1953 Dear Irving, Yours in, and very great to have it. I don't, as you figured, get to see very many people, and not sure that we would even if we could. Either I am a hermit, put it, by nature, or simply scared to death. I don't think it makes very much difference. As for Graves, he would be finally a ridiculous man to talk to - and, without arrogance, it's the usual problem. It seems much greater to listen to a man talking about anything he actually knows about and has care for, rather than the petty kind of sparring almost always met with between the socalled 'artists.' Well, G/ isn't really that, he is more an old and foolish man than anything. Like most of the English I've met, of his kind, i.e., some pretense at a little better upbringing than the average man, etc., or some slightly insisted on claim to superior attention, one gets very sick of the insistence, and would rather talk about anything just then there, or anything but the abstract remembering. When LE FOU first got here, Martin ss/ had the copy for awhile, and G/ read it there. Later we took M/s dog for a walk, a kind of weird rushing through the countryside, such as it is, just outside of Palma, anyhow G/ swinging along with very long legs, and simply blotting out everything in the progress, and he said he liked it - but slyly. He was telling me how he was the first to use half-rhyme, although same had been used by the Welsh for a long, long time. But this he had discovered and put to use in the English. It seems that Wilfred Owen only lost out to him by a few months - there was some question as to whether or not O/ had really done the work first, and the magazine which subsequently printed it tardy, or whether G/ really had made the discovery himself, etc., etc. Of the poems themselves, he noted that STILL LIFE OR probably said all there was to say about mobiles, which, to him, seemed a remarkable quality. He said that it was possible for a man to so insist, or use, his own rhythms in a poem that 38

The Correspondence that aspect alone would save him. He mentioned W.H. Davies, how one would always know a poem by him, no matter how thick the anthology, etc.92 He spoke of that same quality in prose, and how it was finally the rhythms a man could register that would define him more than anything else. He was kind enough about that, .i.e., he seems to have granted me 'honest work' in that particular. Otherwise, I suppose he was a little bored. As for his contemporaries - I don't think he knows or cares for them. He thinks Auden is a thief of other men's work. But any intelligent Englishman would know this for himself. Dylan Thomas,93 and all such fakirs, seem to interest him not at all — i.e., I don't think he would ever get through any one poem by them. Which is the best part of his nature. He thought Crane was a beautiful man, but a wasted one. He acknowledged Williams' honesty, but found the rhythms urban. Laura Riding was a constant source. The big men were men like T.E. Lawrence, and seem to have been his most shaping friends. He was never in any 'literary' group, i.e., too famous too quick, and always away, and too young, or straddling, etc. Here he just doesn't care, he is utterly selfabsorbed - and pretty much of an egomaniac in his sense of his own work. Anyone has to buck it with him, it's not any yelling on his part, but a kind of tacit assumption he expects one to take the other end of. Which, in my own case, I'm not able to. He told a story of meeting Pound for the first time, i.e., it was T.E. Lawrence who introduced them, saying, Robt, this is Ezra, Ezra, this is Robt - you will not like one another. Which they did not. The most concrete thing G/ seems to have noted was that Pound had whitish eyelashes, which, for G/, is reason enough to detest him. Physically, he is a long man, not too heavy. A long heavy face, blue eyes with greyish curly hair, i.e., almost curls like D/ Thomas. His mouth is full, somewhat babyish, big though, and apt to look undetermined. His nose strong, heavy again. In profile he is apt to look somewhat cruel, or priggish. Most of the fineness, or most mobile & intelligent part, occurs around his eyes & forehead. The rest is sensual. He walks with a sort of antagonistic thrusting movement, never too easily, i.e., he always strides. He is impatient out of nervousness, and his voice has a desperate edge to it, and again nervous. He speaks in rushes. He can, at times, be utterly kind, and he is always, I think, well-intentioned. But he is a very damn blind & closed man. Hence one must not trust him. So much for that. Incidentally, I didn't write THE BLIND GIRL. Confusion with Stuart Perkoff. Whoopeee. But no damn matter. Re yr book: at present, I'd used this rough choice for a beginning (old) Vexata Quaestio, Black Huntsmen, Terrene, Execution, Love 39

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley The Conqueror Worm, & Mrs. Fornheim. New: Madonna, Bacchanal, Aileen, Priscilla, How Poems Get Written, & Early Morning in St. Luc, etc. It means about 4 to 6 new ones, and then figure book ought to be set. I am sure I can have the loot in hand to print by December at the latest, otherwise before. But please don't rush it. I would like to make the whole case as strong & sure as possible. Ok. I'll send all the books we do as they come, for gods sake NO need to pay anything. Please allow me that. Any help you can give with distribution is the greatest. What else. As it is, there is another small press now in Germany, doing books by Olson & Patchen, and one very short one by myself & Rene Laubies (i.e., poems & inks).94 I've given him your address, for contact - maybe you cd help get his around too, if they make it for you. Printing is the greatest in any case. Name is: Pfc J/ Williams, Ameds Det 5th Gen Hosp, APO 154, c.o. PM, NYC. But he'll write you anyhow. Ok. This just for now, will write soon. All our best. Bob [Added at top of letter: Aug. 21 — For some damn reason this didn't get mailed. But nothing new. I'll write soon again - and please do same.] August 25, 1953 Dear Bob: Your very welcome letter came today and the books a few days ago. Both gave me great pleasure. PROENSA is a magnificent job and Blackburn is to be heartily praised and congratulated. So are you, for having brought it out, and for the fine send-off of print and format. You're doing an honest bit of work in your corner of the world and are putting chaps like myself very much in your debt. Anyone who fights against the foetid stream of present-day commercialism, a grandiose name for tawdriness and vulgarity, deserves to be respected and remembered. About your own work: it's compact with everything that you do.95 I've written to Gorman about the book and I don't mind repeating myself - I think it makes the slick boys like Ciardi, Brinnin and that woeful and egregious ass, Viereck, look a bunch of dishonest carpenters.96 You're a true poet, Bob, if I ever saw one. I like the gnomic quality in your poems, the deep wisdom which can only come to very passionate natures. There is much skill behind the simplicity and in the best poems a tightness which prevents a single drop of superfluous emotion from spilling over. I intend to review the book in CIV/N. In the meantime I send you my heartiest 40

The Correspondence congratulations. Thank you very much for the pleasure you have given me with poems like THE CHARM, FOR AN ANNIVERSARY, i AM HELD BY MY FEAR OF DEATH, AFTER LORCA, IN AN ACT OF PITY - but I must

make a stop somewhere or I'll name every poem in the book. Your description of Graves brought him physically right into my room, or striding with that antagonistic stride of his beside me on the road where I take my morning walks. I think I should know the man anywhere now. The most revealing sentence in your description of him — a masterly touch, I thought - was this one: "he is more an old and foolish man than anything." His meeting with Pound made me laugh. I think it's that aloofness you speak of that keeps Graves from being a better poet and novelist than he is. Finally I get a feeling of unreality from anything he has written as though he had seen everything from a very long distance off. Too bad. A novelist can't afford to be an egomaniac; he's got to rub shoulders with humanity, and the dodo who gets to thinking that stars and apricots are more fascinating than human beings is a lost bird. The artist who turns his back on people will find that they very quickly return the compliment. That doesn't mean that he's got to LOVE them (the favourite cant word of Auden, Spender and other sinners) but it does mean that he's got to be continuously concerned and interested. I don't know what you think of Shaw. There are times when he seems like a bright sophomore to me and his colossal assurance turns me sick, but his interest in human beings and their affairs kept him bouncing and vital right till the end. I just finished reading MISALLIANCE, not one of his stronger plays, but damned amusing for all that. Shaw's a fine tonic and certainly the most exasperating man who ever lived and wrote. Have you read his Heartbreak House, or BACK TO METHUSELAH? I think the first can safely be compared to Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD and the second is a masterpiece fusion of wit, philosophy, humour and - for Shaw a rather rare quality - poetry.97 I could never see what all the fuss about Dylan Thomas was about. He's written about half-a-dozen admirable poems, but surely no more; and the other things simply won't wash. It's significant that the same five or six poems keep on turning up in the anthologies, precisely the ones he established his reputation with. I think that his English contemporaries hesitate to attack him because they fear it would look too much as if their criticism were dictated by envy of his inflated reputation, or perhaps being English, they have their reticences. He was here in Montreal last year, delivering some kind of a lecture and reading at McGill.98 Louis and I brought him to my home afterwards, but I think he was too spiffilated to know where he was. The curly locks you speak of are only in Augustus John's romanticized picture

41

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

of him." As I remember him he was a short, balding man, with the face of an amiable broker. Altogether I couldn't help thinking that he looked like a blurred copy of what an unheroic Winston Churchill might be expected to look like. A fatness and slackness about the jowls, and the same beady-bright eyes. But most of the time the eyes were dull from too much liquor. Your choice with one possible exception pleases me very much. I'm glad you like HOW POEMS GET WRITTEN and EARLY MORNING IN COTE ST LUC. The single exception is PRISCILLA. I'd prefer MAXIE, which I've revised slightly. But you're the boss, and can see these things more objectively than I can. PRISCILLA strikes me as just a fair poem and if you can find anything better to replace it with, okay; if not, not. Of the current batch I'm sending along, I'll say nothing more except than that I hope they please you. And oh yes. MRTHERAPIS is intended to be a serious poem, and the snipping off of his balls a symbolical, not a literal, act. What I wanted to say here is that the THERAPIST in modern society plays the same role or at least a similar one to the part played by the god APIS in ancient EGYPT. The middle-class is empty, trivial, devoid of values, and can only live by nourishing itself on the vitality and strength of others. I am also trying to suggest that the worship of the therapist's generative organs is a less seemly thing than the bull-worship of ancient times. And finally, that even this ritual in our degenerate middle-class culture is metallicized, i.e., the balls are plated with chromium. But enough of that. You'll find a reproduction of METZINGER: GIRL WITH A BIRD in WILENSKTS book: the MODERN MOVEMENT IN ART. IO ° I'd be only too happy to help with the distribution of your books in Montreal. It would be a privilege. Yours, Irving [Added in margin: Best regards to your family. Do write as early as you can. School is starting soon. That means only an occasional poem or so, if at all. Why wasn't I born with a silver spoon in my mouth?] September 18, 1953 Dear Irving, I had damn well sworn not to write till I had got a poem for you. Which is stupid, etc., etc. Ok. And to hell with that. Did I send you letter about (or in answer to) yr poems for booklet, i.e., I had one here but don't know whether or not it got mailed, in chaos, etc. Don't damn well mind. I'll write again soon, i.e., I want to put out another mailing piece along with O/s book (late October), and will need title 42

The Correspondence for yrs, etc. Have found another type I think (Menart) which will be better for you than either Bodoni or Mercedes (the one too stiff, & the other too open I think). Anyhow I am thinking of it all, if still not yet able to actually figure it all for press. We have been horribly broke this past month, tho Martin ss/ sd to me yesterday they had 75 pts. ($1.92) to make the month out on. Goddamn this bizness, etc. Who buys. Please write when you can. Are you back teaching now. Here it is christly limbo, really. God knows I don't envy you the work, or probably that monotony (or maybe I only say that to excuse my lack of it), but I wish I had something to do reasonably. Write. All our love to you all, Bob FOR I R V I N G

At seventeen women were strange 8c forbidden phenomenons. Today they leer at me from street corners. Yet

who is to say it, that we have come to an agreement. Aging, aging, even so there is some song, some remote pulse, an argument still visible, an excuse for it.101 September 23, 1953 Dear Bob: By the sound of your short note which came this morning, I think you didn't receive my last letter to you, which was a substantial one and which contained about five new poems. Judging by your previous letters, I feel certain that you would not have left them go by without some comment; all the more so, since two or three of them were among my happiest efforts. A pity. How does one go about tracing a lost letter? I hate to think of having to sit down to type a repeat performance, all the more so since I'm such a damnably slow typist. Could you make any enquiries at your end? I'll do the same here. Before I forget. Will you please make a note of it on your bellybutton that the poem THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT is for MARIAN SCOTT? Thanks. Two nights ago I had an exciting phone call from Charles O. All the way from his home town in Nashville, Tenn. He had seen the 43

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

poem COMPOSITION IN LATE SPRING in the last issue of Contact and was taken with it to the extent that he wanted me to drop everything and come down and do some teaching at Black Mountain College. It seems he has big plans which include, I'm happy to say, the two of us. He mentioned your name to me several times, and said he was scheming to get you and me down there to teach, and O yes, set up some kind of publishing venture. It sounded like the beginning of a serial story — vague but breath-taking and grinding into the inevitable sensational climax. I've sent him my booklets and this evening I hope to get off a letter to him and the curriculum vitae he asked for. Working with you and O. - if I can manage to get a Sabbatical leave next year - would give me one helluva bang, besides making me the acquaintance of two fellas that just now I think a great deal of. No, I don't find teaching monotonous — just too much of it, too much of a good thing. I teach at three different places and that's not good for anyone's liver, certainly not mine.102 This year I've taken on several courses at the local college besides my regular teaching stint at the High School. In addition to this, I give a course in the history of Political Theory at an Adult Education centre which takes another evening each week from me. I tell you this, so that you might see how miraculous it is if I can get a poem off during the busy season. Frankly, I'm not expecting any miracles. But this summer was an unusually productive one, one of the best, so I'm not too unhappy. Still, why couldn't I have been born rich and idle! I like your poem to me very much. Do you mind if I publish it in the next issue of CIV/N along with some others of yours? Thank you very much for it, Bob. You're a good egg. I think in my last letter to you - the one you apparently didn't get - I told you something about my wife's painting exhibitions, one of which is scheduled for November and one the month following. It's the first time she's had a one-man show. This summer, like myself, Bet put in a couple of months of good, hard work and she's got several canvases to prove it. Of course, at the moment we're wondering where we're going to get the money to pay for all the framing and the costs of transportation. One of my sisters ought to be good for a touch .... What we're both fervently praying for is that some of the canvases get sold. Bet has priced them moderately in the reasonable hope that some of her compatriots - the first show is being held in St. John, N.B., her home town — will, out of local pride, dig into their pockets and buy some of her pictures. If that does happen, we might find 44

The Correspondence ourselves unexpectedly in clover. Any money like that will be put to a good purpose, I can tell you that. There's the Can-Am anthology that's beginning to shape as well as a book of Gorman's that I'd like to put out sometime before next summer. And a couple of other items like that, connected with publishing. I'm sorry to hear that Mallorca is so christly limbo. Besides its cheapness, no other advantages, eh? I wish I could persuade you to come to Montreal, though to do what, I don't really know. Anyway, after the mild climate of Spain, I don't think you'd care for the belowfreezing temperatures of this burg. The climate can be pretty stiff here. But Cid Gorman tells me you did a spot of farming before leaving the USA, and his poem to you gives me the impression that you are a man not unacquainted with the cold.103 Anyway, should you ever decide to pull up your roots and think of trying something new, my home is at your convenience. Incidentally, printing costs are pretty cheap here too, though not quite as cheap as what it is down your way. Louis is back from his European tour. He met Peter Russell and Howard Sergeant in London and some American exiles in Paris.104 I think the ruins of Greece and the statues and paintings in Rome impressed him most. He's come back full of fight and enthusiasm. This Saturday we're planning our next issue, our fourth, of CIV/N. While in Europe L wrote a long poem, recording his reactions as he went along.105 We'll probably run some sections of it as well as a joint manifesto setting out our general attitude towards current trends in politics and writing. Provisionally, we call it 'civilized social realism.' We want to make it clear that for us there is no turning back to mysticism, genteel Catholicism, and the social pessimism of original sin. Anyway it's ail in the battle, that's what matters, win or lose, and the honest man keeps fighting: one's health, if nothing else, demands that he do so. Do let me know whether my letter and poems reached you. I'm sure that one or two would strike you hard enough so that you'd want to use them. I've slightly revised FOR PRISCILLA. Yours, Irving [Added in margin: Our warmest regards to Ann. How's her health? Irv] September 25, 1953 Dear Irving, No time to say much in the last. The main thing is the book, i.e., I begin to think a better plan is to make it all new poems. The number 45

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley you now have is so close to enough, that I don't see why it isn't possible. In any case, going through all of them again, these are what I think could go - in spite of my own inconsistencies, etc. Earlier objections may well have been hypercritical - and that isn't very interesting. Voila. This first list is what I'm very sure of: Early Morning In Cote St. Luc Portrait Of Aileen The Madonna Of The Magnificat Bacchanal How Poems Get Written Metzinger: Girl With A Bird In short, that group seems to me sufficient core for any book of poems — and a good deal more than the reader usually meets with in any such collection. I don't now propose to stuff, etc., hoping that the above can make the excuses, but there is the point of my own taste, and particular liking for this or that poem, etc., and this next group is what I also think is altogether competent, and very damn good, and only my peculiarities to make me favor the ones above: The Birth Of Tragedy Composition In Late Spring Sancta Simplicitas Mr. Ther-Apis Maxie (in revised form, i.e., some of those first noted objections, to call them that, hold in part - but no real matter) Lachine, Que (which, for me, depends too much on a single image, or is a little static, but it is, I get to see, very damn well written — and rhythms & all very exact.) Anyhow, that would make a total of 12 poems, which is so close to what number might make a decent book, that I don't see worrying about it. As things now are, I would guess we'll be able to start printing sometime not long after December. Well, call it early spring, etc. Perhaps it will be sooner, but that at least would be the longest we'll have to wait. Judging on the way the above have come, despite the fact of the vacation time, I don't see why you won't have a few more, in the time between now & then. As it is, the book could be just this group - and be, I think, of sufficient weight & length to be quite proper .... Anyhow, is that agreeable with you? To try to have it only new poems. Really, the balance would now be so much in favor of the new ones, it might seem vague why we include any old ones at all — or might seem to be a somewhat too convenient filler, etc., etc. Tell me what you think. 46

The Correspondence The only other thing, is a title, i.e., soon now I want to do another booklist, for the next group we've planned - and I think I'll circulate some of same with Olson's MAYAN LETTERS. It's a simple way of getting some of them around, and would probably prove as effective as the usual mailing, etc. Which has had almost no response at all. Anyhow I would like to try it - in addition to mailing them out - so I will need the titles of the next few books, and/or what will be noted. Have you any title in mind. Olson's book will be done circa late October, or thereabouts, so anytime between now & then: fair enough. (Other books of this next group will probably be: Kitasono's, Martin's (I hope, i.e., I haven't yet seen what he has, but he thinks he has enough now), perhaps one by Paul Blackburn (he had written he had an ms/ of his own poems, which could be fair enough).106 All poetry - probably priced at 50 & 75tf, depending on length, etc. Costs on Olson's & B/s went a little high, though god knows still very cheap - but this will give us a breather in any case. And there really isn't an equivalent manuscript, of either prose or poetry, to deal with this time. Later, I do damn well want to do a book of my own stories, egoistically or not. I have tried them around, but the length, and character, etc., isn't saleable. To do them myself brings in all the headache of vanity, etc., but I can't really worry about it. To hell with it. Incidentally, the Kenyon Review is printing one in their fall issue, if you could see a copy.107 I'd be very damn grateful to hear what you think of it. I had written no prose for about a year & a half, and that was the first one. It is a lonely, even dreary, business at best - and I feel even farther away, in such, than I do with the poems. But no matter. Ok.) Paul B/s PROENSA is doing ok in France, oddly enough. At least people seem interested. One part is that there are almost no texts there, for Provengal, and hence they want it for that - even if the translations aren't of much use to them. Otherwise, Ray had just got the shipment I'd sent him. Cid said his was at customs, and ought to be out soon. B/ hadn't heard yet,108 nor had Schwartz. But I think they will soon, & we can judge better how it will all go in the bookstores. At this distance that part doesn't seem quite real - which is perhaps a useful thing. We've planned it all on the basis of complete loss, so we are more or less able to expect the worse. Otherwise, I think B/s at least can get some decent reviews; one man trying to get Jackson Matthews interested, also Wallace Fowlie - and I hear it may be reviewed in Fr/ as well.109 Also copies going in Germany, Switzerland, etc. Only place, as one might expect, where it seems impossible to get in is England — but I have come to loathe that country in the past year, and damn well let them stew in their own incredible blankness. If they seem ridiculously self-assured (without a goddamn 47

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

reason) in their poetry, etc., in the flesh they are almost insufferable. The fact that they have almost no poetry whatsoever - or are really well behind Canada in point of younger men writing - doesn't seem to dent their complacence at all. So why the hell bother. Ok. Forgive the dreariness. I'll write soon again, and please do likewise. I hope it's all ok there. It may be that I at least will be back in the States this spring, and if that turns out possible, I'll see if I can't somehow get up, some damn time or other. Write soon. All our very best to you all, Bob September 28, 1953 Dear Irving, Very damn good to have your letter - as always. The news about Olson & all is very damn wonderful, I think it would be, to put it quietly, insane. I will see you there. Anyhow do get there, if there is any way whatever to make it. Myself, it will depend on the next month or so, i.e., whether I can reasonably leave here, or just how it works out there, etc. In any case I think you would find it very damn good - and change & all, & the working with Olson, etc. Well, what else. It would be the end. I am very shame-faced about those poems. Did I get the letter, i.e., I had one with poems, Girl With A Bird, and Mr Ther-Apis, et al. It seems that must have been it? A damn shame if anything has been lost, and yet it is possible (and has happened) with mails here — and, sadly, it is almost impossible to check. Anyhow, if that was it, you'll have had my other letter re the book in all, so that would be the bulk of it. I'll put that 'for Marian Scott' on THE MADONNA. We can check over all these things, when it comes about time to print. So don't worry about it for now. You sound like you have your hands very damn full with teaching. I damn well envy you it, or that chance to get at people — no matter one half, or any number, might not pick up. There must be one or two. As it is, and if this thing does come off at BMC, you'll have to damn well teach me how to teach. I shudder at the damn thought, i.e., of just how tongue-tied I can get. But I will like the triumph, i.e., I never stayed at college long enough for the degree - and this thing, or the chance of, teaching something I learned very much the hard way is a great, great pleasure. What else. That poem is very much for civ/n - why the hell did I write it? You too are a good egg. Voila. 48

The Correspondence Very much hope your wife's exhibition goes ok. I wish I might see it. If only because of Laubies, I have some sense of the work and the damn actual pain that can go into such a thing. And there it can't be simple. I hope to god some people prove to have eyes. One thing I'd wanted to tell you about - I think we have a short novel for the press here, and one which you'll very much like. It's by a man from Tucson, Arizona - who found the press by the weirdest of chances, i.e., Martin had published two poems in the NMQ, and Lash had a note on him to the effect that we were starting a press together (Roebuck) in Banalbufar, etc. So this man wrote M/, the letter came here & I very dishonestly read it - and wrote him, tho really to justify having opened the letter, and yesterday the first chapter came in, together with a summary. It is very damned interesting. And equally hard to 'describe' - but anyhow it has that kind of angry & exact humor that I had found in Nathaniel West. But it is not derivative, i.e., a pattern from that source, etc. Vaguely - it deals with the kind of destructive overlay, in all areas, that the old try to make for the young. There are, in this first chapter, statements of a father-son relationship put into forms I had never seen before. It is not, however, self-consciously 'experimental,' or really in that genre at all. Well, time enough - I hope we can do it here by late spring, all things being equal. But it was good to find him - name is Douglas Woolf, etc. I think you'll like the work.110 Ann is ok now, we understand that the full effects, or benefits, of the operation aren't finally to be felt until a year after. But she has felt much, much better even so - if still somewhat tired & all. But with the three kids, god knows that isn't unusual. (The one problem, if that job does come thru at BMC, will be leaving, i.e., we won't have the money to take us all back - and yet, really by way of both our judgements, I can't let it go - it means too much now. Well, that is a problem for my own powers of rationalization, etc., etc. I don't like the prospect, selfishly.) I've just seen a proof copy of the little book with Jonathan Williams111 - it's really pure gravy, i.e., after THE KIND OF ACT OF I had figured nothing for god knows how long. Then he came with the offer - or honestly I suggested it to him, because Rene L/ wanted to do inks, & that is the kind of pleasure no man really gets twice of doing a small book, and this is the outcome. I hope you like it. When you do get it - I think he'll have them done in the next few weeks — make sure you have the pages lie flat open, i.e., so that none of L/s inks are chopped off. Very important, or has been to me looking at this copy. Well, soon enough. Perhaps be a little patient with L/s work — I think it is the greatest, but perhaps I am biased. 49

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

And yet I know, given time & room, it grows on one in a way no other work has ever done so for me. He's finding support now in France, and having shows elsewhere too — so perhaps things will be simpler. But he has had to fight for every inch. One thing, i.e., re poems for civ/n - Ray had asked abt using some from TKOAO earlier,112 and I had said ok — so maybe check with him, if you want to use any from that. It is very damn wild to have the problem, frankly. It is damn well unique .... I had a letter from an ex-Mississippi cotton planter (and 'merchant,' it says in this letterhead): "I see that you are still making motions towards writing and I sure hope you are doing better with it now than you did that time you wrote the paper for me in American Lit..." God knows. He is, and was, a very damn nice man. He says he's in business in Decatur, 111 - god knows what he's doing. I don't know why I note it, except that it suddenly reminds me how far the ties go out, and come back when one least expects them. Ok. Fuck that. All our love to you all, write soon. Bob

Oct. 1, 1953 Dear Bob: Very nice to get such a fast reply from you. I agree with you entirely that it would be better to bring out a book of entirely new poems, especially since I have written so many of them. Some time ago I asked whether you had seen IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER and SEVEN O'CLOCK LECTURE? Both of them appeared in Civ/n. Certainly they belong to this collection. For myself I would be very happy if I could get you to agree to adding the following seven poems which would make a nice hefty book.: Mildred The Paraclete Seven O'Clock Lecture In the Midst of My Fever For Priscilla Against This Death It's All In The Manner I'm all for the ones you chose without a single reservation. If you add the above to your list I think you have a pretty impressive collection. You see, Bob, if the seven are not included, I have no place to put them since they don't fit in with the scraps of irony and protest that I have at hand and which I intend to publish in October or November under the title THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER. In mood and outlook they belong with the other poems, the ones you selected. 50

The Correspondence If it's a matter of printing costs going up, then I'd be happy to send you whatever it would take for the extra paper and type. The title? Voila: IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER. As for losing any money on this book, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Without any vanity, I can promise you a sale of about 300 copies in Montreal if the price is kept to $1.00 per copy. This year I have some fairly large classes at the College where I teach and friend Louis is also in a strategic position to influence sales, namely, MCGILL UNIVERSITY. Furthermore (excuse me for sounding such a goddam sales promoter) there appeared in this week's NEW REPUBLIC a sizeable review, a sort of omnibus thing, of the Anthology, Love the Conqueror Worm, and Cerberus. It was written by Kimon Friar. He said some nice things all the way through and singled me out for some astonishing praise.113 I'm telling you this rigmarole only to relieve your mind about possible financial loss: I think that interest is growing in Canadian poetry, more particularly, in mine. Now's the time to strike, and I think we can go over the top with a really good book. What do you say, Bob? I shall certainly look out for your story in Kenyon Review. My congrats to you. It's a rare body who can handle prose and poetry, and you seem to be able to do both with enviable distinction. What I wouldn't give to be able to get some prose in a mag like KR! Why doesn't your man send me some copies of your publications? I could easily distribute them in the bookstores here and help to boost sales in other ways. There is a poetry-reading minority in Montreal and books like Blackburn's Proensa would be eagerly snatched up. Last night I had a telephone conversation with Cid Gorman: more satisfactory than letters. He seemed chipper enough, said he had a swell issue lined up for Number 12 of Origin. One piece of news interested me particularly. He tells me that wcw is coming out with a new book on Metrics. That should be something.114 Here the big event just now is Betty's forthcoming exhibition. We've gotten the pictures off to the framers and are hoping, though not with too much conviction, that the costs of Vanity will not be too high. I believe I wrote you that she has been asked to show at two places, one in New Brunswick about eight hundred miles from Montreal, and the other much nearer home. Foolishly perhaps, we do expect a fair number of the canvases to be sold: if I didn't tell you before, I'll tell you now — My wife's a natural. Her cooking may leave much to the imagination, but with brush or pencil she's a genius. Well, this summer she turned out some excellent things, strong and sensitive. In many ways, I think you'll find that her work has many of what I imagine are my own qualities. 51

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Just now I'm up to my ears in work. It's getting so that I can't look a book in the face without wanting to vomit. There's a helluva lot of reading that's got to be done, especially in my course on Canadian literature. The poetry part of it doesn't bother me at all, but I haven't read any Canadian prose in years. Who has? So I've had to wade through a lot of, I'm afraid, dreary stuff — second-rate historical novels modelled on Scott or your own Fenimore Cooper, gossipy yarns about unimportant lives by Mazo (I call her Mazola) de la Roche, a whole mass of insipid crap.115 Yet here and then I come upon something astonishingly good. Something fresh like W.H. Blake's Brown Waters or his translation of the French-Canadian classic Maria Chapdelaine.116 A real discovery was Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World.117 My very strong belief now is that the best Canadian prose has not been written by her novelists or short-story writers but by the explorers, travellers, diarists, letter-writers of this country. Anyway, that's the view I'm going to plump for the next nine months. Hope that you and family are well. We're all well here. Excited by your possible trip this spring. Bet and I are hoping you can and do [mak]e it. Aff ly Irving October 9, 1953 Dear Bob: Your letter a very great pleasure. The breeziness, the vitality, the earthiness: they never fail to come through, and I always have the feeling that someone is wringing my hand off in a very friendly grip. That's good. And that I'm having a very animated conversation with you about things that matter supremely to both of us. Ran in to someone who stayed awhile at Black Mountain (before Olson's time) and knew YOU at Harvard. I didn't get her maiden name, but she's married to a psychiatrist now and lives in Montreal. Seemed terribly interested and all that in any scrap of information I could give her about you; she said she remembered you vividly. She herself struck me as being an unusual type, wears her black hair straight back and parted severely in the middle. Her complexion is on the dark side; indeed, her face reminded me strongly of that of a North American squaw. The latter's unruffled poise, too. Does that bring her back to you? Her husband used to write poetry in the early forties, but has since abandoned the practice for a more lucrative one. His clientele is made up of the exclusive neurotics of Westmount, though in his 52

The Correspondence younger days, he used to hold forth on the need for bringing the benefits of psycho-analysis into the slums. All evening I kept thinking of how much he reminded me of a middle-aging priest, there was that 'confessional' air about him. When I got home I wrote these two lines which I think hit him off rather neatly PARK A V E N U E PSYCHIATRIST

His air priestlike, knowing, contemptuous; One hears the faint rustling of his surplus.118 The entire bite of the poem, of course, is in the play on the word 'surplus.' It would be splendiferous to see you at Candy Mountain and work with you, but alas the stars are not disposed for that at the moment. I've got three teaching commitments, not one of which I can wash my hands off without making a considerable stink. Had Olson written to me earlier I might have been able to swing a sabbatical leave from the High School where I am teaching, though the matter of money may have thrown me in any case since my future is heavily mortgaged in the way a teacher's usually is. Payments on the house, on the car, etc. You know the routine. Still, I'm crazy enough to have given the plan a whirl. But hold on a moment. I'm forgetting the McCarran act.119 Years ago I was a hot left-winger (what bright boy wasn't?) and the American immigration has me down for a dangerous subversive. Two years ago I wanted to visit my brother who lives in Ellenville, N.Y. and I was stopped at the border with the pound of salami and smokemeat which my brother ordered and which he never got. The border officials made me turn back and for the following week the family had salami and smokemeat served up in a variety of fancy dishes. I filed a protest which was sent to Washington, but the only consequence of that was to make the temporary exclusion permanent. So the big boys of Washington wrote me. However, one is able to make an appeal after a year's passage and this I have since done. So far I haven't heard from them. Quite frankly, I'm not too optimistic, considering the moral and political climate that now prevails in the U.S. Things will change, of that I'm quite confident, but until it does, every independent-minded person, both at home and abroad, will be regarded by the present American government as a reckless bombthrower. As you say, Voila. Olson has written me some very kind words about my poetry.120 It is, as I must have said to you before this, the only kind of praise that I value, I mean that of one poet putting a garland on the fore53

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

head of that of another. It has certainly been very heartening. Did you not write him that you were bringing out IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER? It seems to have surprised him agreeably. He says he might be coming here some time after the Xmas holidays, and if he does I shall see what I can do about getting him to speak to my English classes at Sir George Williams College. Dudek might get a group of poetry-lovers together at McGill, though I wouldn't bank on it. You know Olson personally, don't you? What does he look like? When Cid was here he gave me the impression that Charles was some sort of amiable giant who might crush your paw in his if he took a real liking to you. No, I don't think my letter was lost. You mention all the poems which I sent you. Did you get the New Republic? Is there at all the possibility that you can get my book off before the Christmas season? If you can, we can get them distributed around the bookstores in time for the Christmas trade and so help to boost sales. However, don't break your back doing it. Some of these poems appeared in CONTACT and CIV/N. I think a note stating that fact would be gratifying to the editors of both mags, since they receive little enough publicity as it is. Cid writes me that beginning with the next issue ORIGIN will be printed in Spain by your friend Smith.121 I haven't received your latest book yet. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing it and reading it. Why don't YOU try writing a novel? You've got something to say, and a distinct style of your own to say it in. I think you could give the best of them a run for their money .... This is a propos the novel from Tucson, Arizona, which has me by the ears. Are you seriously thinking of bringing it out. A more expensive proposition than books of poetry, I imagine. The poems that went into Civ/N are not from TKOAO122 but some that you sent me during the summer. All our love to you, Irving

[Added in margins: Glad to hear that Ann is progressing. Yes, it takes some time before the bad effects of an operation leave and the good ones make themselves felt. Bet's got a bit of migraine but the doctor thinks pills and glasses will help. Good heavens it seems we know each other's wives only as invalids, though I'm sure that both of them are vigorous tough animals or they'd be unable to manage their numerous brood, including their husbands. All our best to her. Irv] 54

The Correspondence October 15, 1953 Dear Irving, Very great to have the new poems, notes & all. I think that does it, for the book - I know almost all of these you list, but for: In The Midst Of My Fever; Seven O'clock Lecture; It's All In The Manner; and The Paraclete - which last sounds very damn familiar, but I'm damned if I can locate a copy of it, even if I have had one - so please bear with me & send on those four - and we can wrap it all up. The title, in any case, is very good - and will have it all on this coming booklist. Ok. Thanks, too, for letting me figure order. It will help on any possible hitches with format, i.e., to be able to shift for balance, etc., and I'll try for the best order possible - avoid any too close similarities of rhythm, etc., keep them following in best tone & all. Voila. Voila. Voila. Jonathan Wms/ wants to try a cover for it, i.e., to do typography & all for one — and think he could make it very well. I just had his mailing piece for my booklet with Laubies & it's too much. Jobs on Olson's & Patchen's books likewise very, very cool. So think it should be interesting. In one way I'd like to work in that kind of variation, i.e., different people doing covers — since one man's work gets monotonous & all too much of a kind. Hence, we have our own on Olson's Mayan Letters & Blackburn's Proensa, Laubies for mine & Larry E/s, Kitasono for his own, & I hope Wms/ for yours. That makes it lively, like they say - I think you'll like it. Likewise, I don't worry about money angle — how can I. I.e., I think it will go all right. On yours price will be $ 1 - probably print 500 copies, and if 200 of those, say, could be sold in Canada (never mind 300) that would be a sizeable part of the printing. In any case, we expect a loss, always. So no one really very starry-eyed. But I think yours will go well. Very wild about the review in the New Republic - and that should help a lot. The main damn thing is to have a well-printed book, to circulate - I don't see worrying about more than that. Very interested by what you say of early Canadian prose. There's a parallel in part with us - i.e., it is the 'historians' in the middle 1800's & before that have the most impact. Parkman, in that way, is just as relevant as Melville - and more so, if that doesn't seem absurd, in point of the literal language employed. Have you read his acc'ts of the Jesuits in Canada? Also the acc't of Champlain, etc. There must be a wealth of prose in some of that material he cites - tho in French.123 Someday it wd be interesting to do a series, in cheap format, of all such bks as Slocum's. I think this is usually where the written language begins, for such as ourselves at least. Well, someday - ok. 55

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

This for now. Hope all goes well with the exhibitions. Damn well wish I could be there. But if this damn BMC holds, then I'll at least be back in the us this March. Which is a beginning. And will see you all that June, if not sooner. Write soon. Tell me how it all goes. All our love to you, Bob October 18, 1953 Dear Irving, No time in the last to say very much - and still groggy from the trip, i.e., per usual eating bananas & water, after a fashion, and trip from Marseilles to Barcelona, however romantic in the imagination, is something I'd never want you to experience. And then there is the boat to Palma. (Which is more or less like old immigrant boats, so that you wake up, if you ever got to sleep, lying on deck in wash of moans & vomit...) Ok. I got copies of your poems off to Jonathan Wms/, I think he'll do a wild design on it, i.e., his job on poems with Rene Laubies, has been excellent. And wild to be allowed that pomposity, of comment - in any case ... Anyhow the mailing-piece for the booklet is too much, I never saw my name so big - and it is lovely. He says the booklet will be done tomorrow, I think it is, and as soon as I have copies, I'll send you one. There's also to be a German edition, i.e., this is old friend Rainer G/s work, hysterical as ever, i.e., I think he got jealous, so sat down & did the translations into German in something like a couple of hrs/, and will now issue it all (using J/s plates for the inks, which is the real explanation - they cost circa $100 ...) on gray paper, red poems, and black inks.124 Well, they'll never get me — so what the hell. As it was, Gerhardt worrying abt title: The Immoral Proposition, i.e., he sd, it's drawing room, etc. Which of course it is. But he sd, it's also indecent for Germans. Wow ... Not much new. Great Novelist & Reporter Wife leaving here - not at all unhappy abt it, but their kids were nice - and he was, to some extent — albeit an idiot, sooner or later.125 Ann, much too trusting, gave him the first chapter of that short novel I'd mentioned (i.e., one that just came in, which I think we'll do, etc.) — and he 'couldn't read it - so bad - oh, oh ..., etc.' This, after / read his goddamn horror, A ROOM ON THE ROUTE - and was so embarrassed for him, quite literally, I was never able to admit that I had ... Anyhow - they leave very soon now. And back to a more congenial solitude. I did get my own kicks in, tho, i.e., a story written, using them, not just to get even — but they were wild material, as it happened, 56

The Correspondence in point of the sister he has, and had with them, for a time. So perhaps someday he'll see it - and know just what I was thinking, all the time. It's always a pleasure. Ray has 56 copies of PROENSA in stock, also 25 of mine. But that's about all there is left, i.e., Paul B/ has them going like crazy, in NYC - hooked up with Marboro Bks/ amg others, also Gotham's noting them on their fall list & so on. So. A mess, really. The printings were too damn small, but we didn't have loot for anything bigger (i.e., 255 on mine, and 495 on B/s.) If you want some, maybe write Ray for what he can spare of mine (I have 7 copies here, and that's it) & same for Paul's. Otherwise, I'm damned if I know what to do. On Olson's MAYAN LETTERS, at least, I'll send you whatever you say - but Larry E/s is all taken up, again because it was such a small printing. From now on, want smallest 400, bigger 750 - if money allows that. That's the hitch. Write when you can — tell me how it goes. If BMC gig holds on, will at least be in us this spring, and once there, can see you sooner or later. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: What abt our printing Am/Can/ anthology here? It wd be very low costs for you - also cd give it ride on bk/list coming, etc. Let me know what you think.] October 25, 1953 Dear Irving, I'm sorry I hadn't answered sooner, i.e., the New Republic & poems now in safely, and many thanks for both. I think poems are good, &: welcome additions to the book - in fact, they add even another style, or what the hell to call it - anyhow, wild. Ok. The review is also fair enough, insofar as public attention is concerned, and certainly it should get some, both for yourself & the others as well. It's a very damn fine break — and one god knows you all deserve. But - as an assessment of what either you, or Canadian writing, or the Canadian scene, like they say, either come to, separately, or all together - it is mostly bullshit, I think. In other words, you, for example, are shoved off finally as too much sex & rebellion - and Canada is described in terms of middle 1800's, i.e., the 'growing republic ,..'126 It seems to me much too ingenuous, at best - and more usually, outright condescending. After all, Friar is using the us as a yardstick for these qualifications, and to do that, he can hardly forget what the us is at this particular moment. His notions about

57

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

the relation between material (available???) wealth & the possible 'renaissance' of a country's art, etc., are extremely hopeful - and I believe them almost completely untrue. Or else so much the exception, to data I know of from my own reading, etc., that I can hardly allow his 'case.' But the further irritation is, for me, the base sense of apology for precisely the character of country that you, yourself, must be unequivocally against. Remember that this is his final word: "From this point of view (the necessity of material as well as 'spiritual' (?) 'resources'), Canada, no less than America, may look confidently ..." Why go further? Haven't we all heard this explanation before. Well, while Mr. Friar goes on sleeping, etc., there is another source I think will interest you, i.e., a magazine I very much like, or at least am always forced to respect (in spite of occasional disagreement, etc.): Contemporary Issues. Do you know it? It's published in England - EV Swart, South Africa commentator (there is a huge bk/1 believe) more or less the man behind it — some of the NS&N writers also involved, as well as us group & German (they have a sister publication, Dinge der Zeit). I got new issue this afternoon, and have just begun to read what looks like a very damn solid job on The Fate Of American Civil Liberties. I'll tell you what — I'll write them to send you a copy of it, see what you think if you don't know it — otherwise, can pass it on. It seems to me the most literate and well-based source of comment re us, Europe, & a hell of lot else, now damn well left. Same literacy one gets in NS&N or NR, etc.127 What else. For example, if you wanted to do a job on some aspect of Canadian politics or whatever, am very sure they would be very grateful. Swart seems a very decent man. Life ok. Not doing much. Write soon and damn well raise me from the dead. All our love to you all, Bob [Added following signature: (This damn well didn't get mailed. In the meantime Trocchi, editor of MERLIN, which same he is now printing here, ran short of mss/ for present issue, and wanted some poems, and took liberty of giving him yr METZINGER: GIRL WITH A BIRD. I hope to god that is agreeable. I don't yet know if he'll take it (he is damn vague, etc.) but if he does, gives us boost on book coming, plus good circulation (1700) on poem itself. Mag is not much, but printed ok — and KK/ poem I had sent you may be in, plus story by me & poem by Martin.)]128 58

The Correspondence Afternoon Your letter just in, the end. I am really 4'2" - where I show, that is. But I have a very strong Grip. You will see ... That part about the lady, very happy really. I.e., it's nice to be remembered - tho I now wonder what for. Unless it's Ann Rathbun, as I knew her, I don't know who it is. She was very, very nice — I think at one time, perhaps now, I would have married her, had I not married Ann - but then Ann's guardian's name was Rathbun so it was almost the same (?). Ok. Anyhow, please say hello. [Added in margin: But I don't think I know this woman, do you?] Don't talk abt me when I'm gone. That difficulty, like they say, with border guards is a fucking drag. I wonder what I face. I.e., I don't know how bright I was, but that was the only thing I could then see moving. Incidentally, did you once have some satires in POLITICS?129 And were you ever Canadian representative of a group comprising part of the NYC splinter movement, the title of which I forget - it was long - but the leader of which was one Red Hellman? If so, we thought of you this past summer; i.e., myself & his brother, Robert, who was sec'y/treasurer. He thought he remembered your name, i.e., when I had shown him some of your poems, etc. He knew they had a representative up there somewhere. There were 5 in the NYC unit, 80 in all he said in Can/, and one in Mexico. Those were the days ... He's since gone back to Iowa State, a fellowship of some sort, and heard he got by customs, etc., ok. He wasn't too damn sure about it - from this end. It all feels like jumping off the damn ledge, one by miserable one. As it was, just in Aix talking to lady painter on a Fulbright there, just come, she sd, whenever anyone started to talk abt such things, to 'confess' I think she put it, people simply answered, I'd rather not hear abt it. And she wasn't stupid. If you cd get in — cdn't you come for summer months at least? Equally wild, I wd say. We cd rush you thru in a barrel - or a load of molasses. I have had gt/ experience smuggling over that border, from poultry days. The best Partridge Wyandotte Bantam Cockerel I ever got, was smuggled over for me, by the boy-friend, of the daughter, of the best Canadian breeder of same there is - maybe he cd do the same for you? So start growing feathers. Or make like an eggI can't write a novel, Irving, I just don't know what to say. I did try once, and got it half done - anyhow, I'll stick to short stories for the time-being, i.e., they're short. I get to think it's a virtue. Also, Olson knew you were having a book, at least I told him but he never remembers. For example, it must have been fully a year 59

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley ago I sent him one or two of your poems. Dead silence. Now you are discovered - so that's that. Let's leave it alone ... I have never met him personally, we started writing about 4 or so yrs ago and he taught me a hell of a lot, i.e., was time when I wasn't doing anything, and honestly have him to thank for whatever there is now. He is the wildest, the surest, and the best critic I've ever found. He allows one all his own space, and yet never can slip one by him. I guess he is a very big man, i.e., J/ Wms/ who knows him, sd he was 6'8" — and very wild & fine man. When he gets mad at somebody, he simply looks down on the top of their head. How abt that. I wish led. This for now - write soon. I will get there sooner or later, never fear — or don't fear until you have to. All our love/ Bob [Added in margin: No New Republic yet, tho that will probably take a month or so.] November 6, 1953 Dear Irving,130 All poems in, NR — which I think you'll have my letter on? — so all straight at this point. Very shame-faced to note I did damn well have a copy of It's All In The Manner - it turned up when we were moving to this new place, the past week. I don't know what happened to me, in any case I like it very much — so that's that. Will also add dedication, et al — ok. As it now looks, I hope it can go into press sometime in January. It is very damn foolish to make very many commitments re time, i.e., you would only be bugged by waiting, if that turned out the case. At present, Olson's MAYAN LETTERS is roughly half-done. It ought to be ready by the end of the month, at which time I'll put in this book on pigeons, etc., and also, if I can, this short one of Kitasono's.131 I hope they can work on those two, at least, at the same time. Directly, those are out, yours goes in. And that is, finally, a better way of thinking of it - this is Spain, etc. Who ever knows. Re doing this other book here - I wish I could issue it myself, i.e., under press title & so on - but it would be hopeless, i.e., six to eight months before I could see much hope of anything else being done now. But I may at least be able to arrange to get it printed for you, or Contact Press in short. Mossen A/ is loaded at the moment, and will be for some time - but Martin knows of other printers, and will ask him when I get to Palma this Monday. The work would be the 60

The Correspondence

same as what we've done. I.e., no shoddiness, etc. (Re the anthology, I had thought to work that into our own schedule, somehow - since it was in some sense certainly a joint concern - but there again, I can try this idea of other printers. I don't use them for our own things, because we've been with MA/ for a year now, and hence some question of loyalty, etc., and also that he has been very decent about everything all the way.) D/s poem, again — I couldn't take it on myself, but might be able to arrange for printing. Let me wait till I know more what's up, or could be, etc. Still nothing too definite about BMC - which is my out to get back, etc. It seems whole place is shaking, money the problem as always. But if it makes it, I'll probably be there this spring - and could get up to see you anytime after that they let me out. Many thanks. (I had a wild dream last night about it all, seems they were going to move it to Holland for some reason - mainly that backer was Dutch — and when someone said, why Holland, he says, why not Holland, it is very clean, I have given you the money, etc., etc. Meanwhile Olson was apparently learning Chinese from a young reedy lady whose father must have been a missionary, and he was saying: now let's have that verb again ... Too much.) It wasn't Graves who pulled out, it was Godfrey Blunden, i.e., this novelist who'd been here for about three months. G/ is in Palma much the same as ever - chucking my wife under the chin as ever, damn him. Very gay, he is. Anyhow B/ took off, with kids & wife - a decent man, but not very interesting. Story more or less about them, or off them, not anywhere as yet. So. That was very wild news about the paintings & all - how about that. It's wild you write me at all! Enjoy the furniture ... Wish to god I might see it all, i.e., sounds the end. It's very great, all of it. Tell me how the reading goes too. Do you smile at them? Wow. I'd love to be in the front row. There's ole Irving. Listen to that man GO. Well, someday. I hope you gave them hell. That thing about Trocchi & his magazine MERLIN - nothing worked out, finally. My fault really - I was vague enough not to like the feel of it, don't ask me why. He didn't take the damn poems - as it was, he wanted a story mainly I think because it took the 7 pp/ he was short on this issue in question. Tho god knows he was decent enough. Will give the press adds, etc. That is damn kind of him, after my own action — which was almost hysterical I now see. But I like these stories, or feel, finally, that they & the poems are all I damn well have. And don't like the bulk sense of it, at all. Maybe that's simple 61

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley ego, etc., but what else. I lose certainly, I took ms/ of book also back - and will now do it here myself this spring' aS (Tom just put his hand in, etc.) — so.132 Anyhow he came out here, after I'd taken the story back — and he was so decent abt it, I had to make some show of at least appreciating it, which I did very much. He wanted to know if I had any poems, etc., and I let him take the one for you, but it depends he said on room - now, etc. Is that ok? I don't think circulations will cross much. I don't even think he will use it, in fact. So about it, for now. I know I've forgotten a dozen damn things — I'll write again in a day or so. Still in a hell of a mess from the moving. But have first decent toilet - flushes - in almost 3 yrs. What else ... All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: I think Olson's silence is very probably result of all the mix-up there at present. I had a very short note from him today (mainly on his book, etc.) & first in some time.] November 20, 1953 Dear Irving, I checked with Martin, like they say, and things for any immediate printing here, not too good, i.e., all the ones he knows are full-up till the first of the year anyhow. But even with that, I think perhaps something could at least be planned, for one of those books in any case - if waiting doesn't bother you. Because I'll probably be leaving in March, I want to get as many of our own done as possible before that — and so, as said, am using one other printer for what I can of the books, and/or yours & M/s with this man he knows who seems ok. Again, if you could get me specific details, on length of ms/, how you want format, etc., could get you more exact data. I will do all I can god knows, so tell me what you think. Failing me, i.e., if I have to go before anything can be figured, M/ could always help out. Anyhow. Jonathan W/ writes re plans for your cover, and it sounds the end. He had just been in Paris on leave, with Rene Laubies, & while sauntering about the country-side, R/s eye caught by a wild piece of billboard art, etc., in this case on a wall as follows: "a wild business of symbols, graffiti (one beauty: a great prick, growing in a heart), etc." So he took a photograph of it all, and plans to get a cliche made there, and use it in "black ink on a bright yellow paper (slick one); Irving Layton in bright red, scrawled by me over in the midst of my

62

The Correspondence fever, in black, etc." So they'll do the cover there, printing & all, and send them down, whereupon we can put them on insides done here, probably in a Garamont - much like Garamond - and should be damn well handsome. Book is priced at 75 tf, which ought to sell it fast. Already Paul B/ says the stores in NYC are re-ordering, places like Brentano's yet, and no doubt that we can do even better with this next lot. Also just got backing to the extent of $500, from people at BMC — thanks to Olson — and not a goddamn care in the world, as of this writing. I.e., that gives us the necessary bumper between printers' bills & returns from sales, etc. So. Also, if you have a good sharp photo of yrself, send it to J/ as soon as you can, since he had thot perhaps to use it backside of something, as part of the design — anyhow if you have one, send it to him: Pfc J/ Wms/, Ameds Det 5th Gen Hosp, APO 154, c/o PM, NYC. And receive yr gold loving cup absolutely gratis, etc. Ok. I just heard they're going to stock-pile atom bombs here.133 Franco's gift to Mallorca, etc. I damn well knew Spaniards wdn't take it. Anyhow it looks like the end of this place, as it's been anyhow. Poor devils so simple, they are very excited & pleased with thot of all the nice Am/s coming. As one lady sd, of course it won't bother us even should one go off, being in Pollensa (maybe 30 or so kilometers away) ... What the hell to do anymore. Write soon. Hope you're not smothered, etc. And that exhibitions went ok & everything. All well here, in spite of that last item, tho god knows depressed by it. Doesn't seem much point in staying to watch, etc. All our love to you both, Bob [Added in margin: Book may now be done by Jan/ 15th, or that's the date M/s printer has promised, tho of course it's hardly any guarantee - but something anyhow. Doing 750 copies]. November 27, 1953 Dear Irving, Yours in, and all of it very wild news. I.e., about your plans for the readings, joint-publishing, meeting this summer - all damn well the end. Incidentally, on those readings - I can print up a mailingpiece for them if you want, i.e., that's gratis, and god knows little enough. But if you want them, let me know as soon as you've got your data straight, so we can allow time enough for the printing, 63

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

plus about 5 weeks it would take for them to get there. Might help. I.e., have your wife do design, two-colors, figure some dimensions that can be mailed easily, and/or something like a card, one-fold, so you can type address backside, staple it, and mail it just like that. Ok. [Added in margin: Drawing or whatever - cliches very cheap here. Voila.] Anyhow you're very damn obviously right. And, more than that, you must in fact have an audience still malleable enough to make a dent on - or you're not yet facing high-pressure biz that is more or less in effect in the us. Poetry-readings there, etc., now so 'organized' and so much a biz of the elite, you wouldn't even find bums coming in to get out of the cold if you set up Olson, Cid, or any of us. I.e., letter I had got from Dr. Williams: "I sponsored a reading by 5 poets at the Modern Museum in New York last Wednesday night... It was not well attended (New York is a hard place to get an audience for the poem - unless it's by "a name." But was appreciated by those who were there ..." Which is the point, no matter — and you won't have that same hard-boiled 'I know it all' biz to buck. God knows genuine ignorance is a hell of a lot more refreshing. Anyhow it makes a lot of sense to me, and would like to help with above-mentioned gig of cards, failing any other way at present. Voila. Your trip sounds very great — I wish to god I might have been there, as always. But perhaps something will yet work out, I haven't heard finally from Olson — whether or not it will be possible to count on BMC, etc. — but we have to leave here now in any case. I.e., us will stockpile atom bombs on the island, there's nowhere else left to go really - and not a case of keeping on running anyhow - so coming back I think no matter what turns out the case with BMC. I damn well do intend you to get some pictures, etc. Those S/134 had came from Williams, i.e., from when he was here. [Added in margin: Ann in doorway.] Anyhow, quite apart from my face, I'd wanted to show you what it was like here, while it still is, to put it that way. Ann took a roll in this past Thursday, should be done on Monday, and if any of those make it I'll send them along. As it was, those jw/ took frightened me, and was afraid they would you too. God knows you are much too kind in any case. But very great to hear you run on that way nonetheless. I've been reading Conrad, i.e., Victory, Mirror of the Sea, etc.135 I like the feel of his prose very much, i.e., the surface of it. Likewise, Heyst (in Victory) seems to me a major conception - albeit the form given it is still pretty much the old cast, etc. But it is a wild book insofar as character keeps so much the tone of the reference in each particular instance, and/or modulates so finely as this or that contact is present. I think C/ is very damn good, at best. 64

The Correspondence Also had been reading Richard Aldington — mainly the fact that library at Tourist agency in Palma has all this random stuff - and don't much like it. Had read two: All Men Are Enemies, and Death Of A Hero. The former gets a bit schmalzy- sounds like very watered down Lawrence. In fact both do — the latter by virtue of form, etc. He seems to posit a sincerity that comes very much to lack the least intensity necessary. He says he feels, etc., but not a damn thing happens. Best, finally, writing directly about the war - but not enough. Insofar as the character of the protest goes, he makes mention in the latter of L/s chapter in Kangaroo (about his own persecution), and that is, of course, a hell of a lot greater than anything A/ can manage. Anyhow I was interested to read the two novels, because I had wondered at his bitterness in the book he wrote on Lawrence, Portrait of a Genius But... It was a damn shoddy job - from almost any angle. Now it seems clear enough why because of this terrific lien on L/s content and even method at times. I wonder he had the goddamn nerve. (In Death Of A Hero, brief description of the 'editor of a Socialist paper.' etc., to the effect 'he' might have been ok, "if he could have controlled his excessive malevolence, curbed his hankering for aristocratic alcoves, and dismissed his fatuous theories of the Unconscious which were a singular mixture of misapprehended theosophy and ill-digested Freud. George admired his feverish energy and talents, pitied him for his ill-health and agonised sense of class inferiority, disliked his malevolence, and ignored his theories ..." No one else but L/. An odd comment on the man who wrote Fantasia of the Unconscious - however 'right.') Also a book on L/ by ET (Miriam in Sons & Lovers). Somewhat pathetic finally and how could it be anything else. But interesting. Also interesting biz of a party they had gone to with Ford, where 'a yng Am/ poet' is in attendance, shocking everybody, etc., etc. Must have been Pound. Very funny. 136 But to hell with that. I'm trying to write a novel, finally. Not much more than the idea, or only a few pages now done. But hope I have, at last, a sufficient motive to hold me, and/or 'idea.' Mainly about a man who is very willful, attempts to manage relations so, etc., etc. Not altogether 'autobiographic' tho some is inevitable. Anyhow, maybe get me thru the goddamn winter. So.137 Write soon. Just now waiting for further word from J/ re yr cover & all. Think bk/ should be the end. We're doing a new mailing piece in a couple of weeks and will ship you some of same when done. Many thanks for the help. And last but not at least - that's very damn wild news abt your wife's* exhibition. Goddamn fine they have eyes. 65

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Will write again soon, you do same when you can. All our very greatest to you all, Love, Bob *Would she REALLY paint my picture??? Look out! [Creeley includes a drawing of a man peeping over the edge of the page.] December 5, 1953 Dear Irving, I just got word from Olson, that it's ok for BMC, i.e., my app't is approved, like they say, so will start in there March 29th. Also - and almost the wildest part - is that they have also approved the publication of a magazine, and I get the job of setting it up. The only hitch is that they want a Spring issue, to start it, which means one hell of a rush. So obviously, old friend ... I thot of you, i.e., goddamn well must have a core of a half dozen if possible, or anyhow 3 or 4, to make the center of it all.138 I don't yet know if they'll approve the idea of advisory editors, or any such actual titling, i.e., at present blocking it out with O/, and not yet final as to what, precisely, it will be. But he gives me editorship, so that much is contribution to some clarity - at least for me. The way I figure it anyhow: a quarterly of roughly the same format as others extant, i.e., Kenyon etc., except that we'll be in it. I.e., have a review section comprising roughly a third, same for prose & poetry, i.e., stories, etc., and then the last third on other areas, like bullfighting, etc., etc. For review sections particularly, we will need regulars, and/or people who can come thru continually with clear statement. Maybe Dudek could help, or anyone you can think of. In addition, the said four or six to make core of each issue, and/or your poems & so on. But that is theory and not very interesting. More to the point, what can you give me by February 1st? I.e., can you do any reviewing, either of Canadian publications or what you will. You say. In addition, could you save me out a few poems, i.e., send what you have as you have it — after you've settled obligations with C/n etc. I know I'm not making much sense here, but no matter. 1) What can you do for reviews (for this first issue, and after that will be cooler, i.e., can either ask for, or I can send bks/ that might interest you etc.) of length, say, 1000 wds, for brief ones - tho can be shorter. Or a longer gig on 1 bk, or group - depending on yr interest. 2) What can you give us for poems? 66

The Correspondence And that's about it, or at least what now matters. The mag ought to be very handsome, i.e., circa 100 pp/, nice types et al, or a decent format not crowded etc., etc. Anyhow if you can begin thinking abt that, and do what you can, I'll have more info/ soon. It is for real in any case. Voila. So write. Let me get this off, falling on my face here. Very new experience all this, to put it mildly. All our love to you all, Bob December 5, 1953 Dear Bob: Your letter reached me on Tuesday last and I had put away that same evening for answering it. But friends of ours dropped in unexpectedly. So here's the week-end and the only free moment I have for writing. Betty is going out to buy some food for a noon-day snack and the radio is playing C. Franck's rather shopworn symphony. She's taken Sissyboo with her and Maxie is out playing with friends. Solitude. Peace. Yesterday we had the photographer in to take some pictures of myself and the family. First time we've done anything like that since we're married and had kids. Great fun, except that Max had to be coaxed into dropping his scowl and smiling at the birdie. The photographer turned out to be a woman I had known many years ago member of a study group which I had organized all of twenty years ago. She said I hadn't changed a bit - except for more fat around my neck and belly. It's outrageous how I've put on weight in the past few years: this despite vigorous games of handball once and sometimes twice a week, as well as swimming and lots of hard work. I guess I'll never work those glycerol lumps off unless I cut out the bread and potatoes of which I am inordinately fond. I hope you have no such problems and despairs. Glad to hear you're attempting a novel. I think you can do it. You've got a nice clean prose, each line crystal clear and honest same quality as in your poetry, and a kind of ecstacy (moral? psychological?) that disturbs because its source can only be guessed at. I look upon your poems with the same fascination that I do a surgeon's knife: all the more so since the drops of blood I see on the blade are most frequently your own. It's strange and yet not altogether so that you should mention Conrad and Lawrence. They're both favourites of mine. I agree entirely with your estimate of Aldington - he just misses it, sometimes by no more than a hair's breath. Still his Death of a Hero is not bad, I like the savagery in it. Trouble with 67

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Aldington was that he never grew up, never matured beyond his early, largely egocentric attitudes. Perhaps the same might be said for Lawrence. It's the poetry that saves him and a perception that goes to the core of things. Aldington is limp; wet twine. His All Men Are Enemies is an adolescent's daydream. I think it's significant that the further he travelled from the war, the poorer he became. What I can't understand is why there's so little good satiric verse being written nowadays. It seems to me that the opposite should be true, that the times were never more favourable for irony and satire than today. McCarthy is a perfect sitting duck for it. Not to mention the other thousand and one crazinesses both in the U.S.A. and abroad. It seems to me that the poets have abdicated some part of their function, which is to recall humans to sanity and decency. I think people would listen to them if they asked to be heard: they've got to use the tools of this business civilization (communication, advertizing, etc.) to destroy it. If they creep into their foxholes and fight only a defensive war they're licked. But if they have the courage to give aid and comfort to each other and to fight, the day will yet be theirs. Hence that series I told you about. Thanks for volunteering help. Very kind of you and much appreciated. But I can't ask you to do the cards for the simple reason that we do not know for sure when each meeting can be scheduled for. We have drawn up a program saying when each poet would appear, but it's all very tentative. The only thing we are sure of is that the thing will go through, but that's about all that we can say about it at the moment. For the first reading we're going to ask Frank Scott,139 one of the older poets, but in spirit one very much one of ours. Then Dudek may follow or myself and after that there's a promising talent by the name of Phyllis Webb.140 We're thinking of rounding off the series by asking some prominent American poet to come up here, all expenses paid. Did you get Civ/n 4? By far the best issue to date, I think. Sorry we couldn't work in the review of your book and Olson's. Lots of Pound material as you will see. I think it's about time we started a movement to get him released from St. Elizabeths. Keeping him there is part of the KNOW*NOTHINGS campaign against intellectuals, currently going on in the States. To strike at Pound this way, is to strike at all of us. Let's fight the bastards, I say. Here is an issue that I think poets and writers in general might unite on and show that they mean business in this cold war against them. We're thinking of making up a petition to be sent to the president of the United States asking for his immediate release and circulating it in all English-speaking countries (though why should we limit it to them?) asking poets and crea68

The Correspondence live writers to sign it. What do you think the response would be, Bob? Anyway let me know what you think of this plan and the Pound material in the last issue of Civ/n.141 To come back to the photos, I don't think they'll be ready for another week. As soon as I get them I'll send them on to Williams. I received the Eigner book during the week. Lovely job, as usual, though my wife thinks the paper too stiff. I try to persuade her that the fewness of the poems made it necessary, but I haven't been able to convince her. Since somebody who reviewed her exhibition at St. John's said that she was securely among the masters and hailed her as an authentic genius it has become exceedingly difficult to argue with her about anything. Just kidding, of course. I know no one sweeter or more modest. I'm enclosing a poem which I finished a few days ago. Except for the Santa Glaus parade, everything is purely fictional. Was it Miller who said, "A clown is a poet in action"? Do write as soon as you're able. Glad, very glad, to hear you're coming back to the States. It means we shall soon see you and the family. Good. All our love, Irving [Added at top of letter: There was a review of Civ/n and a translation of my poem Seven O'clock Lecture in Cuadernos published in Madrid, July 1953. Do you know the mag?]142 December 12, 1953 Dear Irving, Yours just in, and let me give you my own thought re any petition to get Pound released. To begin with, I think such a thing would be best addressed to UNESCO, insofar as that would seem the most effective single unit of authority for receiving and registering such protest. Being Canadian, i.e., with that as the source, it would also imply a further weight so registered - whereas the President, if he recognized such a thing at all, could pass it off as essentially crank protest from non-Americans etc., etc. Whereas UNESCO is, in theory at least, the base group for international recognition of the arts etc., etc. As to the effectiveness of such a petition: I think you might expect it, granted enough names, to make clear a weight of responsible opinion. Which is not in itself hay. But one thing you should know, is that Pound's present status is by no means very clear, i.e., there has been some comment (I think reliable) to the effect that he is, in fact, quite willing to stay where he is, since he believes (evidences of a persecution mania or not) that if he did leave, he would be shot 69

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

down by secret agents almost immediately. Or in any case persecuted beyond endurance. I also believe there was some similar agitation in the us about three or four years ago, which stopped because of this - i.e., Eliot et al were interested in helping him be released, but the thing was dropped by virtue of his own feeling.143 Now that may be sheer bullshit — but I think you might well check it, and/or write to Eliot, c/o Faber & Faber, etc., tell him your intentions, and ask him — beyond questions of whether or not the thing will actually work — if it is his opinion that Pound would, in fact, be willing to leave, etc. You can think of some less fantastic phrasing than that. But there may well be the whole problem of re-trial - if the trial was suspended, say, due to an opinion of mania, etc. - in which case he would be in the position of facing re-trial as a traitor, in which case his chances at present would be murderously little. The Pound issue, per se, was argued very bitterly about four to five years ago in the states, with petitions of a wide variety. Much of it was due to articles by Hillyer and Viereck in particular, i.e., Hillyer turned the whole issue into an outright attack on 'modern' verse and Viereck argued it from the anti-Semitism angle. Both men were more or less riding the issue for what notoreity it could gain for them. But, following the Bollingen award (and at this same time), of course there was a hell of a lot of talk in sources ranging from newspapers all over the country to magazines like PR, etc. The protest side, i.e., that side that argued Pound's case, even to the extent of release in some instances, had some fairly responsible people, as well as those you might not expect, viz Tate et al.144 But then, after a time at least, the thing petered out - Pound's reprints got him a less hysterical hearing, and you began to find his books getting good reviews in The New Yorker etc. I have had off-prints now & again from Mrs. Pound, and she would, in fact, be a good one to write, i.e., nominal head of the Committee for EP. (Address is: 3514 Brothers Place, Washington S.E., B.C.) Also, it might do well to check with other people like D.D. Paige145 — and let me know if you want those addresses (Dudek may well have them).146 Well, I would say the point is this: as a large petition, coming from Canadian writers et al, the thing would have significance no matter if it did in fact secure his release or not. And that, in itself, would be quite enough to make it worth it. And as much publicity as you can get for it, the better. (What about, for one thing, trying to get displays of his book, alongside print of the petition, in whatever bookstores in Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, etc., i.e., a photostat of the petition (when it's large enough) with an additional one there in 70

The Correspondence each case for more signatures, and window displays, again photostat of petition, pictures of him, books, etc. (Ask Mrs. Pound for off-print material, i.e., she has it from Irish, English, French & Italian newspapers - letters of protest etc.) I.e., do it 1) from angle of useful publicity (as, say, you could circulate photo/s of store windows with such a display to newspapers, good for a thing for them etc.) and 2) for all the solidarity of Canadian writers on sd issue you can manage. If you want to extend it to us, et al — and certainly you can do that anyhow, i.e., as evidence of Canadian opinion etc. - then best to check on all the angles, and, as said, they are damn many. But write DP, she can give you sense of what he's thinking, or you could write him - except that it's a bitter thing to bring up with him directly. She is the one I would think. But that will do for now, and/or tell me again how I can help and will be glad to. (If this magazine comes off, and you get a lot of names, I could print it there - for one place. With additional documents or whatever). Incidentally, do not damn well forget that magazine. I will need you very much. Reviews, poems - whatever you can manage. Ok. Hell of a rush here, so forgive me for ducking out - goddamn well wd rather not, at all. Your wife very right on LE/S paper - too damn thick, like leather. O well. Can't win them all. But at least we know for the next time. Anyhow think I got you on this Board of Editors, so damn well get me something - quick. All love, all going ok on yr bk/ — J/ says cover is the wildest, Gerhardt says wildest he ever saw - so maybe we damn well got something. Anyhow, write, poems, reviews - damn quick please - ask D/ if he can make it too. Voila. Love, Bob No copy of Civ/n to date. Anyhow it will come. Look, figure yrself as advisory editor of this new thing if ok. I am hoping for: Olson, you, Blackburn, Rexroth, and Paul Goodman. That wd do it? [Added in margin: For that series, I'd damn well ask Olson — the wildest reader, bar none, I have ever heard. Thomas, etc., could never even come close, really. It's an experience you would never forget I mean it. I don't know that Sp. Mag, but sounds very wild. I'll see if I can find out anything, tho this damn island makes a block, etc. Ok].

71

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Tuesday Dear Bob: This is mid-week, can't write a long letter, but must congratulate you on all the good news. I'm very happy that you have the appointment at BMC and that you are going to be the editor of mag. I wish you all the good luck in the world, and then some. Betty joins me in felicitations and good wishes. Between you and Olson, I think BMC can become the radiating centre for something new, good, and inspiring. What a damn shame I can't join you! It would be fun working with the two of you, writing, publishing, arguing, etc. I still haven't heard a word from the State Dept. or rather, the Immigration. Some time ago I went down to the American Immigration here in Montreal and put in an application for a permit to enter the country. Of course, I had done the same thing about two years ago with what unfortunate results you already know. The official put down all the data as to my political past and present, and I even got for him a letter of reference from my bank manager, feeling sure that in this war of ideas and ideologies, nothing would stand higher with the present American gov't than such a recommendation. But so far - not a word. Well, March isn't such a distance away. I hope to goodness and so does Bet that we'll see you then. Ever since my wife saw that fine sensitive face of yours, she's been dying to do a portrait of you: so for her sake if not for mine I trust you will make it your business to visit us as soon as you humanly can. I know we'll have lots to talk about, as poets, as editors, and as teachers. It's extraordinary how our lives seem to be running in parallel lines. I spoke to Louis about reviews, articles, etc. but he's in the same fix as I am: limited time. Any spare time he has he wants to spend it writing poetry; anyway, the clinching argument for him is that a review of a Canadian book appearing in a mag published so many hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime can do little good. That same review appearing in Civ/n or Contact can swing some weight behind it. I guess he's got a point there. For myself, I have even less - much, much less - time than he has. It's true I committed myself to Cid Gorman to do regular reviews for Origin, but I am already repenting at leisure, and will have to write him that I've got to call it off. Of course, an occasional review of some book that I happen to have read and feel strongly about one way or the other is a different matter. Louis gave me some poems for you which I am enclosing. One of them, the Greek one, is a translation from Sappho.147 It is not partiality for a friend's work that makes me say that these poems are good.

72

The Correspondence I hope you will like them too. Which reminds me: the poem you wrote for me has been lost: it has not yet been settled whether I or Miss Collins of Civ/n is to blame. Will you send me, please, another copy - and some more poems for Civ/n. I may tell you that you have quite a following here in Canada: I don't think that any contemporary American poet of your generation enjoys a greater or commands as much interest and attention. I'm very happy about that. The photographer says he'll have my blasted photos ready tomorrow night. I'll send them on to your friend the day following. Enclosing some poems. Love to you all from Betty and me. Irving December 21, 1953 Dear Irving, Yours just in, with poems & all - I'd like to use First Snow: Lake Achigan, if agreeable.148 (I haven't seen this other you note, i.e., 'End of the Affair.') Anyhow, anything else you have free, in time or for later, please do send as soon as possible. Everything now hinges on my being able to make up an issue by February 1st — or that is the absolute limit on time, horrible as it damn well is. I'm not quite sure I understand you on the review business. God knows I appreciate the limits on your time, and all in fact you have on your neck. But the offer is this finally: can you see your way clear to come in on the magazine as one of four or five editors, i.e., to help direct the whole gig, plus contribute? In that sense I'll be depending on you equally with Rexroth,149 Olson and the others. I don't want you as 'Canadian correspondent,' etc. Nor do I think reviews of Canadian books need be the dismal non sequitur Dudek seems to argue — or why shouldn't notice of a decent Canadian work be as useful in an American magazine — why not more so, in fact, since they are so very rarely noticed at all. Everyone seemed quite pleased when Friar noted Contact books — I don't know what the point now is? In short, one basis for this magazine will be an actual representation of what the hell there is, actually, in every country I can get into. I am not interested in local criteria except as they may show some particularly dismal situation (worth the noting etc.), or be characters of a particular force in the writing coming from wherever etc. I want notice of French, German, Italian work, as well as 'American' - but I can do nothing if everyone insists, immediately, on the safety of the cocoon etc. 73

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Beyond that, of course, is the fact that I do not see why you, or D/, for that matter, should see yourselves limited to reviewing Canadian work, i.e., surely you don't so limit yourselves? Or feel that you are only allowed voice on this particular thing? It seems completely provincial, and not a damn thing to do with any necessities I can myself conceive of. For example, you would be more use to me, as a reviewer, doing even occasional notices of English books, or books like, say, Roethke's, Viereck's, etc. (where the bias of Olson, Rexroth, etc., might imply immediate 'unfairness' etc.) than any other man I could ask to do such a job. I.e., you know this ground, you can argue the context very clearly — and lacking such clarity, any review becomes hogwash & nothing I should care to print. But in any case I see no reason whatsoever why you should not (or why D/ should not) review any book in any language on any occasion which interests you, either by dint of its virtues or failures, or whatever - but solely, absolutely, only a question of whether or not you are so moved. Voila - and what the hell else can I say? Well, it's up to you. My own disappointment is hardly the point. I wanted you in at the very first, i.e., as soon as this chance came, but if there is simply too much, now, to do already, ok — but do know I asked you this way, that I wanted you to this extent. So that there will never be the least question on that. I first wrote to you, almost a year ago now, because, again, I liked your poetry, I liked it. And thought that, by god, here is a man who can make it, and who has made it. And that of course is very much, o yes ..., in the realm of the personal — as I am slapped, whenever they care to bother, on being addicted to personalism - but fuck that. In any case, it is you now that I want, in, on this thing. Just as it is Olson, Blackburn, and those of the others who will come. Any one of them is 1) human, and 2) a man who writes poetry, who has that capacity for action & literal work. But there again, I run off to inanities or things I do not expect others to understand. But after your own letters of the necessity to break through borders, to fight for a community, to make this a common thing - by god I am insulted that I given back the argument that a notice of a Canadian book 'appearing in a mag published so many hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime ...' is, by that, worthless. And where the hell does he think / am? The FOOL. Well, I am in no damn state of mind to say anything about his work, except that I dislike it. I dislike the pompous riding on metaphor which has nothing to do with the source from which it comes (FOR i.P.L.),150 I dislike the lumpiness of the Sappho (which is NOT her characteristic) and I dislike the man, very much, who argues, to 74

The Correspondence me, that "When I have carded the wool of your thoughts/and found the physiological knot ,.."151 O well - why bother???????????????? ??????????????????????????????????? He may be a lovely man - but goddamn me if he is a poet. But fuck that too - tell him I'm sorry I can't use these, and that I would, very much, like to see others. I am capable of judgement beyond these feelings now present, however I may seem. Ok. So here we are. A month and week or so left, and time of course very much on my mind. If you can write me, again, what you think, I'll abide by that, but I do want it straight from you. I'll appreciate any fact of time, i.e., the lack of it — but I don't need these arguments of D/s, which I confess I find very actually the character of mind I had supposed him, finally, to have. More than that, I can't really argue. I've given what I could, all along, and perhaps want here to allow myself that vague virtue, or better, the self-indulgence of a righteous conscience. O well. But anyhow I did try to give S/, and now Civ/n what there was to give. I mean I have seen it very much as the common necessity you have put it as. No man likes to see his work in mimeograph, except that it is such a thing - is that unreasonable?152 Only to mean I have done it deliberately and have tried to do everything with that sense - tho again, I know it is hard to communicate it. But I want, now, the same thing from you — you can't live in Montreal forever, nor can you ask that you even be read as a Canadian - or even think, at the end, that having been one was more important, or more relevant, than those people you have in fact moved, anywhere. I suggest that this magazine could be such a join, of us all, that it would not be at all necessary even to mention 'internationalism' - it would be so much the fact. But how can I do anything, if there is no community, or if everyone cares so little it doesn't damn well matter. All my love, Bob [Added in margin: Don't worry abt photo/s. Yr cover just in fr/ }/ and looks very sharp. I think it will be a wild bk — certainly you've done yr part.] December 23, 1953 Dear Irving, I'm sorry to have flipped like that yesterday, god knows there was little excuse. I do appreciate the fact you have no time, even tho I must have sounded utterly dull to sd fact. Ok. 75

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Likewise, forgive my virulence re D/, who has given me not the least cause for it, i.e., I am grateful he thought to submit those poems, and I hope he will send others when he can. I wish, in fact, there were some simple way to explain why I do not finally like these three. Beyond the question of tone, etc. - so impossibly vague to suggest - certainly he seems, and must be, a serious and careful man. Well, let me try at least. That crack about the FOR I.P.L. riding too much on a metaphor which made poor use of its source, etc., - again no way to say it. But let me show you why I did in any case. The first line starts out, to imply: call it what you will, or say, ok, that 'imagination' might be what motivates & directs, etc., etc. - BUT to steer the log boat (the beginning, from the first), to keep it on its course, intent on its directions, ready for the 'real thing,' etc.153 I.e., in short, a sense that there is more hard fact and will to these things than any too simple sense of'imagination' (which must be akin, or might be in his mind, to the old senses of 'fancy' or running thru my head, Tell me, where is fancy bred: in the heart? or in the head?154 And also, because I guess I'm writing to you, Coleridge, and the harp by the fire, with the draft moving it to sound ...) Periplum: the known points, Odysseus & so on. (They tell me Berard has written a fine book on this part of Homer, i.e., Victor Berard, but because my French is so bad, I can't read it.)155 And 'we' have gone aground "many a time" looking for sea-roads! (I wonder if that is 'imaginative' or some piece of information he actually found somewhere — I would like to know, since, again, I had thought of Conrad's writing about how it feels for a captain to see, or really feel, his ship go aground - in The Mirror Of The Sea.) "The fact is simple," the 'fact' being, I take it, an eyetouch of love etc., which secures them, in their place.156 So he sets up his oar "mid fellows."157 Anyhow take it up to there, and again, let me try to show you why I think it's a mishmash of misapplied references, a scramble, really, of half a dozen divergent 'opinions' and 'feelings.' Ok! First thing to figure is, is my reading acceptable, i.e., does the following seem a reasonable statement of the poem's content up to here: Ok, laugh if you will, imagination if you like — but after all, to steer the log boat, to keep on course, straight, or hard, for the real thing — the periplum, known points, to make them. We have crashed, or bumped down many times, trying to fly — we have run aground many times, looking for sea-roads! (But) The fact is simple. A faith, an eye-touch of love keeps us faithful, wise, and secure in the halyards (where 76

The Correspondence men would be, taking in sail or whatever, in rough times, or smooth). So then — you castaway realist — fuck you. / take up my oar, take my place, "mid fellows," confreres, people of my own faith. For one immediate thing — I can get no sure sense for his use of imagination, i.e., whether or no he intends it 1) disparagingly (which other parts of the poem might argue, particularly "No dream etc.") or 2) defensively (which parts too wd argue, such as "So hard it is hardly imagined ..."). In any case, I accept or guess, that he wants a sense of imagination & its use that will clear it from the usual slop of the poet-as-dreamer, etc. But I feel it, or read it, muddled in context. In these first two verses, also a hell of a scramble of nautical reference, i.e., if one use such metaphor, there is no excuse finally not to pay some attention to the source, i.e., to make the metaphor actual, i.e., actually used, rather than played at for some anterior sense. So it is that we have here, log boats, ships which might run aground, halyards (again sailing ships), castaway (which is very vague in sense used, i.e., shipwrecked realist clear enough, but still that playing with a reference that is not surely enough stated, to be clear finally) and the oar mid fellows - back in the galleys again, etc. It's ok to make this perhaps, a survey of means of navigation, but in two verses it takes a hell of a goddamn scramble. The reader doesn't know what the hell's under him, by this point. And — granted he picks up the Pound quote — he's off on still another tangent that turns out profitless, unless mere Invocation of Pound seems sufficient. Because the Pound refers to "And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows," i.e., this is Elpenor (A man of no fortune, and with a name to come) asking Ulysses, that he set his oar up, his, Elpenor's, as a memoriam, for his death. So that, here confronting it - certainly D/ does not wish to imply he commits suicide? And yet that is the sense, if one picks it up from the "mid fellows," And/or, the sense of to set one's oar up is not, as D/ apparently thinks, to swing an oar in company with others — but to commemorate, or what you will, the death of a man who had 'swung an oar' with you. And this is what Elpenor is asking, here, page four of the Cantos & so on. Beyond that of course is Pound's sense of confreres (a basis for the whole structure of the Cantos, if one will) - and D/ might have had it, had he not been so ready to mimic Pound, and had used any other word but that 'set.' i.e., had said: So I took my oar up, - or anything but that 'set.' One does not, in short, 'set' an oar up, to row with it. But, again, D/s lack of care betrays him into a fuddle he probably wd think me a monster to suggest.

77

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

To jump a bit: this same fuddle once again delved into, leaped into really, last verse. "Toward hell 'with bellying canvas'..." The Pound is in, by now, i.e., that first reference, 2nd verse, wd have the reader (aware of it) on the look-out, and the whole poem echoes, in a very loose, unthought way, both in content and in style (i.e., the rhythms of "Cord cutting the fingers/blood on the barrel staves" are now part & parcel of the poetic baggage for young men round the world) enough Pound to make the influence unmistakeable. So we get to "hell" — very brave of Mr. D/, if you'll pardon the fucking cynicism, but again the usual slop. The "with bellying canvas" comes again from 1st Canto (and damn well wish D. wd, or if he has, wd again, read further), and this is of course Ulysses setting out, on that voyage. Have you read this in the goddamn latin (which I know almost not at all, but listen to these sounds, and judge for yrself, finally, what diminution of this has been accomplished by the time we get to D/s use of it. (Or see, only, that Pound is coming from a source, and very hard & very actually, in the rhythms of this first Canto. And knowledge of this is no surprise, since P/ quotes what I do here, and more, in MAKE IT NEW, where he talks directly of Andreas Divus etc.)158 At postquam ad navem descendimus, et mare Navem quidem primum deduximus in mare divum, Et malum posvimus et vela in navi nigra. Intro autem oves accipientes ire fecimus, intro et ipsi Ivimus dolentes, huberes lachrymas fundentes: Nobis autem a tergo navis nigrae prorae Prosperum ventum imisit pandentem velum bonum amicum Circe benecomata gravis Dea altiloqua ... More than that, why should D/, knowing Gk/, not be coming really from Homer — at least here? Or at least with these sounds, and these things, hard enough in his mind, plus Pound, to make for a sound of his own? But anyhow, back to 'hell.' (p. 44)

... Under the portico Kirke ... "I think you must be Odysseus ... feel better when you have eaten ... Always with your mind on the past... Ad Orcum autem quisquam. nondum nave nigra pervenit... Been to hell in a boat yet?159 78

The Correspondence To death no matter. Etc. But with some slight different sense? Or is the Pound, "Been to hell in a boat yet?", to be taken as a pleasantry. I hope D/ doesn't intend his own optimism as an answer? Anyhow. Here it's 'been to hell,' and the 'boat' is also something else again, or implies a somewhat different reference - it is still, or might be still argued as, D/s 'boat,' i.e., that balance or attempt at it, that way of the man, by his wits, making it somehow, with only the security of his own 'contrivance.' But P/ has been, — or if that seems too hopeful a sense to argue, think of what this particular part is coming out of. (I'm more or less sure, at least I think, this 'hell in a boat' comes in again, perhaps even two more times — god knows the sense of it does. But looking thru, stopped on this one time - as good as any.) Anyhow beyond the hodge-podge of misused Pound reference and I can I think damn well say that fairly - is still the structure of D/s own thot, or what he intends to say, as implied by poem's statement. There are any number of fuck-ups, really, and tho one can finally come to see that a jolly brotherhood, all working together, is more or less the end point for his excursus, we still have apparent contradiction of 'lines tugged/out of loneliness ...' and 'our words together, our work ....' It's got to be one sense, or the other. Or else you can say, one is lonely in company, or a company can be lonely altogether, etc., but you must make it clear, which. Likewise, one has to resolve, as best he can, the 'imagination' puzzle - and items like "No dream etc.," to the end of that verse, are no help. There is also something a little ridiculous about a 'rock of action' - or BLOCK THAT METAPHOR. [Added in margin: And why steer boat into rock??? I hit a rock "with rudder in hand" - no joke!] Or what to call it. The plunging stone? The running beach of sand? All may be allowable, but rock of action damn well seems to be a little too cunning. I.e., the most immediate sense of action one cd, simply or immediately, connect with a rock is either having it thrown at one, or else meditating on the probable action that made it some millions of yrs ago. And this is a problem, i.e., you don't simply attribute senses to things, which they don't themselves basically possess. And I'll be damned if a rock possesses an easily available sense of action. But that only begins it, i.e., what one can so isolate and call, not cool. Why 'the conquered land ...' Is same the 'This ...' following? Or probably This: our words together, etc. But has he got it clear, or straight, or decently put? What precisely is he talking abt? Isn't the whole poem one writhing mass of generalities? Of precisely the kind he says himself he is out to avoid? Aren't every single one of these references to boats & all, poetic in the worst sense, i.e., lacking utterly an actual experience, a 79

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley knowledge of an actual thing, a sense, a feeling, to give them use here, and weight? Does D/ know fuckall abt boats? Or of these things whereof he babbles? Is it not damn well important and relevant that one should? Beyond that — one can go on on on on, etc. - again & again, puzzles of wave-washed embraces, answers, reproaches ...? Why? Why bother? And how abt that: "salt spray in the eye-balls ..." By god D/ should be made, put in chains & MADE, to go to a fucking dock & spend one wk asking men who do work on boats, how the hell the salt-spray in their EYE-BALLS is today. I'll be damned ... [Added in margin: There's BLOOD ON THE BARREL STAVES TONITE!! "Get those barrels out of here! We'll have NO Drinking this trip ..."] And ever & again, the phoney diction (as opposed to P/ where the guts make it, whereas this? a fucking lift, steal, without point content OR pleasure). Because D/ does in fact work at a level of diction which is just as laughable as wd be, say: Saw her reach with long fingers Move sugar to tea-cup Lift then to lips ... Any idiot can do this. And then ... "The Conquered Land!!!!" Why conquered — o well. And at the very goddamn end, when, at last, we might expect some final sensefinallycohered, made, actual - what - do - we get? "nor is there other as salty, as windy as caught in the throat, death or fact." What other? Or again, again, the damn sense vague, unclear - and the rhetoric swallows us up. But jesus god, Irving, I do not see why you think this poem a good one. I hope to christ I don't seem here utterly unreasonable, i.e., I started off I think ok, but I know at this point I'm screaming again — it has that fucking effect on me. I cannot damn well stand what he is doing. It grates on my nerves like a file. So let's for the moment anyhow let the other two by, and if you want to, I can have a go at them too. Or simply say what, precisely, you do like about these poems — and I'll answer with what I do not. Ok. Because it's no damn use having this between us, I know he's your friend, and from all you & others have said, he must be a very damn decent one. But

80

The Correspondence this is poetry, and that by god has to be taken clear of such things I insist. So that, say, I want it clear between the two of us, or obviously I have no wish to have D/ hear any of this, this way. If you think it's worth it, or not that sense at all, but if you think it wouldn't be worse than nothing, I could write him all this, put in a frame acceptable to him - tho, should any of it make sense to you, i.e., these objections, then you could in fact make the points to him that much clearer, i.e., without this possible antagonism my 'approach' (!) may engender. Wow. D/1 liked, i.e., liked his way of it, feel, balance, etc., in that one poem: An Air by Sammartini - tho he will run off, constantly, to "or love, or a child, is born,/or death comes ..."16° And/or: generalities. No ideas but in things:161 it's not funny, i.e., it is for real. The structure, the hold of the poem, must be such that it dictate its own world, of the goddamn world from which it comes. Which is a generality — so write poems, shut up really, otherwise: I will nail that to my own wall. But don't think I bear down to this extent on D/ only, granted I seem to be doing anything whatsoever. Your own poems I read precisely the same way — and how otherwise should I 'like' them, etc. Anyhow in the poem talked about, D/ has borrowed another man's diction, and his rhythm, and also some implication of his content — and had he used this to any purpose, ok - but he has in fact distorted, and generalized - and Pound, and no other, who says: ANY tendency to abstract general statement is a GREASED SLIDE ...162 D/1 think started down same a long, long time ago. Well, maybe to hell with it — only that I would like to hear what you want to say, i.e., to see what I may overlook completely, in going at it this way. I never have been able to give much to any man for good intentions, it's a hell of a fault with me, a damn deep one. But I can't see the damn time, because there isn't enough as it is - and D/s use, here, of Pound might well set back a dozen readers god knows how much time & care - and never let P/ be read for himself at all. The imitators of a man are usually his worst advocates — simply because they are almost always a dilution, a distortion, and a misrepresentation of himself. But I wanted to ask you again, about the magazine. It's in a hell of a fix, i.e., all so tentative, and hoped, etc., who knows what either will or can happen. BMC itself is in very bad straits, they have almost no money whatsoever — right now all who are left there huddled together to save on fuel, and god knows where even the loot for that will come from. The salary at that, for a teacher, is $55 a month 81

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

unmarried, $75 if he has children - so you can see how great that honor is. For us it means board & room mainly, and all I ask. But students are very rare, i.e., something like 12 last term. And if there is to be any of this 'renaissance' you suggest, it will take an immense am't of actual help — beyond altogether good wishes. Since the magazine could be a sign of the college's life, that's why they are so (almost pathetically) anxious to have it make it, and I am asked to edit it as much by virtue of being here (where it can be printed so cheaply), as for any other reason. Anyhow, it will take a lot of doing - and that 'doing' begins, very immediately, with what any one of us can come up with. And more than any of this, or at least to forget the horrors and think directly of what's called for - some actual core of contributors, to be the basis for a coherence of materials, will have to be got or else no magazine worth the printing. And that was why I wanted you in, i.e., not as any simple question of liking yr work, or simply wanting a poem or two you know, etc., but rather as someone whose intelligence & the use to which it's put I do damn well respect, and wd like part of a thing I have to do with, and am responsible for. So reviews of Canadian books is not altogether the point - or not, again, in D/s sense of it. Or what I had myself wanted. For one example, DHL/S Studies in Classic Am/ Lit/ is now out in reprint (Anchor Bk/s) as you no doubt know - and there wd be one item I'd like your say on. I would also like the same on any such bk that can or wd so interest you. Anytime. I wd also like what poems you can spare whenever. And also that you wd take up pen, whenever, to make this or that point in whatever context the mag can excite. It would mean, I think, two hours of yr time a week, either given like that, wk by wk (another job I know), or else lumped as you will, or can best arrange it. Even the time you now take writing me, say, tho god knows I should not part with it easily, wd make it I think, in view of what I had in mind. It is simply to be there, the first thing; and then to do what review & other writing you can (i.e., notes, etc.), and also to submit what poems you can. But it may well be that Civ/n for one takes this same energy, too much to be spread now to here. And that is as it should be, perhaps. Because Montreal is your place, no matter what I said yesterday. Or it is there you have first to make it, etc. But this other context can also be valuable. It will be the magazine of a college all but done, but one hopes, also coming. A new fucking sense really. And one a counterpart of that not only there, in BMC, but in Paris, Germany et al. I think I can show that, if given any help at all. 82

The Correspondence Well, last nite was the equinox, and wild what an effect it has — or the whole village is lifted with it, the turn of the goddamn world. Perhaps it will be the damn sign for me, too. I damn well hope so. Write soon. I'm sorry to be so dreary, on this. But I can really think of nothing else, nor feel myself allowed to, until such time as I see it fall one damn way or the other. All our love, Bob

TIGHT IN THE HALYARDS OR THE CANVAS BELLY Mr. D/ made a trip in a boat of bloody barrel staves. He rowed & rowed, so hard it was hardly imagined. Got home broke, and his old lady sd: what you got there boy? Salt spray in the eyeballs? - Castaway Realist [Added in margin: Also (and not I know pertinently) I don't make D/s crack at divining rods, which is a real bizness & 2 good friends at least both do it (i.e., talent fr/ living in woods etc., seems to go by inheritance). Anyhow it is a thing which works — actually — in fact. No one ever sd to write poems with either d/rods or rudders however. But nothing "ghostly" abt d/rods. Has he ever seen one or one being used?] [Creeley has drawn a picture of a man in a boat beside the above poem.] January 1, 1954 Dear Bob: Letters are a damned nuisance, and a godamned substitute for a chin-wag over a glass of beer. But I want to make one or two points as clear as I possibly can. One: I'm 100% percent behind you, captain; and I'll do everything I can to back you up: reviews, articles, poems, or what you will. Two: I'm proud, appreciative, and grateful that you asked me to come in as one of the contributing editors. I value your good opinion about as much as I do anything in this sometimes 83

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

rather offset world, as well as the epistolary friendship which we have struck up across the waves. Certainly in my own mind I was clear about those two points when I wrote you last, but very likely didn't get across to you because I wanted very much to give you a matter-of-fact picture of my situation here. I deliberately enclosed the poems I did to show you that my limited resources were yours to command and dispose of as you saw fit. You know, of course, Bob, what my teaching schedule is like this year; I have hardly a spare moment to myself, and when I'm not doing something creative I become as restless as a mosquito-bitten bear. I know I have lots of many more good poems locked up in me ... but to hell with that, that's another story. Both Dudek and I are with you in this new venture of yours. We've discussed it many times, and I know he feels about you and what you are doing to make this a more civilized planet to live on pretty much as I do. All of us: Olson, Rexroth, Blackburn, Gorman, Souster et al share a common outlook, a common philosophy, a kind of angry secularism, a poetic down-to-earthness which I think the healthiest thing to have come out of the war and as a result of it. Your magazine can become the focal point of a movement which as you say cuts across all national boundaries. I think I discern the same trends towards a literary naturalism which accepts the world and man's place in it without (the fault of the older Zolaesque, Dreiserian naturalism)163 putting him into a cuspidor and further spitting on him. Have you any particular book in mind that you would like me to review? Let me know by return mail and I shall try to get it back to you in time for your first issue. God, you must be working at fever pitch. What's the response been in other quarters? Now, I feel damned sorry for myself and for you too that I didn't get across all the enthusiasm and fervour which I felt when I first learned of your project. I have your first letter beside me on the table and it really hurts me to read your arguments and expostulations. Well, damn this writing. But you are a bit harsh on D and, finally, unfair. I've known him for many years and I can only ask you to believe me that I have never met anyone more devoted to the cause of poetry and civilization and more ready to make very real sacrifices for both. He has given without stint or reckoning of both time and money, and quite a number of the younger poets in this country have much to thank him for help he has given them in criticism and encouragement. Perhaps in your present mood you will be ready to discount this, but I ask you to weigh and consider my words carefully: In your venture you will find Dudek a tower of strength in the way of reviews and articles. He knows poetry as he does the back of his hand though like all of 84

The Correspondence

us sometimes may not be able to write the stuff up to his best knowledge. For my own self, I think he has done some fair things and one or two fine ones. He's developing. But there's one thing I'd like to convince you of: the man lives for poetry, he breathes it, eats it, sleeps it. And furthermore his views on it, on what it can and ought to do, are the same as yours and mine. Next to Ray he's been the only chap in this country with whom I could make common cause in the war on gentility and that kind of parochialism here which is a blend of God, the British flag, and having the best pork-and-beans in the world. And he's a stout fighter. I wish I could bring the two of you together, and perhaps when you come up here in March or April we'll be able to flatten out any differences which keep both of you from joining forces against the common enemy of smugness, stupidity, and insensibility. Well, so much for that. I'm glad you like Lake Achigan and want to use it. It's yours of course. I'm enclosing LACQUERED WESTMOUNT DOLL which I hope you will look on with favour.164 The pattern I've striven for is the contrast between the brittle surface whiteness of the girl and the 'darkness' of the poet or metaphysician. I think if you read the poem carefully you will see the play of light and dark throughout, beginning with the 'seven Canadian winters' to the 'cascading neighbourhood' (the whiteness from throat, shoulders, and perhaps sequins and expensive beads in a foamy movement downwards) to the 'dark verse' of the Hebrew or Sophoclean. Some special ironies, twists of the wrist I call them, but necessary to the movement of the poem are in the use of the word 'pneumas' (PNEUMA - Holy Ghost: pneuma - hot air?) and 'schizoid.' Hegel's contradictions,165 of course, but in the present context, the inevitable, ineluctable, forever necessary contradiction between the well-adjusted (successfully, instinctively or deliberately, practicing a strategy of narrowness and limitation) and the artist and thinker forever probing among the agonies. And do not overlook the pathos of distance (Nietzsche's) and irony of: IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Do these people even know what you are talking about, even when you explain yourself in terms familiar to their experience. But enough of that too. Thank you for sending the poems.166 May I use them in the next number of CIV/N? The last number of Contact came a few days ago with two poems of yours in it.167 THE CHARM is as perfect a poem by you or anyone as I've seen anywhere. Thank you for the pleasure it has given me. One does not often come across anything as lovely and fine as that. The more I read your poetry, Bob, the more I have the feeling that you will end up by founding a distinct school of your own. Already you have, as I have written to you, your imitators in 85

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Canada; but however much they may imitate you in their economy of language, they never achieve your sharpness for they lack the courage or insight to see that the blade must be honed on their own veins. Well, I hope that you and the family are well. This is the first day of the new year. Our best wishes go out to you and all our love. And for the world, let's drink a toast to peace and friendship between all peoples. Con amore and much respecto, Irving [Added following signature: I sent the pictures to W. If he can't use them I wish he'd send them on to you. I'd like you to have them.] [Added at top of letter: I like your rough honesty about poetry. Please stay that way all your life. I can't argue with you D's poems because I haven't any copies of them by me, and he's gone to N.Y. for the hols. Did think there were some good things in them and hoped you would find them acceptable. But poetry is one thing and, as you say, friendship another. Perhaps after you've lived with them for awhile they'll grow on you.] January 2, 1954 Dear Irving, Being the New Year, like they say, I suppose I should vow to be goddamn well cooler etc. Except that I should never be able to make it. Anyhow things more or less the same, and in spite of the short time now left, I think the magazine will make it at that. Again, would like to ask you two things, namely, 1) have you any eyes for coming on as a contributing editor (which will finally come to, I now think, Olson, Blackburn - and perhaps by another issue, Kitasono, Gerhardt, and possibly Laubies, for the wider base.) Goodman and Rexroth haven't answered and don't think they will. Rexroth suddenly sent Olson a Lament for Dylan Thomas, which was his way of reacting - but not quite what was hoped. Anyhow not very interesting. So 2) could you get me anything more in the way of material, either poems or short reviews (500 to 1000 wds). [Added in margin: what would help the most] I know you have your hands full, to put it mildly, but it would be a big help really - and, more than that, should like to have you in as much as possible on this first one - if only because I'm sentimental - and you write the end. Ok. Contents more or less like this, at present:168 86

The Correspondence Editorial (this is blague, mostly on Russell, Shapiro & D/ Schwartz) The Gold Diggers (story) - me A Fete (poem) — Larry Eigner Round The Year Jazz (poem) - Bronk169 First Snow: Lake Achigan (poem) - you Filling It In (poem) - Leed — blague of a kind170 Song (poem) - Thomas White 171 Alba (poem) - " " The Search (poem) — Blackburn On First Looking Out Of La Cosa's Eyes (poem) - Olson Rene Laubies: An Introduction (note) - me 8 pp/ photographs of RL/S work "C'est Beau Comme Flick et Plock ..." (note) - Laubies Against Wisdom As Such (article / review) - Olson The Name Is Smith (review) - Olson In addition, reviews promised from Blackburn, Cid, Eigner, Woolf, Hellman, Bronfman, Martin ss/, etc.172 The last is doing a very cool one, on Roethke, Thomas & Merwin173 - i.e., kick on 1) inflated criticism (which has netted each much of his reputation) and 2) misuse of rhetoric (as opposed to, say, Hart Crane's practice of same). But anyhow you can see where present weakness lies, i.e., in 1) review section (since promises apt to be hopeful), and 2) stories - tho I think Hellman can come thru, he had a very good one I'd seen, if I can now get it in time. I could also use more poems, and should you have any, should like to make a 3/4 pp/ block of same, if there were enough. But at least I have, now, all but circa 15/20 pp/ accounted for, and in hand. [Added in margin: Actually comes to all but about 5/8 pp! (counting in Martin & Blackburn Provencal piece (in) coming. Just did dummy.] And the balances left are not too impossible, and/ or it ought to come out ok - despite this short time now left. For a 2nd issue, things will be much the same rush, but already I've had promises of material that couldn't be given in time for #1, i.e., both translation & other work. Also it will be possible to bring in people like Sauer, Boulez, von Franz (Jung's associate etc.) - and so on.174 Or if we can make this first issue, sans too much tackiness, then it will be that much the more simple for #2 & subsequent. In any case, if you could manage one or two short reviews, or anything that interests you, in as free a tone as you want, i.e., off the cuff is in fact very great, and precisely what I should want, then that would be a tremendous help. I'm sorry to have flipped writing you earlier, at that point I saw the whole thing dissolving for lack of contents - which would have been the right death, surely, except that it is a substantial chance to have something there for the next 87

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley few years - and with ORIGIN in its present shaky condition, or so Cid tells me, we will need such a thing very much.175 Anyhow do write me as soon as you can 1) if you want to come in as contributing editor (along with Olson and Blackburn for sure); and 2) if you can manage a few short reviews, and possibly more poems, should you have them. I'd be tempted to snitch from this book, but I'm worried about the latter possibly coming out before the magazine - at least that could happen, and of course would be a headache.) Anyhow see what you think. Toward the middle of the month I'll do a card, announcement etc., and that will go to roughly 4000 addresses, so some hope that we'll get a few subscriptions. I also think I can get Gotham's to plug it some, thru mailing. They've given us a good deal on the books, and tho Miss S/ is shrewd as they come, I think she might do something - tho hard to tell obviously.176 But god knows I don't have to keep telling you, i.e., how much we will need you, if you can make it. So think it over again, see what you think - and let me know. Ok. A cold grey day here, with a hell of a wind. The sea looks like it's abt to charge in on the house, all lifted, white - very great. It's hard now to think I'll be leaving in not too goddamn long a time. Probably mid-March now, i.e., Olson wants me to bring over some of the magazine with me, i.e., copies, so they can be circulated immediately — to coincide with opening of the college etc. About it, then. Do write soon. All ok here. Hope you had a good Xmas, and also a wild New Year. Ours very quiet, but thought of you all — what else. All our love to you all, Bob Larry Bronfman wrote he'd seen a copy of Civ/n with Chasing The Bird — and will be looking forward to seeing it too, very much. 177 Incidentally, keep me in touch with what you plan to use etc., because I could have given the mag a credit in this book just done with J/ Wms, i.e., that poem is in it, etc. I'm sorry I didn't know you were using it. Anyhow have enclosed another,178 you say - it's not very typical like they say - but to hell with that. Let me know when you can. January 8, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours came today, and made me feel very damn cheap. Anyhow to hell with it, I hated coming on like that - I don't know quite what forced it except the pressure, tho hardly an excuse. In any case what

88

The Correspondence you say here is very damn kind & generous. I hope I won't let you down. The magazine, thank god, is all but secured, at least this first issue, and I likewise have a few good leads for material for the second. So we are all but out of the woods. This new poem is very good, and I'll use that along with the other - and that really will do it for this first time. So don't worry about reviews, if I can count on you for #2, then very great. Also you go on as contributing editor, you can't say no NOW — voila. So let me give you a run-down on contents (had I done this???), anyhow the repetition won't hurt. For poetry, at present we have: you, a couple of my own under pseudonym 'Thomas White' (I'll enclose them, really for tone more than glory etc.), a long one by Olson (on Juan de la Cosa, mapmaker, the 1st of the New World it's a letter section of the MAX, and very good I think),179 one by Blackburn — very much his kick, i.e., very surely written, with wit etc., one by Judson Crews - I don't know if you know him, or much abt him, etc., he's somewhat of a 'primitive,' lives in Taos, but can be very hard-bitten, i.e., can get very hard sure content - anyhow this one mainly funny, one by Mason Jordan Mason - a sidekick of Crews for sometime now, mainly very open rhythms, i.e., very pure — uses 'Negro' idiom mostly, but I want this one in, this time, for lyric quality, i.e., begins: He when the answer came But no more running away Against night or winter no more no more But He keep it tight in His breathless hand when they nail the big spike home And the vinegar run down from His side180 89

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Well, that's the whole of it. I like the air. Tho one is really enough, for a long time. I think Crews cd be more interesting in the long run, albeit he is goddamn incoherent many times. Then Bronk poem, same tight hardness - this one is bitter, as always - but not so much the Stevens cast,181 as are many of his. And a poem by Larry Eigner, which is good I think - i.e., a sharp bizness of juxtaposition again, which is him at his best. And one can understand it etc. Ok! For prose: a story by me, title one of this bk/ coming - I hope you like it, i.e., last one done now. Abt a madman — tho I wonder! O well... Then an article by Olson: AGAINST WISDOM AS SUCH - very cool, very open — the best. Then a gig by Blackburn on area of Provencal culture. And one by Martin ss/ on Roethke, Thomas & Merwin - i.e., going into bases of false rhetoric, and also criticism that has condoned it - and made it its reputation. It cd be a wild thing - not yet done, but seems to be coming well. And a note (abt a page) on Rene Laubies by me, followed by abt 8 pp/ of photo/ repro/s of inks & oils of his. I hope that will be cool - I think so. And that is the main bulk, i.e., the guts of the magazine this 1st issue. So picking up from that, we now move on to Brief Reviews and I think this can be even more guts finally, or it will be where our biggest spread can come, likewise the bulk of our mobility. This 1st issue not finally representative, in that here I should like to make use of as wide a variety of people as I can find to write decently. Anyhow, for this #1: review of John Smith LETTERS - Olson; review of Contact Press books & mag - me (and I hope I make this ok, i.e., I like it, and hope you'll think it's fair, both to yrself & D/ (I quote his Sammartini entire etc., and yr Mrs Fornheim (space cut longer, tho I like this one, and always have, very much) & all of it.182 Ok. Then a review of Yeats-Moore Letters by Cid - comes out ok by god, good prose. Then reviews still to come from Woolf, Blackburn, Eigner, Hellman, Bronfman et al — so I don't think this will be any problem — in fact I may run over to circa 72pp as opposed to 64, which is ok with me. So that's #1, as of this moment. I don't anticipate any grand changes, and really anything of any length or decency that now comes in will no doubt be held for #2 - which may well prove the same scramble. So anyhow, how does that suit you? I.e., no real bombshells god knows, except that I hope at least we make something that can hold our wt/ for a continuum - and that has interested me more, for a beginning, than to come out ranting etc. Tho I suppose anything any of us say will sound same to many. But to hell with that. The whole thing feels very good, i.e., for once it comes on very damn steady - quite honestly a revelation. There are so many who

90

The Correspondence can use it, I hope at least - and with the two fronts, ORIGIN and this etc., perhaps we can finally get a hearing for both ideas and actual evidence in practice. God knows I hope so — and let 'hope' stop at that. But no matter what comes of it, it's a wild pleasure, in itself, to be in such a thing with you, Charles, Paul and so on - the only pleasure that matters. Soon now I'll be doing a card for this first one - I'll send some on if you want. Will be note of contents etc., partially -just to act as a kind of warning I suppose. Anyhow let this do it for now - I can't say much of what I feel, having you answer me as you did. It was very, very kind of you. If you had known how small I'd begun to feel — o well. I will hope very much to see you all soon - perhaps March, and if not, not too long after — because I will get there somehow. And will, too, see if I can't haul Olson along too. I think he sits there too much, albeit it's lack of money that makes it that way, always. Anyhow we'll figure something. Take care of yourself. Keep me in touch, and I'll do the same. All our dearest love to you all, Bob SONG

Were I myself more blithe, more the gay cavalier, I would sit on a chair and blow bubbles into the air. I would tear up all the checks made out to me not giving a good goddamn what the hell happened. I would marry a very rich woman who had no use for stoves — and send my present wife all her old clothes. And see my present children on Mondays and Thursdays and give them chocolate to be nicer to me. //being the word as it was reported 91

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley desperate perhaps, and even foolish but god knows useful. ALBA

Your tits are rosy in the dawn albeit the smallness of them. Your lips are red and bright with love albeit I lie upon them. And hence the grossness of the act reverberating ever reinstitutes the virgin ground of body and of fever.183

January 17, 1954 Dear Bob: The issue sounds, to use your favourite expression, absolutely wild. I think you've gotten the pick of people writing today: all lively, all down-to-earth, all angry about something. When I was in Toronto, Ray gave me some pamphlets, containing the work of both Crews and Mason.184 There's a good impulse in the two of them. Blackburn, of course, I know through his Proensa and some things here and there. Incidentally, you might be interested to know that Dudek is reviewing his book in the forthcoming issue of CIV/N — also doing a review of Olson's CHCT. He's not altogether happy about Olson, but it'll be a fair review and a lot more sensible than most.185 Both D. and myself are happy to learn that you're reviewing our books in your first number. If there's anyone's judgment I'd be willing to bank on it's yours. Go ahead and say anything you please: give me hell if you think I deserve it. It will not one whit change my affection for you. Am damned pleased that I'm one of the editors. Thanks, Bob, for wanting me in. I'll put my shoulder to the wheel and heave-ho till I'm blue in the face. I'm currently working a short story which you might use — or reject, as you see fit. Would a story of about 5000 words be too long? It's the kind of story which could not have been written, or at any rate published during or shortly after the war, but would be stomachable now. It's the study of a man and his wife who escaped death and cremation in Maidenek owing to the wife's sexual attractiveness and vitality. I met her five years ago when she [was] a pupil in one of my English for immigrants classes. A remarkable

92

The Correspondence woman. The story is called MRS POLINOV.186 There are still some weak joints in it, but I think with care and craft I can rid the story of them. If you're interested I'll send it along to you in time for the second issue. What are you calling the magazine? Before I forget, although it may be too late, do you mind making a small correction in the last poem I sent you: WESTMOUNT DOLL? In the second stanza, exchange the word 'harmless' for 'helpless.' Thanks. I think the former is better, less ordinary, starts a more complex train of thought and feeling. Why DO we have such a contempt for the harmless? I often think that the reason old people are ignored so completely is because their opinion can't affect us one way or the other: they need not be reckoned with, they have no power. The articles you're blowing the magazine open with sound like something extraordinary good. Olson's ought to be crackling good: title sounds intriguing, AGAINST WISDOM AS SUCH. Hmm-n. Anyway, more important than all, I like the way you're feeling about this, seems to have put rhum in your belly-button. You can count on Ray187 and me doing everything we can to boost sales at this end of the world. How many copies are you printing, Bob, I don't recall you telling me anywhere, but it's just possible you did and I can't find the letter. Will you ask Martin ss or any one else you know who might be interested in doing it what it would cost to put out a book of about 30 poems of average length? It's Cid's book, and Contact Press would like to bring it out for him, but the costs are terrifically high here, have gone up by more than 30% in the past few months. He's been banking his best poems with me ever since he paid me a visit during the summer, and many of them are first-rate. A good book has been growing under his thumb, and it's certainly time that he had a volume to his credit. Well, you know the size Cid's poems generally run to and could form a mental picture of the kind of book we want. Well, that mental picture, how much would it cost to buy it? I don't remember whether I wrote you about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation inviting contributions from practicing poets, those accepted to be paid for at fifty cents a line and read over a national hook-up. Yes, something new has been added to our grey old dominion. The sponsor, which in this case is no less than the Canadian governernment, intends to devote three half-hours to the reading of acceptable poems, and if it is a success, measured by God-knowswhat standards, it may well become a permanent feature of our highbrow Wednesday evening programs which are devoted to uplift and culture and all manner of good things. Yippee! 93

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Picked up an excellent book in an inexpensive pocketbook edition. Basil Willey's THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND. Rare combination of erudition and grace. He's got a chapter on Milton's PARADISE LOST and another on HOBBES188 which are brilliant exegesis. The bibliography is staggering. For the rest I've had to confine myself to Canadiana, which strictly between ourselves can sometimes be a very depressing affair. What the boys writing poetry in the 19th century took for granted would sink a fleet of battleships. I amuse myself and my students, the brighter ones anyhow, by pointing out how now this poet and now the other was capable of entertaining six or seven contradictory ideas about Nature and God without batting an eyelash. A chap like Duncan Campbell Scott will write a poem like THE FORSAKEN in which he gives a rather startlingly grim picture of Nature and then end up with a traditional piety which suits the poem about as well as a fifth foot a dog.189 But he's completely undisturbed by that. God and the certainty of the afterlife are such comforts; what is more, have faith, and they are within your reach. There are times when I think that the last century was a total farce, and find myself doubting that the characters in an Austen or Thackeray novel really ever had existence.190 As people they are simply incredible to me. Even Shaw, a holdover from the Victorian age, has lately begun to seem unthinkable - though in many ways an admirable "think." I suppose what divides us of this century from those of the last may ultimately be traced to two things: a somewhat lower, more realistic opinion of Man, and the reduction of God to a somewhat tenuous, lingering smell to be found mainly in Catholic churches. Of a certainty that's no solution to hoary problems, merely sets the stage for possible answers. But it's something to have cleared the historical stage of much useless lumber, etc. etc. und zo veiter. Any news on IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER? Your advance comments on the bk have made me wild - and I mean WILD - with curiosity to see it. All the best to you Bob. Send me a photo. [Irving] January 22, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in — many, many thanks for the picture — very damn wild! Cannon & all - now easy there, etc. I didn't mean it! Anyhow very great to have it - I'll see if I can find one of myself to send back [Added in margin: They're all horrible, so hold on, i.e., we got some film in the camera — can only bust it. We will see] — sooner or later will get you one of all of us. Ok.

94

The Correspondence As it happened, was just in the middle of figuring paging for your book when your letter came. I'm still waiting for the bulk shipment of covers from Jonathan Williams, i.e., he mailed them just before leaving Germany for the States (about mid-December) so ought to come in anytime now. It's impossible, always, to figure just when on such things, apt to be put aside or some damn thing - but always come thru finally. Otherwise, have settled on a paper for the insides, and types I think. I will send you a proof when we get to that, which I hope won't be too damn long now. What's fucking us up at present, is the time they're taking with Martin ss/s book - a short one - but they are dragging their feet on it. It's this new printer, i.e., one M/ uses for ORIGIN etc. But he has the types we want & can do good work, if you twist his arm enough, so we'll keep at him till we make it. My hope now is to have the book in press by the end of February at the latest - it shouldn't take more than a month to do - so hope you'll have an advance copy, at least, by about the first wk/ in April say but I'll be more exact, on all of this, once we get clearer with this printer. I know he can go like hell when he wants to. Also, we are going to try to get time-contracts with him, such as we now have with Mossen Alcover, which keeps everything cleaner & simpler. But I'll write you more about it, in any case, once I know more precisely what the times will be. (In any case all the preliminary work is done now, i.e., order (which I'll make a note of), page dimensions, types, and what paper, — and the cover itself is of course all printed.) Magazine will be called, The Black Mountain Review - very sober, but since the college is backing it, etc., it seems fair enough. I have about 2/3rds of it now in press, and waiting for last minute reviews, etc. I think we'll make it ok. Albeit pick-up etc. But by #2, perhaps less so - but what the hell. Send that story by all means, i.e., prose very hard to get — and if you have anything, the greatest. So send it when you can. Ok. (Also think over that idea re early Canadian writing, if it makes it for you - and also - if you see anything worth reviewing, that's it.) On Cid's book - I think we can manage something, i.e., in spite of present tie-ups, etc., about the first of June there should be a break at Mossen's, i.e., that will be just after the 2nd issue of the magazine, and if the bk/ isn't too big a one, then I think he could manage to do it for you. The thing is, that Paul Blackburn will quite probably be over here by then, i.e., in Mallorca - and Ann will be here till about mid-June, so she could help start it & all, and Paul cd read proof on it, and check, etc., and also do final mailing. That's really better than fucking around with Martin, who is not too cool 95

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley with such things finally - much as I like him otherwise or he does damn well go to sleep, etc. And also why pay the damn commission, if we can figure a way to avoid it. Anyhow costs would be - I think — about $125 for abt 500 copies, say 40 pp/ overall length. Now that may be hopeful - but I wd guess no more than $150 in any case. Call that top - and very probably less. That wd give you decent paper, say two colors on cover & title page, and the style binding we have been using on books to date. But in the meantime, could you write me the number of lines in each poem, i.e., give me titles & linelengths of each (count lines not including titles, count stanza breaks as one line etc.) Also give me a sense of the longest lines he may have, i.e., how many letters and/or count number of letters in a line (counting spaces as one letter, also commas etc.) And then I can give you probably best page dimensions for them, and can in fact get you actual estimate from Mossen - and you'll know just about how it cd all go. I'll also write Paul, i.e., to make sure he will be here — I'm pretty certain he will be, I think he plans now to come late April or so - and by the time you get the above info/ back, will hope to be able to give you clear idea as to how it all might be done. Ok. [Added in margin: (Sunday) We saw printer yesterday and he gave us date of March 25th for when your book wd be done. He is supposed to give us contract for that — in which case, that is it.] Order for yr book (and tell me if this is ok, i.e., trying to get them to fall right, among other things, so poems don't get too broken etc. Figuring 30 lines to page, maximum (with titles) — nothing goes over two as it happens. Anyhow you say) — this is paging of all the bk/ fr/ first literal page etc. [Added in margin: odd numbers are rt/hand pages & so on.] 1 - blank 2 - blank 3 - title & author & press 4 - all rights reserved 5 - dedication 6 — blank 7 - IT'S ALL IN THE MANNER 8 - HOW POEMS GET WRITTEN 9 - BACCHANAL 10 - MILDRED 1112 - FORPRISCILLA 13 - AGAINST THIS DEATH 96

The Correspondence 14 - METZINGER: GIRL WITH A BIRD i r

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 -

n

II

II

II

II

LACHINE, QUE THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT SANCTA SIMPLICITAS PORTRAIT OF AILEEN MAXIE " MR THER-APIS

QQ

"

"

"

24 - SEVEN O'CLOCK LECTURE

25-

"

26 - EARLY MORNING IN COTE ST LUC 0*7

n

n

n

n

n

n

28 - PARACLETE 29 - LACQUERED WESTMOUNT DOLL 30 - COMPOSITION IN LATE SPRING 01 " " a n 32 - THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY 33- " 34 - IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER or

36 37 38 39 40 -

H

n

n

n

n

n

FIRST SNOW: LAKE ACHIGAN blank blank type-note blank

The book ought to come out with a good heft to it, which is what I'm after - to justify that $ 1 price-tag if nothing else - and god knows wt/ feels good in a bk/ especially of poems. Being rare etc. Paper is ok I think, something like this paper used on Olson's ML/s191 — when that gets in. Cover is yellow ground, red & black over it (i.e., photo & types), title page: red & black - and text proper, probably all black with Red 1st caps. Mas or menos — anyhow. J/s cover baffled me for a bit, i.e., what to use with it - so limited here, but think we got it now. So hold yr breath! No fairs looking etc. (On mag/ printing 750 first issue - it's enough. Maybe 1000 by #2, if there is any pick-up.) One thing: cd you note all mags where these poems have appeared (or will appear, as in case of BMR, Origin (?) etc., before the book is 97

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley out - or after too god knows. (I know Civ/N & Contact - but what others? Ok.) Well, I hope you'll like it - god knows I'll sweat it out as much as you — but to hell with that. We'll make it. Write soon (poem enclosed very gt/) - maybe #2?192 See what you think — when things are cooler. Ok. Anyhow write soon. All ok, albeit rushed. No matter. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: bk is 6%" x QVfe".] [Added at top of letter: Will get the correction in WESTMOUNT DOLL ok.] January 27, 1954 Dear Irving, Enclose one of the new booklists - let me know if you can use any around there, & I'll send some. Things with Mossen A/ are going very great at present - he's even ahead of schedule, which gives us a breather of a kind. The mag will be really all set by about Sat/ just Martin's thing to set Sc that went in yesterday, and lacking abt 3V2 pp/ now, which will be simple enough to fill. Mossen printing a card for announcement of this 1st issue just now, and will send some of those too - and if you want any to send out yrself etc., again, let me know. Ok. Otherwise a snag of sorts with this other printer. He was so cool the other time we were in, i.e., just before giving you that date of March 25th in the letter - that I didn't expect any more trouble from him. But yesterday he tried to pull a fast one on us with a change of paper, i.e., we were doing a small card from Martin's book, to send to England, and had ordered a paper etc., and he comes up with a horrible looking thing, and claims it's what we said etc., etc. All of which is a little impossible. Because better not to do the damn things at all, than have them fucked by this man's duplicity. In any case we're going in again this Saturday - and will thrash it all out with him. If it looks as if he would finally botch yr book, I'll then see what Mossen might be able to do — and when etc. — and write you what happens. There's no final reason to worry about it really, it may well mean a loss of time - but not anything more than that. And I should rather even face that, than a bad job. (This printer's work for Martin has been horrible to date, i.e., on FOUR WINDS (the worst job on any magazine I've ever seen) & MERLIN) 193 — and it may well be a lot less Martin's fault than the printer's, who, for example,

98

The Correspondence on FOUR WINDS used too much oil in his ink, and all but ruined it well, did. And we can't take any chance on him doing this kind of thing with the bk/s — it just isn't worth it, even to try — unless he does come on a lot, lot cooler this Saturday. But we'll see - and I'll write you as soon as I know more.) This will also affect Cid's book, i.e., if Mossen has to do all ours, then time is again a mess. And since Ann can't really leave till everything is all but done - I hope you'll bear with me. If there is any solution possible, be sure that I'll grab it. But anyhow, I'll write when I know a little more. I think he could do Cid's eventually, tho that June date may now be out- and probably August, September, closer. But that's guessing - let me find out more. Everything ok otherwise. (This printer also wanted to hype us on your bk/ i.e., wanted to charge as much as Mossen did for Mayan Letters (which is double the length - and also yr covers are all made etc. - and also poetry is cheaper to have set etc.)) But I'll write soon on all of this. In the meantime, can we put an add in for this new Contact Press book, TRIO?194 I.e., would you like that? Let me know as soon as possible - if it's too late for #1, then #2. Ok. Write soon, all our love to you all, Bob Saturday, Feb. 6, 1954 Dear Bob: I'm one lucky guy to have you for a publisher. You're doing a swell job for me and I want you to know that I am most grateful to you. The order you picked for my poems is nothing short of inspired, I could not have improved upon it if I had tried till doomsday, and order and sequence are I think important. Thanks much for including FIRST SNOWFALL AT LAKE ACHIGAN and WESTMOUNT DOLL (please note the slight change in the titles). They do round out the book considerably and give it as you say 'heft.' I sent both poems to Olson and his comments on them were gratifyingly enthusiastic. On the other hand, in a cooler moment, I don't think the last poem I sent you quite makes the book. Not that I think it a poor poem, but that somehow it strikes a perhaps false note in the orchestration, although I've changed the title to ALLZUMENSCHLICHES - or maybe, simply, ALL-TOO-HUMAN,195 what do you think? - so that the stress falls on "how STANDS this crafty animal." ..... And yet, finally don't put it in. Wait till we've both lived with it a little longer. But I am enclosing two poems which I would like you to consider for possible inclusion, now that the publication date has been moved forward. The ANTS196 you may have seen in the last number of 99

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

CONTACT. I think it's a fresh poem, and is my own ironic way of combining Aristophanes and Vico. It's a poem based on the latter's cyclical view of history in which the ants read humans go through their different inevitable stages of development from highly organized space-ants to barbarism and back again to where they are 'magnetized filings waiting for signals' but this time on a cosmic scale that Vico never dreamed of. Of course the poem doesn't have to be probed for the underlying moral, it can be considered simply as a description of ants who have been accidentally sucked up by a vacuum machine and dumped with the rest of the dirt into a waiting newspaper. The poem has excited a good deal of favourable comment and would I think further strengthen the book. ME, THE P.M., AND THE STARS197 is something I wrote about two weeks ago. For my money, it completes everything I've tried to say in the book you're bringing out, IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER. It's man living in a different world, at the end of an entire historical epoch. Man without God, or the possibility of God, and confronting the terrifying emptiness about him without convenient and consolatory fictions. The couple in the poem symbolize the middle-class boarding up the "abyss" with the latest mechanical gadgets, or repairing the inevitable rent in the psyche by "recourse to intercourse." The sage is, of course, Nietzsche, and the 'despoiled berry tree,' Christianity. The P.M. is the State and the frightened rabbit is the constituent, the citizen fleeing from the emptiness gnawing at his heart into the efficient arms of a soulless bureaucracy. I MARK TIME is a punning phrase - and ironical. I think you'll agree that the mood and outlook of both poems fit in very well with the others of IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER. But suit yourself, you're the boss, don't let me talk you into something you don't 100% approve of. If you've made up the book and can't make any changes that way, that's that, and there's no more to be said. But if you've a certain budget to keep to and there's only so much money that you can allow for my book, don't let that be the obstacle, because I'd gladly make up the difference. For both our sakes I do want very much to make this a good book and I think with the inclusions I'm suggesting we have something that we can both look on with some satisfaction. But PLEASE let me know your mind frankly on this. I am only too conscious how this book has been snowballing from the original ten or eleven poems planned for it to the present 23 I'm asking. In part you must blame yourself, because your wonderful letter to me - the first one — stimulated me into a burst of creative activity such as I had never known before. Your warmth and kindliness and faith have 100

The Correspondence meant much to me. Will you therefore do one last favour for me the very last I shall ask you, at any rate about this book of mine. Will you please change the dedication to FOR ROBERT CREELEY. Don't argue with me, man, you're damned well responsible for the book, and in this case the dedication is neither polite nor hollow. I would consider it a great favour to myself if you will permit me to make such a dedication. Will you? I can dedicate the next book, THE LONG PEASHOOTER, to my son. Before I forget, did I ask you to make some changes in one or two of the poems? In ITS ALL IN THE MANNER, the dead with a yaup, B F - as I had it originally.

that's the way the line should read, not

and in SANCTA SIMPLICITAS, But a breath later, seeing that's the way the line should read here, not 'catching' as I changed it to at one point. and in LACHINE, QUE the line should read which lies glistening not simply 'glistening.' Well, that's that. I had a letter from Williams which I shall try to answer some time today. He says he's happy about the cover from my book. The colours sound striking, but I'M not clear in my mind about the photograph you and he speak about. Is it the one about a prick sticking through a heart or not? Is there any chance of sending me a copy of it, I am most curious to see what it looks like. I hope you've settled with your printer. Never mind the delay. What we want is a neat-looking book and not something that has been bungled by a disgruntled printer. This is a shameful letter — all about me. Apologies. Some of your poems are going into the next issue of CIV/N. Also a review of your book by Dudek.198 Favourable. And why not? Also of Olson and Blackburn. Ditto. And again, why not? Love, Irving [Added at top of letter: Rocky Mountain Review is fine. Glad Rexroth has come in. Your first issue sounds terrific.] [Added in margin: Souster made a mistake in Contact. In Composition In Late Spring the last line reads Quavers above my prickling skin .... not Quavers about.] 101

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley February 13, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in — all but dead here, i.e., I'd been sick for a couple of weeks, then Tom got measles, and waiting now for the other two to come down with it. Anyhow things going ok — the magazine is all but done - and looks fair enough I think. It comes out with surprising bulk, which pleases me & which also will make it that much simpler to move. So - not long now. This is your cover enclosed — [Added in margin: I sent it in another envelope, but should be there in a day or two. I'll mail it from Palma Monday.] — it will go on the book the same way jw/ has the MAXIMUS cover on, i.e., cut flush on top & bottom, with the sides folded in & glued (or perhaps not, tho I think so). God knows it's an eye-catcher! I hope you like it. (The prick & heart incidentally, got chopped off in cropping for this size here — I spent hours looking for same (!) until J/ wrote they had had to go. Well, next time. Anyhow - very muddern? What? Voila.) On those poems sent — I'd just been reading THE ANTS in Contact (just in). Very cool! Also, or anyhow - let me pull myself together more, & I'll see what we can add. I'm for it really, because the book is priced at a buck, and hence that logic for making it as full as we can. Only question re the ME, P.M. etc., is that I think gigs like Mr Ther-Apis, i.e., that wild push there, might in fact cut it a little. But let me read it again - very wild things in it certainly. 'I met a sage, etc.' Very nice. Just a few places, first reading, thot continuity was obliging you to go a little slow, as opposed to wild relentlessness (!) of Mr TA/. You see, you do have two or three considerable whoppers in here - Mr TA/, In the Midst Of My Fever et al. They are a fucking hard SIZE to match finally. [Added in margin: Ants probably tho — its a new fuck]. Well, let me read same again - see order & all (and very pleased it made it for you) & write back. (I think as well allzumenschlich perhaps better left out - only Westmount Doll & Lake Achigan had seemed new things, in the context.) Anyhow, anyhow. I am very damn grateful to you for that dedication, god knows very kind of you. But it's your son's book - and I can't take it like that. And also, you don't want to get hung with this, dedications to the publisher, granted it isn't that - but let's be cool. Is that ok? I.e., I don't have to tell you what it means, having you say this in the letter. It's enough for me very damn honestly. Ok. Leave it for Maxie, it will mean a lot to him someday — voila. We talked over headache of doing the book, i.e., this other printer fucking up etc., with Mossen - and he'll do it, i.e., he thinks he can fit it in ok. We're running so far ahead on time now, that I think it's

102

The Correspondence no problem. I can't yet say exactly when, but will as soon as we know. The covers are all in now - look fine (per one enclosed, very wild cliche really, & german printing always the end). So we really got it made, like they say. A breeze. This for just now, I'll write soon again - and please you write too. Any reviews (that story?) you can think of, the sooner you can get them here the better, 30/30 & all that. Did I ever tell you I started Literature as a copy-boy for The Boston Globe?199 The truth! They made me what I am today etc. Well, fuck this. Write. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: I'll get these corrections you note in - too late tho I'm afraid for the magazine (i.e., Lake Achifan & Westpoint Doll etc.) - but cool. They look wild.] [Added at top of letter: Photo/ is wall outside Paris somewhere - it makes sense.] Feb/ 25th [1954] Dear Old Soldier: All hell breaking loose here - boat pushed forward so can't make that one, but one later. I will write when I know. The mag all done but for cover - looks cool. Don't forget #2. Let me hear, BMC. Ok. Yrs in Christ/ Bob. February 27, 1954 Dear Irving,200 Yrs just in - that MOTET is the end!201 I'll take it, with many damn thanks. Ok. Will use it in #2, if agreeable. [Added in margin: for the book too, I'd now say - SPACE is the only problem possible]. The other is more of a headache for me, like they say - I think it's the speed of it, i.e., that it takes the time it does, to say what it does. Does that seem horseshit? O well! Anyhow: MOTET - very wild - the way you move thru same, really yr gig - I think. Life here hell of a wobble etc., just now. The damn boat is sailing a week early, why I don't know — but it's impossible. I have a dozen things yet to do, and to top it off, just found why my face was dragging on the floor, i.e., apparently bronchitis I didn't know I had — which must have been that fever at that. Anyhow I get jabbed in the ass daily, and also a miserably humiliating Suppository, for the nights 103

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

- anyhow, that I have to get thru, and somehow stagger on the fucking next boat, I now think — but I will get there. Ok. As to getting up to Montreal, now — it looks not cool, this time — but maybe when Ann & the kids come, & when I go up to meet them, I cd start a few days early, get up to you, then back down & so on. But I'll work on it, be sure of that. I'm only sorry this present arrival is so fucking rushed — hopeless, for the most part. The mag is done now, real great — all but covers. And I also hope you spell Lacquered — with a G — .... But that's only on the contents page thank god, and poem itself rightly titled, & both actually look very cool indeed. Both are very damn good — the Lake Achigan, especially, moves me very damn much. Because I guess it is so familiar a sense, the quiet there, you make so very damn clear in it. Anyhow I'll have copies off as soon as I have them - tell me how many you could use around there, and you can anyhow have as many as you damn well want. Contributing Editor's Rights, #144-17 - etc. Ok. The pictures: wow. That one of you with the book, yet: how abt that! You should be on the radio, i.e., Over Back Fence & Garden Wall - with Uncle Irving! Really wild, and both you & your wife look the greatest, in the other. By god, you spur me on — and shall try to have you some of us soon - ok. I'm just jealous - that's all... [Added in margin: How CLEAN yr hair is — we've just been getting LICE out of Dave's!] - Everyone in this fucking house now screaming at the top of their fucking LUNGS — so forgive this wandering. Should like to clout them all etc. But they are very great, no matter. Just this fucking lady who comes in to help, in winter, impossible - voice alone wd carry five miles, and air of Authority fit for whole of Spain etc. But summer — she's very great. Just now wd like to shoot her. Well, to hell with that. All your news very damn fine. I'll write you coherent letter any minute. Ok. Also finally got that proof of the cover off to you yesterday - sorry abt the delay, and hope you weren't worried. God knows what I was doing. Write. Will be back soon. All our love to you all, Bob [Written on back of envelope: Irving — would you let me have back THE DISAPPOINTMENT for #2?? I'm short - and could get you something else very soon I think. Let me know.] 104

The Correspondence February 28, 1954 Dear Irving, Call this Editor's Report to the Board etc - #18765432. Ok. As it is, my head is all but fuzz, etc. And all I know is that what I've got toward #2 just about fills the pp/, if nothing else. I think, or hope, anyhow, that once at BMC this end of things will be both more coherent & less the rush it has been. So bear with me, please. Anyhow here's how it goes, and will tell you, after, where the holes still are: Toda Tomoya: Devil's House (story), translated by Kitasono you: Motet Artaud: Selection, translated by Rexroth Blackburn: The Dissolving Fabric (poem) Kizu Toyotaro: A Poor Meal (poem), translated by Kitasono - room for a short poem here, at present Douglas Woolf: The Kind Of Life We've Planned (story) Lucy Lapp: Cold Morning Sketches (3 poems) me: The Disappointment (if ok with you to take it back) — this is abt where pix will go, god willing — Blackburn: The Continuity (poem) Jacob Leed: Filling It In (poem - blague) Ronald Mason: The Poems of Herman Melville (circa 4000 wds) — maybe room here, for a note or something — Brief Reviews: Olson on Curtius' European Lit/ Eigner on Rexroth's Dragon & The Unicorn Leed on Bellow's Augie March Hellman on de Sade's Justine etc. Re those Brief Reviews - the first three are in hand, tho the Bellow is minimal, i.e., actually filler material at best. Short, etc. But both the Olson & Eigner, very cool — Eigner really comes on, as a reviewer, & think we'll depend on him a hell of a lot. Hellman writes he has the de Sade review done, but wants to cut & revise some - but I think it will be in. Could be the end, in any case. And, in any case, there's room for about two or three short ones, or a long one, depending — so see what you can come up with, if you have time. (God knows I appreciate what you've got on your back now, so don't worry. Time enough when you're clear. Also, re that story — please don't be bugged that I've gone ahead with this other material - the same gaping hole, etc., looking me straight in the face, in #3, so get it in as soon as you've got it set. Ok.) 105

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Fix are a horror. I wanted to break out of this Art kick, i.e., not use painters everytime, or even much of the time — but rather, use the space for some of those things I must have mentioned, like Civil war, Elizabethan miniatures, bulls & so on. Which could, I think, be more interesting — and only use painters when such were clearly relevant. And also I am not at all equipped, finally to make much of an editor for same. Anyhow I wd rather stick to the out-of-theway biznesses, because I think it cd be an excitement in itself. To give you some sense of the material - if you remember that poem I'd sent you, of Katue's, you'll have some feel of the Japanese material in this issue. The story, for example, is short, almost 'classic,' i.e., the old biz of vice den, two yng men, the symbols, etc., but K/s trans/ of course is the difference — it's the end: "No sooner had he left Devil's House than a blonde girl drew near him and addressed him with a honey voice. "Would you like to bet me?" She was extremely beautiful. He desired to bet everything he had on the room in which such a beauty lived. Pressing repeat of excitement, dissolving odor of the girl's snakelike techniques, - he lost his mind ..." Anyhow. The poem, likewise, very good - or if you liked that one of KK/S, I'm sure enough you'll like this too. They get an odd kind of Old Wisdom — not to be simple — into their work, i.e., sort of weary & also witty, and also very finely cool. (From what of those people I had seen, during the war in Burma, i.e., I was driving an ambulance with the Brit/ 14th Army - this character is almost fantastic.202 Incredible self-possession, and humor.) The Artaud is fine, I think, and R/s translation very good. The selection likewise. He keeps the line very tense, and very simple. (As opposed to Cid's really - not to be snide - but C/s sort of wobbled for me, a little, whereas these do not.203 Also, thank god, no overlapping of material between the two jobs, but that it is the same man: Do evil do evil and commit many sins but do no evil to me do not touch me do not make me do evil to myself... 204

106

The Correspondence And Blackburn's poem, i.e., the first, is perhaps the best he's written: THE DISSOLVING FABRIC

He who has his own wound cannot speak of it. Nor is there any geography which takes cognizance of it. To know and then to heal that is the rule. But discipline is not sufficient despite our speculations. And there is no one, not the god, who understood it. And the fact is that she withdrew it, the fact is that she owned it. She possessed her own life, and took it.20° The Lucy Lapp poems, also the Woolf story — both make some break from this kind of tone, which Paul's poem & the Artaud especially bear down on. Lapp poems: very clear, i.e., very sane — very feminine I suppose. Anyhow I like the tone of them very much. Woolf s story: sort of a satire, very funny in details. I think it makes for a happy balance. Mason's article I don't yet have, but from his letters, and also from Olson's sense of him (particularly of his book on Melville, Spirit Above The Dust (Lehman, 51)),206 I think it will be fair enough. And I wd like to have some english contact, beyond Martin, put it — and Mason may well be it. (He's in his forties, apparently attached to no group, has written abt 4 novels, plus the Melville book - has some kind of job with gov't I think, plus some teaching, Adult Education groups etc. He is very good, in letters - I find it 1st instance of english tone, in same, I've ever been able to stomach. Most are god knows gooey.) And so on. Anyhow that gives you, I hope, some sense of it all and I only wish we were, in fact, able to do all this more together. Well, once back that will be more possible. But anything you want to check with me, or that you don't agree to, say, or think you might not, or whatever — please let me know. Your opinion means a hell of a lot and I'll be depending on it, to keep me straight, all thru this. Voila. 107

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

In the next day or so, I'll sit down & go back over your book, with an eye to seeing which of these new poems we can manage to get in. I've got to get all of these things set very goddamn soon now. Blackburn's book also to do — also format on this pigeon book, etc. Hell of a rush. We just got a letter from the Export ministry in Madrid, and they say we don't need permits - and hope that will serve to get us by this new idiot they have for a douane, now. I think so. Anyhow this Tuesday we'll try a shipment of Mayan Letters, finally, and see what happens. If it goes ok, that means all that headache is done with for the remainder now coming. All in all, level [of] poetry is what makes it, in this coming issue. With yr Motet, the Rexroth Trans/, Blackburn's, the kind of outswing the jap/ poem manages, and the quietness of the Lapp (lap/etc) - cool enough. And Devil's House - a kick in itself really. The Woolf story is not what he can do, but useable - hence, in. And if Mason makes it, and think he will, that, too, ought to be solid enough. And reviews also shaping up — Eigner's & Olson's make a good base, no matter what. Once you have copies of this first, I think you'll see more of what an impact, really, we cd well make with this thing of reviewing. I.e., as a means to variation, both of tone & of attention. One can manage a hell of a sweep, and still keep it moving. One (pleasant) effect of this # 1, is the movement therein. And the informality, of the format & all, makes it clear of a too simple eclecticism - bound in morocco - like they say. I hope anyhow it's lively. And that some people do pick up - but by god we can always read it ourselves. To hell with it. Ok. This for right now, and will write again soon, abt the bk & all. Hope everything goes ok there - yr picture staring at me here, over the table, or rather you are still intent on yr wife's chin. The other I have hidden under some papers - you frighten me in it! Ok! Anyhow all cool. Write. All our love to you all, Bob Hello Bob: Here's something I finished this morning. Perhaps you'll like it well enough to want to use it. Your news for No II of BMR sounds terrific. It looks like a strong issue to me. Thank you very much for letting me in on what you're doing - it's greatly appreciated. Am eager to see No I. When will I have a copy? Can sell many for you and distribute them in stores. Will do all I can to help sales, you bet. 108

The Correspondence Hope my book isn't giving you too much of a headache. The cover is Great!! Congrats to you & Williams. Write soon. All my love to you all. Irving Wednesday Dear Bob: Am up to my neck correcting term papers and examinations. Doing it, I realize again how impossible it is to teach anyone anything anything sensible or important, that is - about poetry. A depressing business. Parrot-brains, clods, chimps; goddamn it, what is this blasted civilization doing to these kids? It's not a matter of judging them hastily and therefore self-righteously, but of laying a scalpel to a pustulous wound. No one seems to be giving a damn, that a generation of brainless, self-indulgent morons is growing up, drained of all sensibility or imagination, hungry for one thing or perhaps two, money and a pregnantless fuck. By your account, your job is different. You're teaching the subject to persons who want it and who, no doubt, have something, even if it's only fire and warmth, to contribute. That must give you a good feeling. I don't suppose you ever got this remark from one of your students: "But, sir, Jeffers is a psychotic; his poetry proves it, all this dwelling on violence and other unpleasantness:" Of course there is (thank heaven) the rare student who hands in an intelligent & sensitive paper: but such a person doesn't really need me, I feel: he or she is well on the way to writing poetry himself. But I am glad to hear from you that Black Mountain is turning out to be all that you expected of it. Meeting Olson must be quite an experience in itself, from all accounts I've heard of his fabulous height and personality. I expect big doings and big things to come out of BMC. The team of Creeley & Olson ("Creole" - to the initiate) ought to count for a lot towards fashioning a new culture, a new way of feeling and thinking. Out of Zinc, and that sort of thing. Haven't got my copy of BMR. I wrote to Ann, but to date have had no word from her. When is she going to join you? I suppose you've learned that Gorman has won a Fulbright: says he'll try to see Ann if she's still in Europe when he crosses over. The CBC has taken these poems for a national Hook-up. Lake Achigan, Maxie, Two Poets In Toronto. Paid me $34.50 for them, too. Ain't that something? I'm writing this at school. Since I haven't your letter handy, I don't suppose this will be a satisfactory answer. But I'll make up for it in my next. Did I write you about the Poets Festival Contact Press is 109

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley organizing for the poets of Canada? Yup, we're inviting the whole gang of them to spend 4 days in July at a swank summer resort on a lake (through the generosity of D.G. Jones & wife).207 Will write more about it in my next, Love Irving P.S. Will write Olson soon. Regards Monday Dear Bob: I'm writing you this letter in some alarm. It's weeks since I've heard from you and I can't imagine what reason beside illness might keep you from writing. Of course there's the possibility that the Mag has got you properly tied. But I thought the first number was out and, in fact, I've been expecting it daily. I sent you two or three short notes containing some new poems for the mag: Portrait and Death of A Construction Worker.208 Did you receive them? If the first number of the BMR is out send me 50 copies. I think I can sell that many among my students and also place several in the bookstores. Anyway, tell me what gives. Have you gotten the latest no. of Civ/n? As you see, we used your poem because your request to return it to you was too late. It's a fine poem. If you've written anything you can spare for Civ/n, we'd be glad to have it. The next issue we're hoping will be a printed one.209 About 24 pages devoted chiefly to poems, with two or three pages reserved for reviews. I'm eager to see BMR so that I can gauge the kind of reviews & stories you'd like. Or articles. Summer is not far away. I might build up a backlog of articles that you might use, though poetry is my first and best love. I've written a couple of new "whoppers" but I don't think you'll like them. I don't very much like them myself, though one is passable. At this point I don't know whether you're still at Mallorca. But I received a letter from Olson this morning & he doesn't mention anything about your being there. Then again, I suppose if you were in BMC you'd have dropped me a card from there. I hope you and the family are all well. We here are all fine. Bet's having another one man show in the spring - here in Montreal this time. Write soon. Love Irving

110

The Correspondence Tuesday Dear Bob: Still no word from you! Godammit, what are they doing to you up there? I hope you're settled by now, enough to drop me a word. Have you got the last copy of Civ/n? Sorry that Dudek's review wasn't more enthusiastic, but give him time.210 I've collected some poems from a new Canadian poet — Bob Currie, by name211 and I've got a couple of my own. I'll send them along to you as soon as I hear from you. Where's my copy of BMR? Still haven't got it. What's the news re "In The Midst of My Fever"? I suppose you're up to your neck in work. Lecturing is okay if you don't take either it or yourself too seriously. I'd like to come down to BMC this summer. There's a good chance we'll be able to motor down there - perhaps in early August. The CBC took 3 poems of mine - Lake Achigan & Maxie among them. Will be broadcast sometime in June. My best to Olson. Let's hear from you when you have time. Yours, Irving May 29, 1954 Dear Old Friend, It was goddamn good to hear from you, and I continue to feel a shit I don't answer as I should. Well, someday I will tell all & what a fugging mess it was & is. But nothing really a-moral I can hope. Anyhow do bear with me, please — and pay no mind to the innuendoes. The one thing I clear from the past month is SANITY! By god that I do have, now. Your sense of this place is damn kind, well it is good, very good. The hitch now is that it's all but flat broke, we have I think about 10 students coming for the summer. No money left beyond June. Even so, and/or no matter, it can continue as a place at least, if not a college, should the worst like they say come to pass. I really can't worry just now. I feel too goddamn good. About the mag - there too I'm sorry, I haven't had a damn cent to send up copies even if I'd had same. But as soon as this bulk shipment comes in I'll get you up 25 somehow. Likewise things are going well on #2, Ann writes it's half-printed now, so fair enough. Now we can start worrying abt #3, tho don't please - we'll make it. These new poems are as ever interesting, but that's a hell of a word to use to you. Well, you know what I mean - maybe the content don't 111

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley haul enough, viz the rhythms get chopped? And without the steam up as much as it might be — viz other content etc. - the line begins to slow, cut this tight. But fuck that. Ok. You should see the kids grab your stuff, i.e., I read it in the class — and next to god you're it. Really, they get that place you're coming from, absolutely. By which I mean, they hear you. It's very good. I saw D/s review in NY this past wk, i.e., I was up there briefly. I don't know what the hell to say, I'm sorry he missed the point of so goddamn much, - and as much, or more, re Paul & Chas, as with myself. This comes from that old biz of Poetry - what a drag it is. Anyhow I'm grateful he took the trouble, I agree he meant well. So things are ok. In the last two days I've written abt 30 letters, so that's old times too. Maybe I can get back on at last. Really I feel terrific. I'll be flat broke I guess after June, we got $29 for this past month plus the same in eggs, etc. Wow! But what the hell. This is it, for me, now. I hope everything there is ok, all my love as ever to the kids & Bet. I wish I could get up there sometime, maybe I could somehow. But you come down too. Ok. All my dearest love, Bob June 5, 1954 Dear Bob: I know how much you must have on your brain just now so I don't because I have nothing to forgive. You're happy and that's the main thing. Makes no difference where you buy SANITY and how much you pay for it so long as you have it in the end. Could use a little of it myself tho the college paperwork is over and the wind smells fresher. Much. Some of the answers put a hot coal in my pants, what for all the slaving I said, seven months of it, but a surprising number got the drift and wherever they are they deserve halos. Anyway if you can keep happy with no money but eggs and promised potatoes, you're a good man you are. If you're hard up I don't need to tell you that Uncle Irving is a friend. Nuff said. What about the mag? Will you be able to see it through, I hope I hope. Am mad with curiosity to see what it looks like, you talk about the third number, but I haven't even seen the beautiful visage of the first. When O when?? If you have to steal the price of a postage stamp, do so, you have my blessings in advance, but do get the thing up to me, lest I begin to think I dreamed the whole thing up and there's no BMR, no IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER, no Robert Creeley. It was all, all a lovely dream. Something I jerked off in the closet when the misses wasn't looking ....

112

The Correspondence The poems I send you are just something I do from time to time to keep my finger out of my arsehole. Anything I do that's good is something] I've got to do, and that's no shittin' either. Old Bill Blake knew the God's truth when he said the sources of poetry were enthusiasm & inspiritation.212 Believe him 100%. Take the poem I'm enclosing, THE LONGEST JOURNEY. 213 Wrote it with my eyes shut, like a guy having a flying fuck in the clouds, in the empyrean wherever that's supposed to be. Title is from one of Forster's books, which is about marriage, that's what the LJ. is all about. Anyway, you've got my idea of time, as something that's inside of you, a principle of growth then crystallization and permanency, if you're good, the way Velasquez214 is good, or Mozart. If you're not, it's something that happens to you, something that impinges upon you, hits you, like the rain the rusting cannisters. There's more still to the poem, look at the 'author's omniscience' and then again at the last part of the poem. Well, well, enough footnoting .... Am sending along some poems of a friend of mine.215 Perhaps you can use them .... I've written a lengthy satire on Canadian life and letters, about 200 lines, coupletwise, which will appear in the next (PRINTED) issue of CIV/N. And another called BIRDS AT DAYBREAK 216 ... a regular F.F. (Flying Fuck) Shall send you a copy in my next letter to you, though will probably need it for CIV/N. This number is going to be a real corker, I can tell you, with a slam-bang editorial laying about us on all sides.217 After that we'll have to trek north and crawl into an igloo. My youngest is having a birthday party, so there's noise, tears, etc. Some happy occasion, huh? Tell CHARLES I love him and am writing him tomorrow. Let's hear from you soon. All my love. Irving.

June 12, 1954 Dear Irving, I am taking off this afternoon, via bus like they say, for NY - and will be there I guess about a week, tho possibly longer. But I'll write in any case. Yr mag is finally off with this — and damn well do forgive me. They wanted as many copies as they cd here, to impress (?) people & so on — and I had only brought a handful with me. So that was the mystery etc. I'll send up a big batch as soon as this goddamn shipment shows - nothing to date. Goddamnit. But I don't think there's any actual cause for worry, simply slow. Ann writes your book is all in proof, I guess they start printing any day now. So that's something. 113

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

I think yr poems very cool - two I like best (or one I think is one of yr greatest is) THE LONGEST JOURNEY & that one re it's like being hit on the head (wow).218 Very good. Certainly wd like to have first anyhow for the 3rd issue & 2nd as well, space like they say permitting. So you do it old friend — real goddamn cool. You are a gt/ man. Well, have to clean up — impossible but you know. I have to try. And then that goddamn miserable bus, - but that too etc. Everything ok — write me. (If anything quick, can get me c/o Simpson, King St, Croton-on-Hudson, NY.) I'll do likewise. Yr old friend when others etc. With love: Bob June 23, 1954 Dear Irving,219 I am in NYC at present, down in the Bowery or some such place & Miles Davis is one room down, so this is friends etc. Anyhow how the hell are you. Here ok. I think to go back to BMC this weekend & then probably, becuz Ann & the kids can't get over it looks, go back there while there's still money. And I wd rather finally, I don't make it here very well - and should anything happen to BMC it wd be impossible. Well, I'll write more re all that soon. Ok. One thing, very fast if you can, send me copies of poems like Composition In Late Spring, all the big good ones, plus things like How Poems Get Written, i.e., I saw Caedmon Publishers yesterday re a possible record - which Paul had had to leave hanging - and have to get them an ms/ fast or else same thing will happen to me. So send copies as soon as possible & I'll do the best I can with them. Ok. They are pretty impossible really but trying will hardly hurt I guess. I'll see them again when I come back thru. But this too I'll write more abt as I know more — anyhow get the poems to me fast, that's the main thing at the moment becuz I lack copies of a lot of them. So write me - all ok finally. I'm a little tired, at loose ends etc. But have been writing some anyhow, viz backside which you can have if you have eyes. Write me. Love to all of you. Bob L I K E T H E Y SAY

Underneath the tree on some soft grass I sat, I 114

The Correspondence watched two happy woodpeckers be disturbed by my presence. And why not, I thought to myself, why not. THE LOVER

What should the young man say, if he is buying Modess, should he blush or not? Or turn coyly, his head, to one side, as if in the exactitude of his emotion he were not offended? Were proud? Of what? To buy a thing like that?220 Monday Dear Bob: Sorry to hear that BMC is turning out for you. The fates, or something, I suppose, but money in the college would help too. Is that a sure thing, your having to return to Mallorca, or may the cards fall otherwise after all? Couldn't you pick up something in New York? Cid, when he was here some weeks ago, said you might turn to farming again, though he wouldn't swear to that too vehemently. Anyhow, whatever you do, I hope it's the thing for you and brings you and Ann that much-sought-for-thing, happiness. Any chance of your spending a week or so with us before returning to the wifely bosom in Sunny Spain? Hell, you can stay as long as you like. I received a letter from Ann, telling me that the bk was ready for printing. She said somethin' about there being two blankety blank pages and wouldn't I send along another poem to fill them up. I sent THE LONGEST JOURNEY, since it evidently pleased you as much 115

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

as it does me. Thanks one helluva lot for the compliments, they do much to keep my morale up especially on gloomy sunless days such as the one we're having today. As I have written to you before, I value your good opinion of my work highly: you are, I imagine, a pretty fine-meshed sieve to pass through. I like the two poems you sent me and will use them in the next issue of civ/n. Did I write you that the mag will now appear in a printed format? I suppose I did. We're having a poet's festival this week, beginning Thursday. All the poets of Canada have been invited, though we don't really expect them all to show up. We'll be happy if about fifteen can make it, this country is so damned sprawling and big. But we expect to have fun, with an island all to ourselves, a large rambling house, and the feeling of importance we'll all have in being the initiators of the first Poets Festival in the history of this dominion. Ain't that something? I am sending along some new poems which I hope you'll take kindly to. BIRDS AT DAYBREAK needs no commentary, the meaning of that one is pretty plain, and the O at the end tells the whole story in its ambiguity of sigh and delight. SARATOGA BEACH was written to the boys of my graduation class of this year. I have a theory that man's sadism is directly related to his knowledge of the fact of death; he's a death-knowing animal. Death is the ultimate frustration, and like all frustrations it makes him vicious and vengeful. I am astonished that psycho-analysis has not yet explored the effects of this death-awareness on the human personality; of course, I don't mean the death-wish. The other two poems, THE DANCERS and JUNE WEATHER may or may not take your fancy.221 Still have not received copy of the BMR. Would very much appreciate a copy of your bk, THE GOLD-DIGGERS. All our love. Irving July 8, 1954 Dear Irving, Yrs in just before I left BMC. Has that damn magazine come yet? Jonathan was supposed to have mailed you one, but look, write Chas if nothing comes because the whole shipment had got as far as Elkin, NC as I was leaving — they ought to have 1,000s by now. Many thanks for the invitation — god knows I wd like to get there & maybe cd, if I cd also figure some way how to. Larry Bronfman sd something abt maybe he wd drive up over a weekend, which wd give us little time but at least I cd stare into yr eyes etc. O well. I 116

The Correspondence leave here for Spain the 16th & that is short enuf time as it is. But if there is any hope, I'll send you a telegram or something. Ok. Very gt/ that Longest got into the bk. That was a wild one. Well, good. I've read these new ones but let me come down to earth a bit before saying anything. That's a wild end on Saratoga Beach. Thot for the day etc. Very cool. Anyhow will write you decent letter as soon as I'm in one place again. Ok. I think to see those people at Caedmon this next week, I have to get an ms/ together somehow. Think to make it Olson, you, Blackburn & me. Tho it's all very goddamn hopeful. I doubt that a goddamn thing will happen. They started talking abt Good Poetry & that of course is beyond me altogether. Fuck it. So. Incidentally the magazine will not be hurt by this latest demarche on my part. How it works: ostensibly I'm on a leave to go oversee production of same - which it can use at this point. I have till next spring to get back, if we can. Well, that's too far ahead to worry abt. What was that you sd abt Happiness. What a sense of humor. I'll write again as soon as I'm in. Let me hear. Same address, i.e., Banalbufar etc. Ok. Take care of yrselves & write. All my love to you all, Bob August 4, 1954 Dear Irving, I'm finally back - after what seems years & years. But anyhow I hope I begin to make more sense. So briefly, your book is now about in the final stages, i.e., the title page & dedication is all that's left to print & then they can bind it & so forth. As for copies for distribution - that will take more time, i.e., the printer has to work thru Madrid for permission since the douane here is impossible. And tho Ann has been crowding him on it, I don't think he can be made to do very much till the book is done & he's faced with the actual problem, viz do it or no pay etc. But anyhow it will get there & I'll send a copy airmail as soon as the covers are on. Which ought not to be too goddamn long now. About this cover — it's just now that I see that everyone seems to have been worrying about it, i.e., Ann told me about the letters to you and also your answer, which was certainly breaking a business she herself asked for, but anyhow it's better it's out in the open.222 She also told me she'd written you I'd probably not want to buck Jonathan on it because he is hoping to do another book for me this fall with Dan Rice etc.223 Well, what the hell can I say. If the objections had come earlier, and/or not six months after J/ had done & sent

117

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

the cover, then of course something could be done. But while I was there at BMC, he was worrying almost as much as you about the book - and I don't actually share your own objections to it, viz the cover. I've just now bucked Paul's wife on a cover for his book & that was hardly simple, altho she's printing no book etc. But if that is the goddamn feeling, and of course I damn well jump you etc., again, what the hell can I say. All I can ask at this point is that you bear with me and/or I've done what & all I could (and not god knows to whine, o I tried etc.) to make it a good one, viz as good if not better than any book you've yet had printed. So wait & see please. If you don't like it, then I'm very damn sorry. I know it will be too late to help but I wouldn't have asked for J/s cover, nor taken it when he finally sent it, if I didn't think it wd work. So. Jesus Irving, don't let me be simple about this. I know what a book is too & what it means to the man who wrote it. I know J/ makes horrific blunders etc. But I anyhow am or did design this, like they say — little as that obviously means. But you know, bear with me. Ok. Did you get the magazines ok? Write Olson how many copies you think you can use there, i.e., bulk shipment is now at BMC. Also on books, his & mine. Katue's book is also done now & hope to be able to ship that fairly soon too. This goddamn douane is a pain in the ass. Anyhow 2nd issue of the mag is all but done, i.e., all proofed etc., due ready for shipment abt the 18th/, so we're moving some. Write. I'll do likewise. I think it will work out here. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: Nothing happened as yet with Caedmon, i.e., I didn't [have] enough material in hand to try it, but I will from here. I'll let you know what if anything comes out.] August 16, 1954 Dear Bob: Glad to hear that you're back safe and sound. Thought the sharks may have gobbled you up on the way. Shucks, don't give the cover another thought. As I said to Ann I had developed a queer affection for the thing - it's still pinned up on my wall. Her letter re-opened all my first doubts (I wrote you about them at the time, remember) and it seemed like a good idea to let her go ahead with her enthusiasm to produce a better one. But really, and cross my calloused big toes and hope to die, I'm perfectly happy with the cover. I asked Charles to send me fifty copies of BMR. It shouldn't be too hard to sell them among friends and others, will wire you whatever 118

The Correspondence money I eventually collect for them. Which reminds me, did you or Ann receive fifteen American dollars worth of Spanish money? I had my bank wire you amount several weeks ago. That's to go for any Divers Press books you care to send me and to pay for a two years' subscription to the mag. I'm going to review your book of short stories, not for this forthcoming issue of Civ/n, but the one after it.224 Man, you're terrific. I've had a good summer of writing, but I've sent much of the stuff to Gorman who's planning to feature me in No. xiv of Origin. One short story and God and he alone knows how many poems.225 Right now the count is up to 18. I wrote one poem - perhaps my best to date, but I dunno - called THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT, which gives me the title for my next book. But I still have THE PEA-SHOOTER to worry about, finances permitting I'll bring it out sometime in the autumn. We've bought an electric typewriter and can now produce the mag and any books we want by the offset method. I've got a long short story of about 5000 words which I've been keeping for you, but it's not the way you write, and I dunno how much you'd like it. I ain't trying to be coy. Prose isn't my medium, that's why I jumped when Gorman said he'd use it, along with some poems. THAT one, the one he took ain't half bad; but this one, MRS POLINOV, I dunno, I dunno. I'll send it to you, but please if you don't like it, please whip it right back. I won't be hurt. Did Blackburn show you the poem I sent along, THE RED AND THE BLACK? If you think you want to use it, please let me know. And the Other - SARATOGA BEACH.226

How's your writing arm? Gael Turnbull swears by you, even at times writes like you. He's thinking of publishing a short brochure of your collected opinions, reviews etc. That's what I call fame. But you deserve it.227 All our love to you, and write soon. Irving [Added in margin: 1st Issue of BMR swell job. Like Martin's article, Blackburn's poems, the Reviews, Bronk's poem. What have the comments been like?]

Aug 18154 Dear Irving, Many many thanks for that $15, Ann got it ok today in Palma, i.e., via the bank there, & damn well saved us because we were broke. So that makes you charter member at least. Ok. I've been having repercussions like they say on that 1st issue of the magazine, I guess a sign of its possible life at that. Anyhow Rexroth 119

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

just writes, to quit, because he took offense at article on Roethke & note on Thomas. He calls them both 'attacks,' etc., to continue: "I certainly do not believe in such spiteful truculence masquerading as criticism. Further - Ted is, as your reviewer knew, a sick man. Remember what Yvor Winters review did to Hart Crane ,.."228 Looking at the article, I don't literally find it so, i.e., I think first of all it's an attack equally on Roethke (to the extent he writes these poems, publishes them, & so on) and also on the criticism which sustains his reputation. And it's likewise the poems that are discussed, however 'truculently.' Which is more than these men now come up with, in R/s defense. Anyhow I was dumbfounded that Rexroth, of all men, should so suddenly be on the side of a man like R/ — tho I note he recently puts both R/ and Wilbur into his category of good poets etc.229 What Hart Crane has to do with Roethke is goddamn vague at best - and at least, or finally, it's the poems of both one would have to consider. Well, it's a loss, to have him go - he could get angry with good purpose, god knows. I didn't want him on just for a name. But I'll be damned if I'll agree with the above bullshit, no matter who says it. It's hardly 'brave' on my part. So now there are three etc. I wonder who'll be the next, and/or don't leave me. Ok. This 3rd issue ought to go to press pretty soon now so if you have anything free, for god's sake send it, please. Well, you know my usual desperation. Take it as constant, always. It's the one thing I'm finally sure of. I hope I'll have good news for you soon on yr book, and/ or a copy off to you airmail etc. We should have proof on this titlepage tomorrow, or so the printer assures us, after which it will take little time at least to get one copy in hand. So bear with us, tho that wheeze must get a bit hard to take. Anyhow it should not be too goddamn much longer. Voila. Reading Parkman on beginnings of Canada like they say, he's a wild man on these things. Book is, THE OLD REGIME IN CANADA. I got his Collected Works via England - there hasn't been an edition since this one I think, abt 1900-10. Book in hand is 1899. God knows that's usual. So write soon, please. I've missed hearing from you very much. I hope that 1st issue finally got there Be that you weren't bugged. Ok. Write soon. All our love to you all, Bob August 21, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in - and hope that very goddamn soon your book will be on the way, i.e., we've got proofs on this titlepage & it makes it 120

The Correspondence (I hope), so there's nothing now holding it up, and/or they can finish it up & that's it. It's very sharp, really - or that's how it looks in parts like this. I hope the goddamn whole proves likewise. Well, we'll see, very damn soon now. Voila. Otherwise I'd been sitting here feeling goddamn small & useless, i.e., Renate Gerhardt wrote me yesterday that Rainer died on the 27th of July. It seems he'd worked himself simply beyond endurance. "He died in the middle of so many difficulties and troubles ... the last optimistic reserves Rainer had, were poured into business-letters. The rest was desperation. He was so tired of fighting for things others had as a self-evident daily thing so that he couldn't resist a physical breakdown." He was one of the damn few men I've ever both cared for and respected. He did more there, in Germany, than a dozen others could manage elsewhere, in circumstances certainly more favorable. From one goddamn room, sometimes from a tent even, with Renate & the 2 kids, somehow he managed to edit & publish the magazine, do the pocket-book series, write criticism for 2 or 3 newspapers, do radio scripts & god knows what else. Alone they have translated Pound, Williams, Alberti, Miller, Stein, Jarry, Artaud, Cesaire, Olson, Michaux & god knows how much more.230 The booklist he sent me last year of proposed things for their publishing looked like something for 50 men to tackle, with all the money they could get. And yet they had nothing, ever. How he did it I don't know. I do know some thought him ruthless, selfish, selfcentered, greedy — and all that shit that must of necessity attach itself to any man who is committed as Rainer was. There is simply no place for him in a world such as we have. He cares too much, or cared too much, even to goddamn well live. Look, could you perhaps put a note in CIV/N, which is hopeless enough — and a favor too — but I think it ought to be said, i.e., that this man, dead at 27, died damn well from working for things we all either care abt, or do not care abt. There's no question of anything more than that ever. Well, it doesn't say anything. I can't even believe it. I sit here dully not wanting to, selfishly not wanting to. Not to see him again seems impossible, a will like that seemed impossible to somehow 'kill.' It's terrific you're working like that, the issue of ORIGIN ought to be very damn fine. I'll look at those poems Paul has. Ok. And use them, or one anyhow, if I can, in #3. Otherwise do send that story, and any poems you can spare clear of ORIGIN & what Cid needs. Ok. This just for now, I'll write soon. All our love to you all, Bob 121

This page intentionally left blank

Olson at Black Mountain, c. 1954 (Photo Jonathan Williams; Journal of the Charles Olson Archive)

Cover ofCover of Layton's In the Mrdst of My Fever, 1954 (By permission of Irving Layton) Layton's /„ the Mrdst of My Fever, 1954 (By permission of Irving Layton)

Sketch of Irving Layton by Betty Sutherland, c. 1954 (From inside cover of The Long Pea-Shooter; by permission of Irving Layton)

Irving Lay ton at home, 1955 (Photo Gael Turnbull; National Archives of Canada PA-127567)

Louis Dudek at the Laytons', 1955 (Photo Gael Turnbull; National Archives of Canada PA-127570)

Eli Mandel at the Laytons', 1955 (Photo Gael Turnbull; National Archives of Canada PA-127568)

Layton's letter to Creeley of 19 March 1955 with extensive marginal comments (Robert W. Creeley Papers, Special Collections, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri)

Layton in the mid-1950s (Photo Brian Merrett; by permission of Elspeth Cameron from Irving Layton: A Portrait)

Opening of the Seven Steps Bookstore in Montreal, 13 June 1960. Left to right: Henry Moskovitch, Irving Layton, Robert Silverman (owner), Frank Scott, and Louis Dudek (Photo Brian Merrett; by permission of Elspeth Cameron from Irving Layton: A Portrait)

Retouched cover photo from Lay ton's The Improved Binoculars: Selected Poems, 1956 (Canada Wide Feature Services Ltd.)

Postcard from Creeley to Layton, 25 February [1954] (Layton Archive, Concordia University)

s wife, Wilfred,

n.d. (P

Creeley and Blackburn, n.d. (Photo courtesy of Joan Blackburn)

Creeley, n.d. (Photo courtesy of Joan Blackburn)

Creeley, n.d. (Photo courtesy of Joan Blackburn)

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

August 24, 1954 Dear Bob: Got your welcome note, but don't know, can't make out, whether it's a reply to my own or not. Anyhow it's good to know you're settled back into the Spanish sun, and that work and bowels are both regulated. At least, I hope they are. Don't worry over the book's delay. I've waited this long and I can wait longer if I have to. It would be nice of course to have the book wedged between my palms or in front of me on my writing-table, but in my imagination I've already seen and done these things so many times, reality when it comes can only be a let-down. I'm glad the fifteen dollars came in useful. If I can spare some more during the year I'll let you have it towards the upkeep of the BMR * I am a CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, ain't I? Sorry to learn that KR is dropping out, but if it's over the article and revue, he's nuts. I liked both, thought the article particularly well done, not at all vicious or virulent, but lively. You've done a good job with the first no. of BMR and have nothing to reproach yourself for. The layout is a dream, a fine craftsmanlike job. Civ/n will hit the stands in about a week or so. There are two poems in it of yours, as well as a poem TO you by one of your admirers, Gael Turnbull. There's also poetry by Olson, Jonathan Williams, and Stefanile. It's a strong issue, we're going around muttering to ourselves it's the best literary issue ever put out in Canada, not forgetting the venerable ancients of the past. Will send you a copy as soon as can.231 Have had a good summer of writing; did some travelling, but not much. THE KEEWAYDIN POETRY FESTIVAL came and went, the repercussions and after-effects all to the good. We plan to hold another one next year at the same place, weather and hosts permitting. It bucked us up enormously to learn that there were other rebellious misfits like ourselves who refuse to be flattened out by the machine - at least to stay flattened. Ain't it awful? But I don't know which sickens me more — the headlong plunge into general debility, or the self-pitying whimpering of certain poets. NOW is THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD POETS ....

I've added an extension of three more rooms to my house as well as a vestibule in the front. About four years ago I prudently purchased the adjoining lots to our place, and the value of them more than quadrupled. This simple transaction is now almost paying for the labour and materials. What a system! Parkman is a damned fine writer. Each year I try, not always with success, to get my students to read him. The next book of his I've promised myself to read is his OREGON TRAIL, some say his best. I dunno. All our love to you and Ann Irving 122

The Correspondence Satyrday Dear Bob: Yours came this morning. Your poem For Rainer Gerhardt gives me the image of the man and the feel of him.232 When a man like that dies he leaves no successors, no replacements. Perhaps a resolve in some of us to be worthy of his death and to fight in the way he taught us. It's mighty hard going for anyone today who struggles to keep his chin above the murk and filth, it's going to be a lot harder yet. The original voice i.e., the creative one is everywhere being drowned out, in Russia by active hostility, elsewhere by indifference and neglect. The kind of commodity-orientated civilization which huge mass increases in population are forging requires efficiency and conformity to carry on: imagination, spontaneity, individualism are so much sand in a smooth-running machine. The pistol is aimed at all our heads. I wish I could persuade myself that 'silence, exile, and cunning' is the answer.233 But I think Joyce was an optimist there. His assumption was that the artist would come out of the catacombs from time to time and find some people who would listen to him. Sure they'll listen to him - but how if they don't understand what he's talking about? [Word illegible] he's talking to them in some dead Anatolian language? Then what? Yesterday I saw the latest anthology of Canadian poetry put out by one of this country's leading publishers - the Ryerson Press. Edited by two dear biddies — Pierce and Rhodenizer, both well in their seventies.234 The whole aim of the book, selected poems and introduction was to discredit the sharp realistic verse of the thirties and forties the period when Can. verse came of age. It included us - but with the intention of patronizing us and making us look absurd. Of course they're going to get bullets, but there you are ... the herd mind reeking with mediocrity and self-satisfaction, with all the marasmus of piety, LITERARY SUCCESS, and you know what else besides. The blasted thing includes everyone and his brother who ever rhymed moon and tune. And try to tell people that THIS is not poetry. If they do listen to you, they don't understand what you're saying; and if they understand, they won't listen .... It's too late to get anything in this issue abt Rainer. Would you like to write something for the next one? Godammit, I asked Olson days and days ago to send me up abt fifty copies of BMR. Not a sign of one. Sure I could dispose of GOLD*DIGGERS and Mayan LETTERS. But WILL THEY SEND THEM? Why don't you write a hot note telling them to get the lead out of their 123

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley pants? That's where the little mags fall down - distribution! Something that we here on Civ/n are just beginning to discover. What poems of mine are you using in no two of BMR? The only poem I sent to Paul was the RED AND THE BLACK. I hope you like it. It's been put on a record along with some other things of mine. Are you going to use SARATOGA BEACH? Let me know; if not, I shall submit it to Civ/n. Have you any poems for us? The advance bulletins abt my book have me all steamed up. Love Irv August 28, 1954 Dear Irving, Lights abt to go off any minute, but will try to make it. (They shut them off here 11:00, tonite being Sat/ 12:00 - anyhow very healthy etc.) So - yrs just in. And while I think of it, cd you do me this favor, i.e., either tear out or copy that poem I had in recent issue of Civ/n - THE BIRTH OF VENUS.235 I'm going nuts trying to get hold of a copy of it, I saw an issue of the magazine with same in it while in NYC, hence know at least it's there. Just now I'm trying to lock up ms/ of this new bk/ coming with Jonathan W/, & so a bit distrait, like they say. So bear with me, please. Ok. I went into Palma this morning with Ann, found printer had not got the bk/ done as promised, blew up - so now it's to be Tuesday or else. And will hope to have copy mailed to you no later than Wednesday, ok. It is a drag they don't come out & say it, it wd be so much simpler, when they are having troubles. Spanish politeness is mainly bullshit with a smile, usually forced. But we'll make it, never fear. They are a gt/ people certainly. That sounds like a gt/ issue of Civ/n coming, will be looking forward to seeing it. Please damn well do send it, not at all to bug you - but I have seen one goddamn issue of that magazine, namely the 1st Ray sent, no more BMR/S for you, you shit. [Added in margin: Or the Rocky Mt Review either, for that matter.] Two can play at this game. Anyhow all cool enuf at the moment. That sounds gt. abt those lots, — a real estate man is it. How abt that. You're not so goddamn dumb. Try the State Dep't again, they'll let you in don't worry. Anyhow how much do you get for same? And wd you mind being sided by a tent? Let me know. A log cabin? It wd be interesting. That also sounded like a wild get-together of you poets & all. They don't do things like that any more in the States - or it's at the Library of Congress, $10.00 the head. Or something more I think, if it's for sale. Anyhow they don't make it. 124

The Correspondence Look, let me write you later re these two poems sent,236 I am half gone on wine here - Sat/ nite - and cd not make much sense. So. I asked Paul abt that THE RED & THE BLACK (which I'd had a quick look at), & will stir him up to get a copy. So I'll have those all to figure - and will write you very soon how it looks. Ok. (I saw that ORIGIN with all yr poems, and liked them, as ever - but that goddamn chopping is no good for same. Well, you know. Professional jealousy except that that's no way, etc. Wait till you see this bk/ - at least to read. That we do.) So write soon & I'll do likewise. Lights are burning low. Ok. Write. All our love to you all, Bob

Sept. 1,1954 Dear Bob: I already have two letters on the way to you, here's the third with a poem I finished over the week-end and which I hope you'll like as much as I do. You needn't worry abt my getting stuff over to you because Origin has taken so many poems of mine. The fountain is still gushing; and to tell you another thing, reading your stories has re-awakened ambitions in me to write some short stories in the coming yr. Concentrate on that form rather than poetry; good for the latter, damned good, too. The proofs of civ/n are due for today — which means the issue shd be done some time next week. Although we've paid money down on an electric typewriter to have the mag done on the offset method we've decided after enquiries we shd have made before and not after that it wd be cheaper to have Sankey do it for us in England. He writes that he's a poet himself and edits a little mag on his own.237 Do you know anything abt that side of him? I've never seen either his stuff or his mag? Have you? I wrote Olson and Williams asking them to send me the MAYAN LETTERS, GOLD DIGGERS, and the first no. of the BMR. That must have been over two wks ago. Still haven't heard from them. What's the matter with those fellows down there - aren't they interested in selling the stuff, or do they want to keep it for wallpaper. Ray Souster writes me he's also asked them to send various items with the same negative results. All this is too bad because between us we've got quite a number of people who are interested in the work you and your group are doing. Why famish them? Write soon, all our love. Irving 125

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

September 5, 1954 Dear Irving, Let me put my bid in here like they say. I.e., the more I think of Sankey doing CIV/N, the drearier it seems. For one thing, all his magazines look alike — very damn dull. So anyhow let me give you some notes re how it might go. I think immediately you need something 1) compact, 2) different from run of the mill, 3) flexible formatwise. And so on. Myself, I'm very anxious to try something re this outsize pocket-book proportion, i.e., like the GOLD DIGGERS. I think it's a natural for a magazine. With a good cover, I think a magazine like that could be the end. Well, you know. Leave me describe it: 1) inside you could use Mercedes 9 (like the article section in Black Mt/ Review) and Mercedes 8 (like Brief Review section in same); 2) run it maybe 64 pp/ (?). (Incidentally, more on a page than with GD/s, smaller margin etc.) Could also use photo/ insets of whatever - you know, Irving Layton at Home, etc. The most. Such a gig, i.e., 64 pp/, wd probably run a little over $100 for 750 copies. And you could get a lot in it. Timewise, figure a month to print & a month to ship. Material ought to be in hand here about 2J/2 months anyhow, before you want the magazine on sale. Also, now that we're about done on the books, the printer will, or ought to have, more time for such things, making it simpler. And the former nightmares with douane are now done with, i.e., Mossen A/ gets a permit for each shipment, no trouble. So really it could make it. And we'll be here for a couple of issues anyhow, probably more, but after your format was established, you could then turn it over to Sankey, say, and let him copy it. It's getting him to start from scratch that has seemed almost impossible. (He recently told Cid he couldn't change format of ORIGIN because it was too much work, etc.) [Added in margin: Think of how yr poems looked on the page in ORIGIN #12 — this is hopeless?] In any case, I'm serious. If you can use something like that, or if the idea interests you, let's go. I.e., your part there would come to taking some care with the material and/or a business like counting lines on poems, and estimating lengths on prose, etc. So we wouldn't end up with much too much or much too little. Otherwise, it means also giving me, say, something like a review or whatnot I can use or not as I need to. And I can do proofs for you etc. Well, this way you for one thing don't have to count in any 'commissions.' You know, this is for love - and I don't offer, then to fuck off etc. Ok. I care too. What else. But please think about it - I think you can use a decently produced magazine there & I think it wd also haul in many per se - i.e., your formats heretofore have of necessity limited your audience. If we could get something at least as able as POETRY (Chicago) 126

The Correspondence for one, and that's not hard believe me, it will help I think. (By the way you can use as many 'drawing' gimmicks, i.e., for page etc., as you like — costs no more to have plate made than to set same space in type.) So anyhow this while I think of it. Tell me how it sounds. Could get you actual estimate & so forth as soon as you give me precise idea of length & the like. Ok. Write soon. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: Let's face it. The more decently done magazines we have on our side, the better. We can never have too many.] September 5, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in — book finally off to you last night airmail & hope it doesn't goddamn well get hung up in via. Anyhow that's it - but don't worry abt light impression on one page I think it is (Aileen poem I think), they sent out the copy and rather than wait longer, to have it perfect etc., I thot to hell with it, you must be flipping, so here goes. As it was, the copy sent Wednesday wasn't cut properly nor was the cover on right, so that's why there was that extra damn delay. Anyhow it is now DONE. Thank god. Ok. I hope it makes it for you. I like this poem (POEM) just now sent very much — so let me use that in #3 (MOTET & PORTRAIT are in #2, which ought to be in the States any day now) — and count the others as free, i.e., I'm jammed on space, so you use them as you want — and when #4 comes, see what's left, what's new, & so forth. Anyhow I'm damn grateful to have this one to hand, it's a very clear & lovely thing. Thanks. It's always very goddamn impossible to say it. I'm sorry to hear there's all this drag at BMC - Charles I know has had all the work of the place more or less on his neck, and Jonathan left last term (now at Highlands, N.c.) — so that's probably why nothing has happened, though I've written myself several letters to them. But there is now a new secretary there, Miss Able Baker (I hope the name is a sign) whose job will be among other things taking care of just such sending & all. And I've written her you're to get 50 copies of each issue, or whatever number additional, or less, you may afterwards tell her. Also I've asked that she send you whatever number of GD/s & ML/S you want. So some damn thing ought to happen. I'll keep at them, I understand it all less than you - but for Charles' having been swamped, which I can sympathize with, having been there. (Also his wife was up visiting a sister, which never helps.)

127

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

In any case / am goddamn interested in selling both, so bear with me, please. Once the thing gets moving (and distribution at least in the us has gone off ok), there won't be these irritations I can hope at least. On Sankey: I've seen his magazine, WINDOW - harmless, somewhat cute etc. He's tied up with James Boyer May etc. Had been editing a magazine for the Brit/ Poetry Association earlier, which tells you what he was after. Young man, tall, fairly shrewd I think. You have to watch him close on format, he can print a good magazine if you do - otherwise you get ORIGIN, which is still a mess in this respect. Well, his own poetry is horrible & he's a little prick from what few dealings I've had with him — and much of that was a brush at the time we did ORIGIN #8 (In Cold Hell, etc.).238 But you can certainly make use of him if you say exactly how you want it done. His own magazine is well-enough produced, also some of the jobs he's done for Cooper239 - but none of it is what it cd be if these people wd insist on him making format the way they called it, etc. You know, sure. I just don't like him. But that's not interesting. Ok. This to get back, then. Write. Making it after my fashion. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: Could you get me a copy of my poem BIRTH OF VENUS? Dislike goddamn nagging, but goddamn well can't get one. Anyhow when you can.] September 6, 1954 Dear Irving, All excited here, wow. But don't worry, i.e., this is the usual with me & kicks at that, so if it don't make it, then wild, also. But I wanted to send you some kind of page dummies, just to show you the possible look of this thing. That one with the poem, for example, means you can I think figure on a maximum of 30 lines to the page, but better to make it 28, which gives a little more space. Titles wd count as 2 always, & better to figure them as 3. Names at bottom, 2. Also prose goes abt 32 11/ to the pp/. With an average of abt 10 words per line - which means abt 300 words to the pp/. Which ought to carry yr reviews and other possible prose ok? Also there's a gimmick re this cover, like this: [Creeley has drawn an illustration]. That is, you have a fold-over flap, front & back, on which you can put editorial information - as well as, say, an add for yr bk/s back flap etc. It also adds a little more wt/ to the cover gener128

The Correspondence ally, which helps. (Often Sp. bk/s use this style and it gives them a good feel - better than usual cut flush pket-bk style. Anyhow, perhaps that gives you a better sense of how this idea, at least, wd work out. I think for a low-priced gig (or something you don't want to go broke printing), this is it. With a sharp cover (and if I can be any use on that let me know, i.e., there's a man who was at BMC, Dan Rice, who cd do wild lettering, I think, for this reverse style gig. So that it jumped, etc. Very important that cover be sharp, and quick, because thing will go 'small' otherwise. (Like I think Laubies got cover on GD/S to look 'full' - which is not easy, - o well.) Lunch ready, so leave me knock off. And get this off to you. But hope it gives you something to chew on, or spit out, as you figure the coolest. Ok. Let me know re yr time-schedules etc., if any of this interests you. The sooner we got it planned & all, the greater. All our love to you all, Bob Sometime do damn well get me copy of CIV/N - as said, I haven't seen one since the 1st issue. This wd all be much simpler & more certain had I a more precise sense of how much you want to get in per issue. I know this wd more than carry CIV/N #1. Also cd I have a copy of TRIO? Gael T/ wrote there was some fuck-up on supply?240 But anyhow I'd like to do notes on such bk/s regularly, if copies for review are available like they say. Not at all to bug you — I know you've been facing the same thing re BMR & bk/s likewise. Ok. Saturday Dear Bob: We are all very excited to hear that you are willing to do Civ/n for us: it's a great break. I didn't want to ask you because I thought you had enough on your hands without my adding that to your already heavy burdens. But if you offer, we accept. My wife and gang will confer on the kind of format - offhand GD strikes them as unsuitable, but BMR gladdens the eye of everyone. I don't think it'll be 64 pages, about 40 wd be the limit unless lightning strikes. Cd you do anything for us like BMR - that's a beaut, no kidding. If it took another twentyfive dollars or so, or even fifty it wouldn't matter. What's more, I don't want you to spend time on the mag without getting some payment by way of return though your offer of love is well taken. The reason I say this is that we have a number of other irons in the fire which if you'd care to look after it for us — we are now the Laocoon Press — wd please us no end.241 129

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley Fer instance: - there's my book THE LONG PEASHOOTER which we were heading towards Sankey. If you cd do it for us there'd be money in your pocket and blessedness in ours. Also a bk which I'm planning for late spring THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT. I have twenty-seven poems for the latter and I'm waiting for lightning to strike another three times so as to have thirty poems for the book. Considering the rate of lightning strikes in the past this shouldn't be too impossible. Anyway I think it's my strongest and best, the work I did this summer, and the poems do fall into a kind of pattern or unity. If when you see it you think it's good enough to be brought out as a DIVERS BOOK and you wish to do so: well, you know my feelings. Of course you may — I say all these diffidently — have other publishing headaches and commitments but you have only to say yes or no and no questions asked. But let me know if you can handle these matters for Laocoon Press, for in addition to these books we have others coming up. And remember — we want you to reckon your care and labour for something, you bloody idealist! I'm pleased POEM makes it for you. You're an uncanny wizard: the way you manage to pick the best poem, but infallibly, from among a host of inferior things. I said to myself when I sent the poem off to you — Bob ain't the guy I think he is if he doesn't take this one. I was ready to lay odds of ten to one that you would, and not out of conceit in my own talent, but out of faith in your good taste. Godammit what a wonderful world this would be if I could knock off a poem like POEM all the time instead of the crap I so often do. 0 well - as you say, mon cher. I finally got a shipment of fifty BMR'S. I've already sold 20, to people and bookstores. I'm allowing a discount of 33 Vs percent tho the usual discount is forty. This means you'll get 50 cents for every copy I sell and if I sell all fifty copies there'll be 25 dollars to your credit. Now what I want to know is this — to whom shall I send the money — to you or to Miss Able Baker (Lovely name!) Please don't fail to give me an unambiguous reply to the above question. If I get your GO'S 1 hope to do just as well for them. There are many people in this country who are wild about your work and want to see more of it. So send along what you got and I'll see to it it gets well-distributed AND PAID FOR.

Civ/n is out and Miss Collins is sending you two copies. How in the hell, how in the name of Jesus was I supposed to know that you weren't getting your copies of Civ/n? A/C is supposed to look after that end of it, she's the editor of the mag and the chief cook and bottle-washer: I cd cheerfully wring her neck sometimes and this is 130

The Correspondence one of them. Anyway she's promised to reform, the complaints have been many and severe and we don't anticipate any more embarrassments. Now that circulation is up — we've printed 600 copies of the present issue and we expect to dispose of every damn copy - it won't do to be lax about such things. So we've decided to all pitch in and help with correspondence, mailing, etc. That's why I can be so confident that you'll be getting the two copies you're entitled to as one of the current contributors. If you have a couple of poems lying around that you can let us have, we'd muchly appreciate them. Reviews, articles, stories, what have you? My book hasn't come yet so I can't say anything about that. By all accounts it should be here sometime early next week, so until then I'll try to keep my pee-temperature down. You lovely boy, how I should have liked to have joined you in that wine-drinking session some weeks ago; just getting the whiff of it from the letter you sent under the influence of same made me weep with anguish. If only, dear dong, you were able to come here and set up shop - you know we might even be able to find you a job of some kind. Ah, dreams, dreams. How's Ann and the kids? Well, I hope. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, officially our eighth. This morning Max started his musical career by getting his first piano lesson. This means I shan't be able to buy myself a single book for the entire year. What thanks will I get for all this: he'll probably play my funeral march for me when I'm carried out feet first. Nice thought. Sorry I didn't send your poem sooner. (I haven't found it yet; will start looking for it soon as I've closed this with love and kisses) but fact is school started and my brain was in a whirl, I've got some swell pupils this year, two classes that are I tell you, my happy potatoeater, real pearls. Teaching is not too much of a chore when the pupils are intelligent and willing to be instructed. This is the Junior High from which the main bulk of my income comes. My college teaching wouldn't keep a whore's ass warm with underwear .... Life's funny. Last night we celebrated Civ/n with an orgy and to give the issue the proper send-off we all undressed and sat about holding each other's privates (sounds gruesome now). And I thot to myself This is our wedding anniversary and the first time my wife has ever touched another guy's penis. Life's funny, ain't it. The surprises and coincidences that happen in it. But let's save all that for my poems. Do write again and soon. Always a treat to hear from you. Love from all of us, Irving 131

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley September 13, 1954 Dear Irving, Not much up, except we're out another contributing editor. I.e., had not been very great with Paul & his wife, as I guess you'll have known, since getting back. I don't know what it was that was on their minds, like they say - but anyhow it was a little impossible. And last night, going up to see them, etc., got into a jabbing sort of conversation, really his wife (who I find impossible, tho, like they say, one is polite & all that), finally a business about how the woman we have working for us, and who takes care of our kids, is a thief from way back, whereupon I had had enuf, and flipped, and took them both on. Well, hardly interesting - but it was a goddamn deep pleasure no matter. Paul is half my size, and that was ugly enuf, but to land one on the sneering face of this bitch he has for a wife is something I shall damn well savor till the grave. So to hell with it. Today I feel, to put it mildly, a little silly — but goddamnit language gets so filthy, used like that, you have to take your hands to it. Nothing else will damn well stop it, ever. She's needled my wife, and even my goddamn kids - one scene I hear where she had Dave in hysterics, about how he was pretending to be good, etc. Jesus Christ. God knows I had no fight with Paul, except that I can't take such shit from anyone. But to hell with it. Perhaps this thing of 'friends' is always impossible, I don't know. Except I've had some, at least known some men I'd trust with my life. How does one say it. You know, if it's a question of loot & how to hype people day in, day out, - that's not it. Ann needed these two, very much, before I came back, and I counted on both, as friends. Well, I had that to settle last nite, too. They seem to have made it, i.e., earlier — when things between Ann & myself weren't at all simple & the impossible distance bugging it all as well — an occasion for the most vicious and condescending 'advice' imaginable. Well, look, this is no good. Just to say it. Ok. It doesn't really matter that much, ever. I just heard the goddamn printer shortchanged us on yr book, i.e., he printed 500 copies as opposed to the 750 contracted for abt which there is, bitterly, little enuf to do now. But it leaves us with 250 odd covers, but I hope I can use them in some way, for a mailing piece, because it wd be ridiculous just to throw them away. Anyhow I'll be on that the next few days - & get you what happens. Do you think you cd use any? Or wd notice in the magazines make it as well, i.e., I'd otherwise use them for this mailing list we have here — might give it some push, etc.

132

The Correspondence So this to get back & all. Write when you can. A bit dreary here now, tho with the B/s out as of this Sunday, at least will feel cleaner. Again, to hell with it. Write. All our love to you all, Bob Dear Bob: The bk arrived today. It's wonderful beyond expectation. Try as hard as I might I could not tell you the pleasure it has given me. Everyone is delighted with it. Congratulations! And many many heartfelt thanks for working so hard at it — I can imagine the headaches it must have given you. BUT what can you do about the following errors? Can't imagine how they could have crept in, unless the text I sent you was faulty. 1. The title shd be LAC//INE, QUE. 2. MAXIE.

In the 9th verse it should read SCATTER, NOT SCATTERING

In the 10 verse last line, SCULPTURED STONE, not qualifying stone 3. MRTHER-APIS In the 7th verse first line, it shd be FLESHY, not fleshly 4. SEVEN O'CLOCK LECTURE This is mangled up pretty badly. CONSULT TEXT. In the first stanza, 7th line, it shd be NECESSARY GLORY. The word glory is not in. In the next stanza a whole line has been left out (consult text) and also in the same stanza it shd read BLOOD DRYING AND SHINING IN THE SUN AND why is there an accent in the word CLEFT? 5.

THE LONGEST JOURNEY. THE FOURTH LINE OF THE FIRST VERSE

shd begin with a capital letter. The first letter is not RED-INKED! IN the second stanza the word DEBRIS has an accent. (HOWEVER, THAT'S not important, and I believe the accent can be left out. Well, there's the lot. This will again delay the coming out of the bk, but it can't be helped I suppose. Why in the name of Jesus didn't you send me the proofs? But as a certain chap I know says: O well. 133

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

Anyway, Bob, correct these errors — and send me the book as soon as you can, about 300 copies and you'll get back 300 dollars AMERICAN MONEY in very little time afterwards. BUT PLEASE GET TO WORK ON IT SOON. I've sold out 30 copies of the fifty BMR and shd have no trouble disposing of the rest. Haven't received the GO'S. Yours in abt civ/n. Your suggestions sound great. Will be satisfied to leave everything to your good judgement regarding format, but will write a longish letter to you this week, I want to get this off NOW. Don't let these mistakes wither your balls. I still love you. Write me a letter as soon as you get this. Love, Irving BOB, this other bk I have THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT is as good as if not better than IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER. I've cut it down to 25 poems. Do you think you could bring out another book for me as attractive as this one for early spring if I sent you the manuscript now? That is, bring it out as a DIVERS PRESS BOOK IF YOU APPROVE OF IT, or as a LAOCOON BOOK in any case with me helping to finance it either way. Civ/n is yours to bring out and we're collecting manuscripts now so that we can send you the stuff for early November. Most of the stuff will be poetry and I doubt if it will ever run to more than 40 pages. THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER is YOURS TO bring out also as a LAOCOON BOOK, but between CIV/N and THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT (assuming you can handle ONE BOOK) might be too much. Anyway consult your time-table and see what you can do. You've done such a breathless job with ITMOMF that I want to retain you for any and everything else we got. Am even thinking of a book of selected poems in the not too distant future, say sometime in 1956. But to hell with that for now. BUT remember I want you to pay yourself some money for all your work - your good taste and judgment are beyond wage and price. Write. All our love, Irv. September 14, 1954 Dear Irving, Your telegram just came,242 goddamn well delighted & shaking with terror, all at the same time. Goddamnit. Distance at such a moment is enuf to make one go jump, etc. Anyhow - the ERRORS. I'd picked up one or two, like capital A on that 'and me happiest ...,' also the 'catching' for 'seeing' (I think you last wanted it), in Sancta Simplicitas. But since the base sense, in either case, was not ridicu-

134

The Correspondence lously bugged, etc., I hadn't honestly worried abt it. Not at all to be simple, but take a look at THE GOLD DIGGERS if you want to see some real horrors. Again, not to make a biz of comparisons, etc. Anyhow, look, the book is all printed, hence textual changes are out - i.e., nothing in the text of the book can now be changed, on the page. What we can do, however, is print an errata slip, which can be then put in each copy- i.e., if fuckups seem of such a character to warrant it. You say, and I'll do whatever accordingly. I know how any man feels abt such things, hence don't please be shy abt it. And know, certainly, all care was taken to begin with, i.e., I wasn't here then, but both Ann & Paul proof-read the text, the latter twice, and he is as pains-taking as they come I think. So anyhow, it's on my neck, anything that's wrong — ok. And the only thing now, if you want it in, to wit, such an errata slip, is to get us a text for it as soon as possible — because your book plus Martin's ALL DEVILS FADING are to be shipped together, and a permit has been applied for. The thing that obliges us to, is that sd permit entails a date of shipment, hence we have that to worry about — and/or have to get everything done in time for packaging & so forth prior to sd date, which will probably be something abt the 28th/30th of this month. There is some leeway they also give you, but anyhow — that's what we have now to worry abt, and why I bother you with this before I have any further word as to what, precisely, the thing of sd errors comes to. Ok. Well, I'm damn sorry there has to be this to bug both of us. Never goddamn well perfect, is it. Tho someday. Who knows. Anyhow glad it made it for you generally, like they say. O well. All our love to you all, Bob Wednesday Dear Bob: I hope you got my previous note to you pointing out the mistakes in the book. Incidentally —just to make you happy, I uncovered one more. In THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, NINTH LINE THERE SHD BE A period after the word CORE. Look here how about putting in an ERRATA, and listing all the mistakes. You surely can't go to all the trouble and expense of doing all those pages over again. In any case it wd hold up the book for several more months and there are too many raised eyebrows already. Anyway there's a suggestion. If you can get the bk over here within a month I can arrange for pretty heavy sales, so that money shd be flowing your way, that is if you have any use for the filthy stuff. 135

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

This morning several parcels came from a chap called Bronfman in New York and the expressman asked for something like 8 and Vz dollars for duty. I think they must have been the first Maxies of Olson, tho the day before I received 10 and didn't have to pay a cent douane. Now the question is what shall I do? I've already sold about 30 copies of the first issue of BMR and don't much feel like putting that out for duty. I was hoping to send you some money for all the fifty BMR'S in a week or so. In any case I don't think I can sell more than the first ten Maxies that were sent me. Why didn't the chap wait until I saw how they went? I wasn't here when the parcels came so my wife sent them back — there wasn't a penny in the house. There may have been some GO'S in the lot: I'll go down to the customs house tomorrow and see. If there are I'll pay the duty on THEM, and then straighten things out with you. Again, please tell me where I am to send the money I collect. I hope you've gotten Civ/n. Let me know what you think of it, how it strikes, etc. All of us here are terribly excited and happy that you want to do the mag for us. It the best break yet. The next issue will be an even better and livelier thing than No. 6. Do let me know: WHETHER YOU CAN DO THE LONG PEASHOOTER for the LAOCOON PRESS, and whether you can get it back here before CHRISTMAS? It doesn't have to be too fancy a job, tho any polish you can give it will be appreciated. Also whether you will be able to take on THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT either as a DIVERS book or a LAOCOON book. If you can't do them, there's Sankey I might send them to (tho I'm not too eager) or another English printer, the chap who did Louis' EUROPE. 243 But you remain my first love. THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT MUST BE DONE BEFORE May! Everyone is wild about the book. I'm very grateful to you for the wonderful cover, format, et all. It's a dream. All our love. Irv. [Added in margin: Did my story "Mrs. Polinov" come yet? When will I get BMR 2?] [Added at top of letter: AJ.M. Smith told me he is going to use, among other things, the following poems from ITMOMF in the revised edition of his anthology - the standard bk of Canadian poetry - Metzinger, The Paraclete, In the Midst, etc., Maxie, The Madonna of, Lake Achigan & The Longest Journey. What a stroke!] 136

The Correspondence Sept/ 16, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in - i.e. before bk/ got there & yr telegram etc. I've stuck in an errata sheet we did for GD/S, to give you some idea - i.e., this of course that format size etc. Anyhow printer is holding fire on binding till we have word from you, tho again goddamn time is not cool at the moment. But to hell with that. Phew. Anyhow on CIV/N: you know, one thing we've got to be cool abt is, having them look like they all come from the same place — which to some extent is inevitable, but let's make as much use of all this field of format as we can. It is that, in part, which made me suggest the biz re GD/s & send that sample pp/ etc. I.e., I think such a one cd be very sharp, and very fast, etc. I continue to think that BMR has a certain bloopiness to it, but amiable, etc. But remember one thing: anything thinner than that, in that size page, is going to feel goddamn thin & don't think for a minute that don't get into the man reading. My sense, always, is to give as much physical BULK feel as possible, on everything done. The more you can put in a man's hands, so he can feel it, the better - 8c width is the simplest to make it with, not height or big pp/ etc. Thickness, in short. Anyhow I don't think it ought to be like, something like BMR, etc. A new thing, seems the gig. And as said, I think I can cut BMR, i.e. can do a more interesting format, really. Certainly one as interesting — and it is, anyhow, what I had wanted to do with BMR, but didn't want to change format too soon, etc., etc. Does that make any sense? Remember: 40 pp/ of BMR is 80 pp. of GD/S - that's NOT hay, etc. Same cost & so on. And the feel, is the gain I think. Well, you bat it around there. Ok. Alternative size maybe something like MAYAN LETTERS? Tho I continue to think GD/s is honestly it. Anyhow also remember that with 40 pp/ BMR format, you have loss on binding, i.e., that square spine is then too goddamn narrow - and so on. Just too goddamn thin, Irving - I really think. Anyhow am not playing games with you, ok, i.e., you say. And that's it. And very goddamn pleased to be of use. As to other bk/s — as of the last bk now that we're committed to, i.e., Paul's & novel, etc., that's it for us — anyhow until more loot comes to hand, which is sadly unlikely. We're in short broke, actually in debt etc. Which is not very interesting. Also perhaps best not to think of doing any bk/s here till after Xmas — since there is a real slack (with printers) fr/ abt mid-December up thru January, i.e., they get all Xmas card biz etc., then have other work piled up, from same, etc. And we're the invariable goats for all of it. In short, up till 1st of Feb/ (tho the magazine I'd take on to keep yr continuity etc), it 137

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley doesn't look very possible for much of anything. But that one for late spring you note, probably cd do that I wd now think - unless things change a hell of a lot here, i.e., go back to us or something. None of which seems too likely just now - again loot, etc. Goddamnit. Anyhow wild abt magazines sold, and thanks for copy of poem and will write re yrs in a day or 2. Ok. To note it: all payment for mag/ shd/ be made out to: BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, you send all money to them — to it, in fact. Ok. I.e., checks or whatever payable to college, sent to Able Baker, etc. Ok. And this just to get back. Looking for a letter soon, on that other biz - so will write again as soon as I have it. All our love to you all, Bob

B A N A L B U F A R , MALLORCA, SPAIN September 18, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours just in — and think this is possible to make & all, i.e., think errata sheet is our best bet, stuck into bk/ — which means people can dirty their own copies etc., psychologically cooler like they say, and still getting you justice. Anyhow, for the sake of my self-respect (!), let me say one goddamn error is yours, i.e., you son of a bitch you told me (I have it here in black & white, last corrections) to change 'sculptured stone' to 'qualifying stone' - goddamn you, and I remember feeling, smugly, at the time, it was naughty/naughty, etc. Well, to hell with it. I'll get text for this errata sheet off to printer tonite & he can slip it in with copies as they bind them, etc., so not hopeless. (Why we didn't send proofs is that, with hand-setting, it has to be proofread immediately, i.e., 10 day interim in mailing alone, back and forth, is impossible — sadly enuf. As it happened, I had happily nothing to do with proof-reading this one, tho by god as an average it's actually not hopeless — i.e., again viz GD/S read with fever & all that. So perhaps you were spared much at that, what with Paul & Ann doing same for this one. Ok.) Well, nothing withers my balls, of course. Wait till you really see some horrors ... Heh, heh, heh. So be nice to me, Irving, I can get very very nasty ... Wow. So wild it made it, errors notwithstanding. As to other books, as said I can't take anything on of same at the moment, I'm bugged enuf as things are — and also broke, etc. But by spring, granted we cd count on any sale, I'd be game (as far ahead as I can now figure which is not far I admit) to try the COLD GREEN ELEMENT one, i.e., god knows I'd be happy to do a book by you anytime, Divers or yr

138

The Correspondence press as we can manage it - and probably coolest to make it Divers i.e., looks better Like They Say. But time enuf. But again I can't promise too much at the moment, let me take on the mag/ and see how that goes (and copy just in with yr letter, as yet unread but looks very cool & many thanks for getting it here so fast), i.e., get that stuff in when you can, i.e., material for issue voila. And look, I don't not take money because I want to be gay, etc., but because if this turns into bizness, it's hopeless. And frankly any money I cd hype you for wd be goddamn little, so let's face it, let me be simply the one here — god knows it's a mutual front anytime. And it keeps me out of mischief etc. You know - makes me feel real Big, etc. Ok. Fuck it! Anyhow — NO loot. That's really not it, not with this kind of a gig, so forget it, grateful as I damn well am that you think of it — but the push on our books & the mag there are more than thanks enuf. So that's it. Well, let me stop weeping here with love & joy etc., and get this back. I will try to submit something for CIV/N in time to make your deadline there. I'd just finished collecting stuff for this book Jonathan Wms/ is doing, out January, and that's taken abt everything I had.244 Anyhow I'll get you something, voila. Write. (Hope errata sheet makes it for you, i.e., this way — it's really our best bet this late I think.) All our love, Bob [Added in margin: By the way, tell CIV/N editor address here is: Banalbufar, Mallorca, Spain - not Mallorca, Spain - big island, & postal authorities flip having to admit they know Who We Are!] [Creeley has written the following on the back of his envelope: Like Currie's poems - but for way he handles "a"s & "the"s for terminals, i.e., tends to let them drag, rather than go forward — or as even wit, etc. 4th Verse - CADILLAC - the gauge. Other poem not as good I think.245 DUDEK — horrible!! Ha!! Jesus, but G/T/s poem moves me, very much.]246 September 20, 1954 Dear Irving, Let me clear some of this re customs, i.e., yours just in re same. Ok. Under NO circumstances should any customs duties be paid out of money you have got from sales of the Black Mountain Review for 139

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

ANY books of either Jonathan's press, or ours here. I.e., in the first place, it finally has to be very clear that the magazine has nothing to do with either, financially, i.e., the magazine is paid for by the Corporation of Black Mountain College. It is completely separate — in short it is none of my business, re finances, and likewise, mine is none of theirs. And should they get wind of you paying out customs on books from money got by selling the magazine, well, you know, it would be an ugly business for all of us, and hardly what you should be hung with after giving all this help in the first place. So anyhow, to get it straight: 1) Black Mountain Review, completely separate, completely paid for & directed by the Corporation of Black Mountain College, completely etc. In short, all money obtained from sales should be made payable to Black Mountain College, and any and all costs resulting from shipments [Added in margin: of magazine only] or whatever should be subtracted from amounts so got; or, those lacking, should be referred to Miss Able Baker, Sec'y, Black Mountain College, etc. I.e., only to bang on it like this, so there'll be no possible misunderstanding as to what the set-up is. Ok, Otherwise, also with respect to the magazine: you, as a contributing editor, have right to as many courtesy (and/or free) copies as you wish for your own use; and the college has been advised that you have also been kind enough to give us help with distribution, etc., in Montreal, etc. Now as to customs on the magazine itself, and such shipments of same as will be made to you: if Canadian customs are like us, NO duty will be made on any periodical entering. Hence that should be no problem. If this proves not the case & there will be duty in the future, then (money lacking from sales there), again refer it to Able B/, who can either be asked to forward a sum necessary to pay such duty pending any shipment, or else allow you to retain sd sum from sales money now in hand. But, again, do not please confuse the magazine with either J/s press, or with ours. Just, that if you do, very soon it will be utter mess. Well, enuf of that. 2) Divers Press books: a duty will in all probability be levied on any & all bulk shipments sent to you, either from the us or from Spain — and the way to make this as painless as possible is as follows: value declarations should be as minimal as are consistent with contents, i.e., not so low as to be ridiculous, but as low as can be managed without having Customs people flip & re-value etc. Now this is our business, either on shipments from the us or from here — I only note it to show you how it can be kept down some, at least. In the meantime, I'd be grateful if you would tell me what the duty is on softcover books, by foreign and native authors respectively, — in the us it's 5% on foreign authors, 10% on native. The more we know about 140

The Correspondence this beforehand, the cooler we can be in dealing with it. Now that we know they're going to levy customs to begin with. (Also, as to how to pay such things: 1) you can take it out of sales, or 2) if this simply nails you with costs you don't want to be bugged with, a check can be sent you prior to shipments for amount we can estimate once we know what duty rates are.) 3) Jonathan Williams' Press [Added in margin: JARGON]: these books (MAXIMUS, IMMORAL PROPOSITION, FABLES et al.)247 are not be confused with either the Black Mountain Review or any Divers Press book. And/or any costs resulting from any shipment, or any payment for money resulting from sales, etc., all go to Jonathan Wms, Box 518, Highlands, N.c. To explain Bronfman: he had stored books in NYC for both J/ and myself, and I believe that J/ had asked him to ship you books. Now why either acted without first writing you, is of course as much a mystery to me as it obviously is to you. But, again, we damn well cannot scramble the whole works, otherwise we'll have chaos and misunderstandings without end. Viz, hopeless. So if you can help him - and god knows he'd be grateful and simple enough to deal with I think - that's great. But again, I have nothing to do with his books re loot or whatever, nor has the magazine. I.e., certainly we are all involved, mutually, but that has to be kept out of the goddamn money part — since J/ wd be as much bugged by having sales-money from MAX go to pay duty on one of our books, or the magazine, as we would faced with it the other way round. Anyhow, do keep that part clear — there's no goddamn reason why you should get hung with the squabbles bound to come up if it does get all mixed up. So again: 1) all money or costs to you resulting from the magazine should be paid to the college itself, otherwise referred to Miss Able Baker (not to me, i.e., don't pay me etc.); 2) all money or costs to yourself resulting from the Divers Press books should be either paid to me (by check), or else referred to me (as with duty etc.); 3) all money or costs to yourself resulting from Jonathan Williams JARGON books should be made payable to him, or else referred to him. Finally, since it is very possible the customs will be random re these things, i.e., sometimes charge, sometimes not (as with those 10 MAX/S sent you first), the best thing is to tell any people sending you books from the us to do so 1) declaring smallest value possible, and 2) in as small and separated lots as possible - NOT huge shipments of all the bk/s or magazines at one fell swoop, etc. This is asking for it, always. Otherwise, with shipments from here & the necessity we have to get permits (and difficulties that makes for), it's impossible for us to do anything but ship in big lots; hence we'll no doubt face customs 141

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley charges on shipments from here. But by low-valuing, I think we can keep it from being hopeless. But do tell me what the rates are for foreign & native authors — then I can estimate. Ok. Well, phew. But perhaps that will answer some of these questions, all in one place (and forgive repetitions etc.,) so you can look back at it, etc., whenever it isn't clear. And to finish this (i.e., let me get all this biz done & then will write you decent letter very damn shortly): copies of BMR #2 (or of any given issue) will be sent you as soon as they get to BMC, i.e., #2 ought to be there any day now, if it's not already, and 50 copies will be sent you following that. Ok. That's how that will be worked. As to Laocoon Press bk/s, actually PEASHOOTER & COLD GREEN ELEMENT: 1) cannot make PEASHOOTER becuz time is simply impossible, can't get it out before Xmas, nor could I much before end of February — so it is not good; 2) cd I think now figure to do COLD GREEN ELEMENT for before May, so if that's cool, you can I think count on it (barring hopeless accidents & so on). And to end, MIDST OF MY FEVER will take roughly 5 to 6 weeks in shipping, so figure at best 6 weeks from now you should have 150 copies. And when they're gone, additional can then be sent you from stock at BMC. So anyhow, bear with us, please. This just to get this stuff clear. Ok. And will write very soon abt other things. All our love to you all, Bob [Added at top of letter: Also please send me address (and name of customs officer) at Canadian Customs at Montreal, i.e., who these things will be coming in thru. Because they have to be sent duplicate invoices, etc., by printer here.] September 23, 1954 Dear Irving,248 Story just came, and like a great deal about it, very much. 249 I.e., up to circa page 7/8, am with you - think all three are in very solidly, particularly character of this pull he feels from Mrs P/ - also weight, literal, of husband as he comes into it. And likewise feel of that classroom & so on. In fact it's just this solidness that makes the bug, in that what then follows seems a little wispy? And/or when you get to overt business of what happened, for one thing you're bucking drag of any 'memory' in a narrative - or, put it, the difficulty of opposing past to present in any sense and the like necessity to keep both present, literal. It's not so much that things go private, once they begin reminiscing - but that they go both a little general and softer 142

The Correspondence — which is an irony thinking of what it's about. Anyhow let me put it that you've set up a real human bizness, to wit, teacher's feel of this woman, those breasts, her way of moving, getting under his guard & so forth, and the play of same is very great - and then you set in this husband, i.e., weight, a real heavy solid bizness likewise, nothing at all simple. And in any case you have this three-way biz possible, a very tight, close & actual position. But - and here's the rub for me — you then have the wife/husband tell It - and somehow It is not at all enuf, or not to have all that steam go pffft so simply. Or I think teacher goes pffft almost too simply. Likewise, isn't this (I mean in context, not against your experience of it etc.) too easy: "All the brightness seemed to have gone out of her and she seemed quite old ..." Said who, etc. Somehow this teacher turns into an equally wooden and 'pathetic' figure at the end - his own bowels likewise disengaged. "He looked at the pathetic couple facing him ..."Jesus christ? Well, you know. Just that so much as it is, is backed up there - that think the denouement like they say both a bit quick & a bit simple. Too simple, really, to engage the reader as the opening parts do, very damn much. Somehow what begins as a real goddamn live interchange between 3 real live etc. people, turns into a War Story - and that, for me, is the damn shame. Try as you do, and as capably as you do, there, at the end - i.e., 'tip of her tongue' etc. - you're fighting a goddamn losing battle I think. Viz, someone's turned the lites off - and that's hopeless. Well, don't let me bug you, please I wouldn't run on, like they say, if I hadn't felt all that opening was so very damn solid & fine. It seems you have these 3 so certainly, i.e., so much a fist, and then to smash same on this wall you choose - I don't see it. It seems it's precisely the sexual which gets dropped, i.e., does not operate in the biz she has apparently been involved with, to save her husband etc. Somehow that all stays a matter of slipping past guards at RR/ stations - and too open to hold. But let me shut up. Ok. This just to get back - I'll write again soon. Also will get the story back to you, under separate cover like they say. Write. Errata slip went to printer today — should have proofs in a couple of days & that's that. Please don't let me bug you in any case, and please send anything else you have as you have it. That's it. All our love to you all, Bob Later Irving, I have some damn bitter news on the magazine, i.e., CIV/N. Ann is just back from seeing Mossen - abt 3rd issue of BMR & also this 143

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley novel he's been on for about 8 months, i.e., from before I left for the States. These were both to have been done by October 22nd at the latest — but today he told her he can't do the novel by then, and can only do the magazine by dropping the novel for the time-being & so on. In short, it's a hell of a mess — and I would be goddamn vicious to let you think I can promise a goddamn thing time-wise on any magazine, book or whatever. She was also told that beginning next year he is so full up with work that he can print NO books — tho he then said, perhaps a small one, and the BMR as well. Since I'm committed to doing the latter here, i.e., I have my leave of absence specifically to manage printing here & get it moving decently, etc., that has of necessity to be our main consideration. In short, facing this present goddamn mess - and all the patent deceit & bullshit that's been so usual here all along with Mossen (no matter what the books look like, & don't think that's ever goddamn simple) - I think, much against my own goddamn will, you're better advised to look to Sankey, for doing CIV/N. What I can do is tackle MA/ myself, on simple basis of, look, do you want the job or not, this man is waiting, etc. — and hope his avariciousness will fall our way. Tho again, as I must make clear, it is no guarantee for any timelimits or the like. He can drag his feet endlessly, and of course will. But if you don't put out the magazine on a seasonal basis, i.e., simply use numbers, like 1, 2, 3 etc as you have in the past — well, that might not be too hopeless, supposing some delay was inevitable now & again. And it certainly will be, I damn well think. But at the moment I can't let you forfeit what arrangements you might be able to make with Sankey, on the hope (or really all these assurances) I have given you. Well, look - let me do this, before we go any farther, i.e., write Mossen tonite, and ask him point-blank if he wants the work. Then if he says yes, or whatever, I'll be in Palma this coming Wednesday, and can take it up further with him then. But anyhow I have to warn you - both with respect to CIV/N and any other plans to print books here. God knows it is nothing I want, i.e., I hope you'll know I'd do it if it were my own ay. But this man can so fuck things up, and so simply, that it's no good saying / can do anything, when it will be literally what he will or will not do. Ok. So hold yr hat for the moment. I'll get it from him in black & white — tho god knows again his assurances mean absolutely nothing — but at least we'll see how determined he is either to have the work in question or not to have it, whichever.

144

The Correspondence September 24, 1954 Dear Irving, Again, I'm sorry about that miserable news, i.e., that Mossen A/ is pulling this shit at this late date. I had looked forward as much to doing the magazine here as you might have, really. Because it's literally something to be doing, and a pleasure per se. However, it may be that I'm too pessimistic, and once I have some further word from him, I'll write again more exactly. Yet it did seem stupid not to tell you in any case, because I'll have fucked you up enough as it is. Things not generally very great - tho it may be simply my own feeling, like they say. And perhaps I can think of something to yank me out of it. I had thought to try a novel - but after about a chapter, I can't make it at the moment, I just don't feel the room it takes which is self-indulgent, as ever, but it's no good going at it as tho it were so much dirt to be shovelled, etc. Anyhow I feel a goddamn deep kind of block, somewhere - sometimes that can even be a pleasure, i.e., proverbial wall against which to hurl one's miserable carcass - but this time, it's like no goddamn place to put one's feet, i.e., no next step & so forth. Very dreary. Tho I won't, still have the persistent feeling, would be a good thing to toss out everything, even give it up for a year or so — i.e., try anything but 'writing' like they say. I've so blocked myself in this two-line structure, and likewise so laid a rhythm for myself, in the stories, if I don't smash it somehow that's that. Viz, not very interesting. Likewise I'm sick to death of all the finegaling it takes with this magazine, even after three issues - i.e., getting the stuff for same. Tho again I won't give it up, because I don't see another use for myself, at the moment. And that latter part gets goddamn weary but anyhow equally necessary. Well, to hell with that. I wish it were something simple enough to take aspirin or whatever for, but it doesn't seem to be. You know - it gets: if I read another goddamn horror, I'll flip, etc. 'Good' poems get not at all enough, etc. Not at all a question of what, say, one is writing oneself, like they also say - but that really I am on the last goddamn vol/ of Parkman, and after that it looks like total goddamn fog. Well, I can read Shakespeare again, like they say - why not. For me it gets to be an ever goddamn narrowing circle, i.e., as to what can hold one's attention - and at this point, it's Stendhal, Williams, Pound's criticism (in spite of Eliot), Lawrence (sometimes anyhow, and very damn moved by him, as he got into the class, at BMC etc.), & odds & ends. I liked yr POEM250 really because you work from such a flat & open surface - a very 'honest' one, if that is not too ridiculous. One idea I had last nite, something to answer this mess of distribution & the like: to see if Jonathan can't be persuaded to set up as 145

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

"Jonathan Williams Associates," i.e., to act as Am/ 'publisher' for a number of these small press books. Some center for them would, I think, be of great use - and/or whereas now we fuck along, each trying to get the stuff into bookstores separately & so on, a join of this kind would be of great advantage in dealing with sd booksellers. It would also allow a list, say, of greater wt/ than what each of us alone can now manage. For example, on this trip west he's making, he'll be trying to place Merlin books, our books, Contact Press books, and his own. The difficulty is that in each case he has to refer the dealers back to individual presses, which makes for more paperwork, less confidence, & so on. Can you see what I mean? I.e., supposing he were able to make it simply: jw/ Associates, Fall 1954: Olson, Maximus Poems; Olson, Mayan Letters; Canadian Poems, edited by Layton & Dudek; Watt, Beckett; Layton, In The Midst of My Fever, etc., etc., — I think that would gain us all more. The only other relevant thing to note wd be that a level of production wd have to be kept fairly strictly, i.e., much that bugs the usual small press with such dealers is that they have no eyes for any 'pamphlets' - they are hard to display, don't hold up well in handling, & so on. I.e., more a clutter than anything else. And paperbacks are, in themselves, difficult enough to get in. But anyhow were there to be a central stock, of each book that did answer to such a level, there in the us, and if J/ cd both advertise & circulate a list for same, under guise of jw/ Assoc/, I think it would be to everyone's profit. And/or Contact or Laocoon bk/s say wd get the advantage of Merlin or D/Press bk/s, and vice-versa. Does that make any sense? It would mean, otherwise, not say including such things as The Kind Of Act Of, From The Sustaining Air - and any publication not actually either a book (as say Mayan Letters or Watt (Beckett)) or else some 'de luxe' edition (like MAX or even this book just done of Kitasono's, 4/ color printing etc.). But the distribution nightmare has got to be bucked, if the whole thing isn't to collapse. J/ himself wd profit I think from the added wt/ and since he intends to apply for a Guggenheim, in printing, his association with such presses is going to be to his advantage, i.e., gives him that much more range etc. Merlin of course may well not have eyes, tho Trocchi is a shrewd man & at present they're not getting much circulation on books in the us — so I think he might well have eyes. Actually, contents ought even to be ignored — by which I mean, if that becomes a criterion, very soon it will lapse into battle of taste. Any one of sd presses has god knows the right to print anything they care to — and it should be only on a basis of what the book looks like, i.e., its character qua production, that they are 146

The Correspondence accepted for such distribution, or not. (J/ himself of course wd be out I think on some such item like the book he did for me - which is Bookseller's Nightmare, at best.) Anyhow that's the kind of doodling I get to these days. I'm not at all confident that a stir here there or the other place makes the least damn bit of difference. Until the books literally get around, the activity stays so confined, and circumscribed by a few zealous idiots frankly, it doesn't much matter one damn way or the other. Well, it's almost too simple to make it with friends, like they say, always. I mean, I have lost all interest in the self-protective 'little magazine' per se and continue to think CONTACT was a rare instance, in that Souster did manage a goddamn fine diversity & reach - which, in that format & with the obvious limits, was not goddamn hay — well, I think, etc. To hell with it. I'll put some poems in, and if there's anything you'd want a review of, or they wd, ever, let me know. Cd make it I think. I'll also try to send a story sometime, when things are less grim & all & I have one free. Also tell me if it bugs the editor of CIV/N, to have me submit via you. I.e., don't want to crowd them or anything. Ok. I'm damn grateful for their interest as it is. So this for the moment, back to the floor etc. Ok. Write soon. All our love to you all, Bob September 24 (later)251 Dear Irving, Here is the final goddamn straw I'm afraid, i.e., in trying to get permits to ship your book out, it now appears that we cannot obtain shipping permits for stuff going directly to Canada (or any other country in the 'dollar area,' with the obvious exception of the U.S.) Apparently this has something to do with trade agreements, concerning which we had been in ignorance. In any case, to ship either CIV/N, or any subsequent book, via the U.S. means extra shipping costs in both cases, and loss of time in the former, and double duties (on books) in the latter — which seems hopeless. In other words, without permits, we can get no large shipment past the customs here — it is one son of a bitch in charge, etc. So I think you're now best advised to literally forget doing either books or mag here - again, I am goddamn bitter & sorry to have to say so, as I damn well hope you'll know. As to IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER - I will do my best to get you the 150 copies noted, on my own hook, i.e., without a permit, since the 147

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

reshipping of that amount in bulk for the U.S. will be too expensive, i.e., customs again, and more duty. (Customs incidentally between U.S. and Canada is one of the most vicious in the world I hear - I think they're in the practice of charging customs, say, on Canadian passengers returning from Europe at NYC, and then again when they go over into Canada - no matter they get a train directly etc.) Anyhow what I shall do with sd books is ship them out in small lots (of I now guess 15 books per) over a period of roughly a month - i.e., if we excite the douane's attention, then he confiscates them & that is damn well that. So bear with me, please. Also can you send me about 6 or 7 addresses, of people there in Montreal — so I will not have to address all the packages to you? It would be a considerable help I think. (We have faced this miserable problem with Cid's ORIGIN #11, fucked up by Martin who neglected to get said permit - hence they had to go out slowly, in small packages, - and we're still damn well sending them this long after.)252 But I think ITMOF can make it faster, being lighter etc. Well, I'll do my best, and will begin directly this errata sheet is printed. (Note: he sent a proof along with this letter, and I'll mail it back to him tonight, etc.) Again, I am goddamn sorry — it looked so christly possible, and here it is damn well licked before we begin. I.e., Mossen (that's the Sr Ripoll he refers to) got this information in Madrid - and there's simply no one else to ask and nowhere else to go, i.e., what they say in Madrid is it. Well, fuck it. God knows it is goddamn dreary and I am very damn sorry to have got your hopes up. All our love to you all, Bob September 27, 1954 Dear Bob: All your letters in, two of them topping the lot in today's mail. Some of the news happy, others sad. Sorry to learn that you won't be able to handle Civ/n after all: a big disappointment, but better this way, to know, and so can plan further. I don't think we'll send the thing to Sankey; probably do the job here in Montreal. But we'll see. I've already gotten some printer to take THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER and it might be I can get an attractive book for under $250.00. The only thing I have to worry about is how I'm going to pay for it. Don't let the lot sale fool you: right now I'm so heavily mortgaged I literally don't know where my next meal is coming from. I trust this reestablishes some kind of equality between us. You see, my wife persuaded me we need an extension to our cottage - a studio for 148

The Correspondence

herself, a room for Maxie, etc. - so there went about $2500 most of it borrowed from the bank and friends. The ERRATA is FINE. It seems we thought of it at the same time. The only sensible thing to do. Seeing the mistakes that were made in your good253 was most consoling. I was beginning to take on the colour of a persecution complex, though as I've said over & over and believe me that's the real point the job you did was superb and more than I had any right to dream of. Anyone I've shown the book to thinks it the best. And so it is. I've got all your instructions re monies for books neatly filed away, so nothing can go wrong. I hope, I'll send Miss Able Baker the funds for the copies of BMR I've already sold so as to keep in touch with her, the remainder may be somewhat slower in selling. Still haven't rec'd No. 2 of the mag. but judging from your words it shd be here not too long from now. Your remarks about the story I sent you altogether just and welltaken. You'll recall my reluctance in sending it on to you. The first part of the story is good because something is happening, in the latter half people are talking, or rather one person has to carry the ball all the way down till the last sip of tea and that's no bloody way to handle a story. I wrote the thing years ago and kept revising it into its present wooden state. Best thing to do with efforts like that is to throw them into the ashcan and start all over again. Well, this year I hope to do some things in the short story that you may not find too discreditable to yar old pal, see if I don't. Though sometimes —just to help me along in my ambition — I think that the short story along with the novel is an outmoded form of art. But I wipe the thought of my cerebellum before it can do too much damage. Sorry to hear about your tiff with Blackburn. That must have been a wild night, boy. The last time I socked a girl was many years ago when I was at public school and I still can't get over my mortification. That's one of the cultural inhibitions it takes a man a long time and much practice to get over. Glad to see you've made a belated start. Norman Levine just blew in from England - author of a thirdrate novel and some equally bad poetry.254 He's coming over tonight - I've never met the chap before. I can't imagine what he wants to see me for, but will soon learn. Glad to hear that you liked Civ/n or did you? Currie is a chap who's just started to write several months ago, though he's got a good background academically and otherwise. He a colorful Irishman and reminds me a great deal of the Doctor in Djuna Barnes' NIGHTWOOD. Same preposterously colorful lingo. When he gets going it's a treat. 149

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley I'm enclosing a poem I finished this afternoon.205 Hope you like it. Let me know your reactions, always look forward to them, you're so bloody fluent. All my love to your wife. Write. Love. Tuesday Dear Bob: It now looks after all that we'll send the mag on to Sankey. We got his line of type fronts etc. — it seems he's added somewhat to his original stock — and we think we can put together an interesting format for him to follow. He sounds quite anxious to follow instructions and is open to new suggestions. I think we can break the jinx that's been dulling up his other periodicals — anyhow it's worth a try, and at that price why not, why not? Got a letter from Jonathan last night by special delivery. He's on the move to places west in the Unyted Staiates and he's enthusiastic about ITMOMF - wants to take it along with him for to sell to bookstores, libraries, etc. I'm certainly not going to discourage him. What is more he likes the poems in the book, though he's justifiably proud about the format. He asked me abt the LONG-PEA-SHHOOETR but that won't be out for another month at least, and then only if I can inveigle some good friends to lend me the money. Bet's done an awfully good cover for it, I think you'll like it when you see it. The book has about forty poems, say verses rather, of no great value as poetry, but valuable in the sense that this is what this country needs. My aim here is to attack the things I don't like such as puritanism, philistinism, and the phoney boys in literature, who keep a bouche fermee about the messes under their soles. My own feeling is that there is and there always be a place for such kind of verse. I'd like to see more of that sort of thing done in the States where current politics and the entire circus of American life could provide one with endless subject matter. It perplexes me that the nineteenth century with less to satirize than the twentieth produced so much excellent doggerel - I'm thinking of Lowell and Holmes in particular. Doggerel is folk verse; I'd put it beside the ballads. Think of the rhymesters who lyricized Lincoln and Brown - where's the equivalent for present day heroes and villains?256 Well, enough of that. I'm saying all this so that you can understand the motive behind the book. I'm enclosing a poem I finished yesterday after my meeting with the original, the chap I told you was coming to see me after blowing in from England. It was all like I say it is in the poem (verse). We might run it in Civ/n in some later number. BOYS IN OCTOBER has been revised, tho I don't still think it

150

The Correspondence quite makes it, the rhythm at the end bothers me slightly, tho that may well be I'm punch-drunk at this stage from too many readings and re-writings. Let me know your reaction to it, always a good gauge to my efforts, no man's more. Write me, Bob. Always a pleasure to hear from you. Love to all. Irving October 2, 1954 Dear Irving, It was good to hear - that errata sheet is printed now, and the edition itself will all be bound by next week - it will go off to the us a little later in the month, probably abt the 20th - but I'll start sending the small packages to you beginning next week. I don't think it will prove too difficult. I can hope not at least - anyhow I'll get them there one way or another. I'd someday like to get my hands on the idiots that make such ridiculous 'rules,' etc., but I guess that's small hope. To hell with it. I had a letter from Aileen Collins, and answered her with the same information - sadly enuf. God knows it could have been the end, I also heard yesterday from this man I thot might come up with a better cover, i.e., that he'd done & sent it, etc. And if it looks good, I'll send it on — no need to feel the vaguest commitment, obviously, but my one absolute objection to civ/n is, finally, that cover - it looks too goddamn much like a Senior Yearbook etc. Not at all to be simple, but it does drag it, I think. (I note AC/ says the one thing she wants kept is cover - o well.) [Added in margin: Wd maybe keep AC/ cool at that, i.e., apt to bug people like jw/ didn't know his poem was even accepted, much less in print.257 Also DO tell her (if there is occasion to write again) address is NOT RC, Mallorca, Spain - i.e., BANALBUFAR, Malloretc.] I'm sorry not to have been clear abt what I thot of it all otherwise, -jesus christ, i.e., you know, very damn good. I think something like a story, say, sunk midway, wd perhaps break the line up a bit, to wit, all poems, etc. Also perhaps a wider range in the reviews but these are minimal objections certainly. The level of writing in the poetry is as good as I think it gets anywhere. And those poems I'd noted, I liked very much. Well, wild. (My one objection otherwise is to Dudek's stuff which I cannot make - i.e., like that dialect one - wow ...258 Or really he is too goddamn simple & descriptive. Goddamn it, Irving - wd you let such crap out of yr goddamn house? 151

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley I know he means it & all that, but such pompous 'earnestness' is not it, not so goddamn simply as this. But to hell with that.) I like first two verses of this new poem very much — very much your kick.259 Also like much of what then follows, particularly the way you set the 2 kids in, very solid. But I get a kind of split, i.e., a problem of the sequence, in part even like that 'sand' detail, which comes into the 'place' oddly (a sand-box? you see, it damn well suddenly involves a beach etc.) — also length, i.e., time it takes, of these last 3 verses - again beyond tightness of 1st two. Also last 2 lines don't 'form' it, for me - i.e., 'Chance' & 'abstinence' - seems out of keeping a little. I honestly don't know — but to hell with that, i.e., that's how it hits. Granted my vagueness. Things ok generally - feel a little tired, dragged, etc. But nothing much. We have an agent now for NYC, also for Boston260 — and with jw/ hitting places on his way out & West Coast, distribution may damn well pick up a little. It's been a hell of a mess the last few months. But write. Will do likewise very soon. All our love to you all, Bob October 7, 1954 Dear Bob: Yours came this morning and very welcome too. A pity there's this fuckup with customs and printer, but that's the story it seems. Nothing we can do about it, save wait for the world to grow wiser. The other day I went down to the customs here to collect your book, THE GOLD-DIGGERS. Had a hard time persuading the false teeth and moustache of the clerk in charge I wasn't importing a new and dangerous kind of pornography into the country. Despite my urgent pleas and representations on behalf of 'cultural exchange' etc. he stuck to his guns and insisted I had to pay the tax of 10% on the price of each book - and there are about 40 of them. It might be a good idea in future to leave out price, then you can quote a lower one for shipping purposes. Like this you're bloody well stuck. Sorry to hear your mood is on the gloomy side. Might it be the reaction to the hectic life and excitement of Black Mountain College? Some reactions are delayed. By the way you never wrote to tell me just what happened there: I mean the abrupt termination after all the impressive plans und zo veiter. You know for a while I was tempted very much — under my wife's prodding — to make a break for it and get down there somehow. It sounded so much like what I wanted to do, when I called you, you damn well sounded like a man who had Marilyn Monroe's maidenhead in the palm of your hand, certainly like a guy who had found the proverbial honeypot at the end of the

152

The Correspondence rainbow. Of course it could be something like contracting stomach pains from lack of intake but why make a beautiful story go sordid? I'm a sucker for romantic endings. Or didn't you know? Pleased with your generally enthusiastic reaction to CIV/N. The next issue will be even livelier and better. Your comments on D's verse strike me as somewhat unfair. He'd be the last person to claim immortality for the efforts you saw but 'pompousness' and 'solemnity' are not the faults they suffer from. The harshest thing you might say about them is that they're trivial, and that the triviality is not redeemed by either wit or sharpness of tone. But with all that I'm sure he'd absolutely agree, his own opinion of these trifles not being too high & exalted. Your opinion on my last, as usual, perspicacious and just. I've revised it, but didn't want to send you another and third version. After all there's a limit to how much a fellow can impose on his good friend's patience. My LONG PEA-SHOOTER shd be out in a couple of weeks. I've dedicated it to you, Robert Creeley. I think it's a good book, tho for reasons that I feel it wd be difficult to justify to you. The Prologue shd give you an adequate idea of the spirit and temper of the book: anyway I take the fight to the enemy and lay about me with the cudgel. Occasionally I use the stiletto or the rapier thrust. I can say of this book what Whitman said of his: 'Whoever touches this book touches a man' — or words to that effect.261 I'm getting highfalutin' again; must be I'm taking my blasted poetry courses too seriously. Have you seen Gorman, or did he not pass your way? What's your relation with Blackburn now that you've punched his nose? WILL he still remain as one of the editors of BMR? In any event, one of the contributors? I haven't got my second number of the mag? I'll do my best with them, shouldn't have much trouble with them. Have practically sold the fifty of the first lot. With regard to your CD'S, I'll get to work on them as soon as I get them out of the customs - but that can't be before JW sends me an MA form required by the bureaucrats over here. Abominations seize that filthy tribe, Amen. Write when you can. All our love to you. Irving Octobers, 1954 Dear Irving, I'm very glad to hear things are working out all right for civ/n — I don't see why Sankey can't make it, i.e., it's only his format sense that's ever been the problem, and his own magazine, WINDOW, if a bit sweet, even so is considerably better than many of the others. I 153

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley was goddamn well dulled, while in the U.S., to see how the level, call it, of production in these magazines has slumped, all of them. KENYON used to have such a fine heavy feel to it, i.e., a real weight — but it's as shoddy as any of the others. I think in fact NEW MEXICO QUARTERLY, for all its dullness, puts out the most solid job of printing now going. And MERLIN I like very much, i.e., like this last issue — Trocchi has a real flair for typography, and can usually make it look very wild, without being silly, etc. Well, no matter. I don't see why Sankey can't make it, tho again I'm very damn sad we didn't get a chance to do it - i.e., that there was that fuckup on customs & all. Very goddamn dulling. Thanks for the poems. The one re that character, certainly good for kicks, like they say.262 The other seems to me more, as I guess you'll know - but that move toward the end, and the end, still bother, I think. Interested to know that you as well had worried about that rhythm at the end, i.e., that's where the problem started for me at least. In fact, I'd almost try, say, picking it up, new, after the third verse - and perhaps, too, putting that sense of "Now ..." less formally (which echos for me the same 'address' in LAKE ACHIGAN - tho there it is a stronger thing I think). Anyhow, say, trying that, new? Because it's that final image which is hanging it up? Viz, the time it takes to say it, and/or to develop it. The 'antique couple,' for one thing, does come quick — right from the two kids — but what then is developed, i.e., what follows from that, takes, it seems, more pulling? I like those first two verses very damn much, likewise what begins in the third - I think it's only the bug of how to get in that Chance/abstinence biz, i.e., the 'image,' that is boggling you. 7 think, etc. Which may be goddamn far from the point or purpose. Ok. While I think of it, I asked that two books be sent you for review: 1) The Diminished Mind, Smith - Henry Regnery Co.; 2) The Embattled Philosopher: Diderot, Crocker — Michigan State College Press. I don't at all know if either will interest you, i.e., prove usable (?), but you say (and do tell me what specifically you'd like to try anytime). The first has the subtitle: "A Study In Planned Mediocrity in Our Public Schools" - and that ought to be worth some comment? The second is first biography of Diderot in English this century - and I'll try to get you some related material, which might be stimulus, i.e., a long article that was in CONTEMPORARY ISSUES on Jacques le Fatalists, and plans for an edition in English, etc.263 Anyhow let me know if you get them — and what you think when you do. Ok. This just to keep on - will write soon, and please do likewise. Hope it's all making it. All our love to you all, Bob 154

The Correspondence

October 13, 1954 Dear Irving, It's very good of you to put up with all that nightmare at customs - it sounds horrible. I've written Jonathan (his address is now: c/o Kenneth Patchen, 377 Green St, San Francisco 11), and will also write Miss Baker - in case she was in fact the sender (?). I.e., I'm not sure as to why J/ should have sent these packages - it would be her I should think. But anyhow will get it straight somehow, and as soon as possible. As to moods & the like: nothing very much, finally. I left Black Mountain not very happily, because we had of course hoped to all come over. But at the time we had no money for passage for Ann & the kids, also these books to do still - and as it is, now, we're in debt, so nothing looks very simple — altho never quite hopeless, thank god. Anyhow I'm on a leave of absence, and hope to get back sometime - tho when, I literally can't say, since it's a question of money, always. But let me make clear, it was terrific. I don't know that I'm a teacher like they say - but being there, somehow it wasn't very relevant to worry about such a thing. The class was very sharp, very quick — and simply to go, as one could, — that was it. I still get letters from them, sort of a sad echo now — o well. But anyhow here for the moment at least is where we at least eat well & sleep warm, etc., and that is something god knows. Also let me note this new address, for after the 20th: Casa Martina, Bonanova (Palma), Mallorca, Spain. Certainly if you can get there, do. Don't for a minute worry about it's being worth it - you'll have the time of your life, I mean it. There is nothing grand, or big, or ordered, or even certain about any of it - but it is completely open to any man who cares to use it. You'll have few students - will live in not the arms of luxury by any means or even comfort — but because it is this frame, of the actual, of what a man has in his head and of what that can be, for others, well no goddamn platitude is quite enough to say how much that is. What about this spring or summer? If you could conceivably sneak over that damn border or something. I think you'd like it very damn much, and the association with Olson would be, finally, enough in itself to make it seem time goddamn well spent, if that matters. Well, many people would dislike it intensely - and feel gypped, betrayed & all that, and students have been known to damn well jeer a man right the hell out of the room. Dahlberg, for one, only made it two nights.264 It can be very rough. But you would hardly face 155

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley that problem, i.e., of all the stuff we got to, yours sat with a wild kind of certainty, for them — i.e., they made it completely. They were hardly interested in 'biographies' or the 'real thing' - but they knew from your poems you have ground under your feet and cared to stand on it. Hardly usual. Well, get there & see for yrself, if you possibly can. So here of course I do feel the distance & all that - and sometimes all this politics of these magazines, the crap of so many of them, and dreariness of so little ever registering itself in any sense - no wonder D/ thinks I sit in a room with a tape-recorder,265 ho/ho - anyhow it's a drag sometimes, like they say. But I doubt if BMC would have solved very much for me, at least, - it's not that kind of place. When your batteries run down, you can't look to that for a charge, it's just not the point. So anyhow I've been trying, here, to get moving on some longer piece of prose, and have a chapter of sorts, toward a novel I guess it is - and so on. Perhaps this new house will break this kind of feel, etc. I think so. I sit too much in this room & there it won't be like that, I think. Many, many thanks for that dedication. Well, you know. How to say it. I am damn well honored & grateful - and very very anxious to see the book. I hope it all goes ok. And don't please take it I have any goddamn objections to blague, etc. Viz, you hardly have to 'justify' anything to me. O well. I liked that Prologue — very good. As to Paul: he's off the magazine, and will not, [Added in margin: my guess, also my push really] contribute. In fact, I would rather he finally stayed off it. It's not hurt feelings or the like, but simply that difference I feel between him & myself, that makes any act between us a little cheap & too desperate. To goddamn cloaked, finally. So for both of us — and not to be silly abt it, I think we can profit, like they say, from simply standing away for whatever time it takes. So that's about it. In his place, I've asked Robt Hellman to come on as contributing editor. I like his sense of things, call it, very much - and think he will work for us. God knows he has, to date - this 3rd issue has a gig by him on de Sade, very sound like they say. He had been at BMC this summer, teaching languages, etc. I had known him first in France, then here — he's now back at Iowa teaching — very impossible he says, but a job for the moment. And hope he'll come in, with BMC etc., as soon as he can, more 'permanently.' A very decent man - now writing a novel that looks, in chapters I've seen, to be a damn good one.266 Actually it gives us a better fit, at that - Hellman is about 35, has been thru it all, all ways, i.e., political, making it in Europe with his

156

The Correspondence wife on some 90$ a month - taught in schools in France - anyhow, knows, if that makes sense. It's a real pleasure. He and Olson make it fine, and also he is a strong admirer, call it, of your own work. Well, if you cd get there, to BMC, this summer say - you'd meet him & wd I think also like him, very much. To get back for a minute: we'll do Paul's bk/, unless, a ukase or something arrives saying not to. I don't think it will. We just got a cover for it from Dan Rice, a very beautiful one - if we can make the reproduction of it. It should be a damn good book, in fact. So that's something. Cid didn't come by, i.e., landed in le Havre, I guess - and then straight to Paris, where I hear he now is, enjoying it all very much. Damn good he got there, out of that 'home & mother' biz - hardly very great for him, ever. This should mean a lot. I'll probably see him sometime - this spring, if not before, since we have to go to France then, i.e., maybe see this aunt Ann has living outside Paris. (She's an old Canadian by the way, knows all those old cats — sd Robt Finch had been staying with them this summer, & so on - nice old lady I think, painter, she & her husband both. Crazy really, - she's 70 I think it is, now, one of the H/ James expatriates. The end.)267 I'm sorry to have come on so strong re Louis D/. God knows what you say makes sense. I only question reason why he prints such things - and that is his business, not mine. Or not this way, anyhow. Perhaps this new bk/ of his, coming,268 will give me a chance to do something actually fair, and also a statement, call it, of this disappointment I've felt, with his work. And of course it could be a complete vindication, as well - and I am by no means loath to eat shit, if that's what it comes to. Ok. So this for the moment. Will write again soon & please do likewise. Always a real goddamn lift to hear from you. All our love to you all, Bob N.B. Also while I remember it: I'm going to try to start the 4th issue of the magazine into press, as soon as possible after this 3rd - which is due to be finished the 20th. So can you please send me anything you may have in the way of poems, notes or reviews — with that in mind. It's not too hopeless because I have a story by Larry Eigner I like, also some poems from a couple of new people, and a fairly decent article by Lysander Kemp on Eliot & History, etc. And I think, too, Franz Kline will give us photo/s of his new work (I saw very fine exhibition of his while in NYC) - and that could be good.269 So at least there's a kind of form in part, at present — but I'll need more poems for certain, also brief reviews (as always). But I am very goddamn 157

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley anxious to catch up some, on this time-bizness. We are running much too late, as it is — from that first fuckup with customs here last April. It lost us 2 damn months in itself. But if I can get this 4th (Winter) issue done before Xmas (which they say they can do), then it can be in the states by February - and our Spring issue can then be figured (I hope at least) for mid-April. And that puts us on a better timeschedule. De Boer, as it is, gets bugged there is the lag270 - and I've done my best such as it is, to speed things up. But there's no pushing people here - i.e., siempre mafiana, etc. Anyhow bear with me please - and do send what you can. Will, as always, be depending on you - not I hope to bug you. Ok. Tuesday Dear Bob: Your letter just in, along with one from Olson. A good morning. Let me answer yours first. About Civ/n, it is a smashed egg that you can't do it, that the bureaucrats here and there are still very much here. I'm having a deuce of a time with the customs about your own book GD. Jonathan didn't fill out certain forms, etc. — so there's delay. Tho I do think the matter will be dislodged eventually and no real harm done except to our tempers and our pride. The second number of BMR came yesterday and I haven't had much of a chance to do anything else but to see the layout of my poems and to read the reviews by Olson: Always interesting and individual, tho sometimes difficult to follow for a slow-paced mind like my own. The mag remains ever a pride. It's the best-looking mag on the market. Those photos of Mayan masks: that alone is worth every subscriber's last cent. Wow! I've sold to date forty copies of the first number of BMR and will probably dispose of the balance in another couple of weeks. I'm sending Able Baker twenty dollars for them. Which reminds me, Louis Dudek wrote an article for The Canadian Forum (circulation about 5000, very influential) on recent poetry in Canada and mentioned you and Olson as the most exciting American group that we here have made contact with.271 That's a real plug for you and gives currency to your names with the most intelligent part of the reading public in this country. Now with your books coming in they will help to keep your names and work before them. The rest is up to yourselves and since you've got the stuff it's only a matter of time from here on in and nothing to worry about. Civ/n is using two of your poems in the next number. Fine ones. The wonderful one about the man in the bathtub, and equally good 158

The Correspondence one about the 'temptress.'272 A longer and a deeper breath in the last. Were you deliberately trying to crack the 'mould' with that one? At the present moment it's anyone's guess as to where the mag will be printed: for all I'm aware it may end up in Kamchatka! Tho to be serious and prosaic it looks as if the wind is beginning to blow Sankeywise again. The matter of costs is all-important; every copper we save is all to the good. Olson enclosed a poem which I think we can use; I'll hand it on to Miss Collins sometime this week. The next no. of Civ ought to be good. Dudek and I have both something on T.S. Eliot - he a short note on the famous 'dissociation of sensibility' and I on the famous maestro himself. We do him up in brown, proper. Then I've got a piece entitled, Shaw, Pound and Poetry - a punch on the nose for the middle-class.273 I think you'll find the issue entertaining and lively. But boy do I envy you your format. That's a hell of a good move on your part getting the Michigan etc to send me those two books for review. With review them for you with pleasure. Send me anything to do with political philosophy or current politics - that's my field you know, what I was trained for professionally. Anything on education, sure. Current English fiction or poetry. That Diderot book sounds very much like the thing. How long do you want me to make those reviews, let's know. I'm enclosing a poem for your reading 'pleasure' - one which I wrote this summer and which Gorman is printing in the forthcoming issue of Origin. Let me know how it hits you. How are Ann and the kids? By the way, what do you do for your kids' education? Let's know, just in case we too get wanderlust. All our love to you. Write soon, Irving Wednesday Dear Bob: Here's a poem I finished this morning which you might like - and then again might not.274 Behind my house there are two mediumsized trees completely covered with vine leaves. They have the appearance of two mature buffaloes, bull and cow, and in the summer when the wind rocks them they're the most amorous couple imaginable. I spend hours looking up at them, and their gentle and affectionate love-making. Tenderly and tirelessly 'they kiss and close.' In the autumn, stripped of their leaves of glory, the trees are a pathetic reminder of a vigour and energy that were and are now gone. I don't think the poem is the usual shmertz and melancholia about the autumn season. What I've tried to do is to call attention not to 159

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley the futility but the irony and pathos of the season. The same will and aggression are there, but now in a choked and a diminished form, ergo ridiculous. The tone of the poem - a wry matter-offactness - and the imagery, paradoxical and ironic, tell I hope the story. Thus it's the friend's displeasure which encircles and holds not his love, the grisettes are rolled but 'in their own blood' and in the mire, I raise my eyes to heaven but they are 'atheistic.' These paradoxical images therefore prepare for the final one where I say the buffaloes are 'stripped' but, alas, the naked lovers cannot kiss and close. Will, desire, are still there, but as in an old man, or in one of reduced vigour, the effort to consummate what once was easy and natural is now absurd and sad. Well, I might be wrong, but I believe I've given the 'autumn' theme, familiar enough god knows and hinted at in my fifth stanza, a new twist. For all that it may still be an unsatisfactory poem, and for that I must depend for judgment on your, an outsider's judgment. Let me know how the thing strikes you. As I wrote you in my last letter I've revised OCTOBER BOYS, fixed up the rhythm; I've given the poem to Civ/n, along with a pea-shooter on T.S. Eliot.275 You'll encounter both in the next issue of the mag. I haven't received the books from the University of Michigan as yet. When I do, I shall sit me down to read them and review them for you as promptly as I can. God, I hope I'm not letting you down as one of the editors, tho I have the feeling I am. I see Olson does quite a bit of prose for you - I haven't contributed a single prose item yet. My one excuse and it's an honest one is that when the fall and winter months come I'm snowed under, so that only my eyes and nose are showing, and I barely breathe. Then there's my obligation to Civ/n. I regret now very much giving Cid all the stuff I wrote this summer, but as I explained to you it was a burst of appreciativeness (fucking word, but never mind) which made me do it. I felt if the chap was going to feature me in the issue he was entitled to the best I had done. But did I have to strip myself bare? Schmo! My Long Pea-shooter will be out in about three weeks. Bet's just gone down to the typographers to make the plate for the cover. The book'll also have a drawing of my puss by my wife — fancy shmancy like they say. The thing has fifty poems and my smilometer and guffawometer give me reason to suppose a success for it. My one worry is - will it make a sour grape like you smile. Ha! Ha! All our love to you all. Irving October 17, 1954 Dear Irving, In the midst of moving here, open trunks etc., and hard to think - even if I wasn't doing a damn thing anyhow. But many many thanks

160

The Correspondence for all that help on BMR # 1 - very great - and very happy to hear you've got BMR #2 finally. From now on I'll send a copy from here, i.e., just so you won't have all this wait, at least for yourself, etc. Our other & countless (I am sure!) readers will have to make it the usual way, however, because they'll still have to go (or bulk shipments will) first to BMC & then up to you, etc. Goddamn customs as adamant as ever, and if I cd figure some goddamn alternative, I wd most certainly — however. Well, to hell with that — except thanks again, and also to note I've written to J/ and he ought to be in SF/ anytime now & can I hope get you the necessary form filled out etc. OK. Very great those 2 poems made it, for CIV/N. They are my own favorites from that group, tho I like I Know A Man too, goddamnit. Perhaps I am just a slob at heart, at that. You know - sentimental. 0 well. Anyhow my sister thot the All That Is Lovely one was 'very very sad ...' Jesus christ! That's what 'humor' comes to these days 1 suppose. Too, that other was as you suggest a try at working a longer, looser line. My form of the epic, Irving. Wow. You should hear me chant that one, goblet in hand, lion-skin & so forth, while huge crackling fire throws its mighty shadows on lowering walls surrounding. And all the shaggy retinue, etc. Well, wild. Cid wrote Sankey had done a good job (best yet) for him on # 13 - and all this wild news of #14, of yr 18 poems!!! By god, I look forward to that! Anyhow apparently S/ is trying harder these days, with format, etc. So perhaps use his amiability, to set your own decently — I think it's as cheap as you'll find? (All I really worry abt is that goddamn cover - I see it in mah drea-mms, etc. Very suggestive ...) As to kids' education: only Dave at the moment, (Tom is 3/ Charlotte 2.) Ann teaches him - goes ok. I.e., we get bk/s from Interested Friends, Who Worry, etc. Last year we had full First Grade biz, from I think it was 2 publishing co/s. Very much, etc. But D/ tho ostensibly in 2nd grade (7), has no difficulty with 3rd grade arithmetic & so forth. You can go very fast with a kid, alone - and he gets social biznesses enuf from other kids around. But Sp/ schools don't make it, both hours (too long) & Franco (too loaded) — no good I think. Tho G/276 sends his there. Anyhow it works out ok. Not too hopeless. Schools, most of them, being what they are these days, I don't think he's missing a goddamn thing. As to reviews (and very fine those titles interest you — I'll keep an eye out for others, i.e., use this Publisher's Weekly now, for it, and that has everything listed): figure length abt like this - for a note, 1 single-spaced page (as per yr letter, i.e., that size page) - that comes to 1 page of magazine, Brief Reviews. Best length for reviews is: one to three singlespaced typed pages, and/or 1 to 3 pp/ of mag. But take what it takes — as you do it, — tho conciseness counts for a lot, when 161

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley you're up against the space headaches I usually have each issue. Anyhow, try it & see. And use above for a gauge as to length, when done etc. So this for the moment, liked your poem enclosed - send others, always a goddamn pleasure, whether or no we can have them. Ok. Have 1 pkg/ off to you (15 IMOMF/S), will be feeding out others from now on — anyhow 9 to go, not hopeless. Errata sheet also done (and since I sent that 1st pkg minus same, will send you bunch of 15 separately — otherwise they'll all be slipped in etc.) Ok. All our love to you all & write, Bob [Added at top of letter: By the way: 'Able' Baker's name is BETTY Baker - that was Charles' Humor etc. And now am engaged in correcting sd fact with roughly 30 people! Poor Miss B ] SundaylOct 17 [1954] Dear Bob: Your good letter came yesterday. You sound happy enough about BMC to make me want to pack up and leave this instant. It sounds very much like the place I'd like to spend my remaining years at. This summer I'm going to make an effort to cross the border; quite possibly my name has been taken off the blacklist. Months ago I had some correspondence with the U.S. Immigration Dept. but nothing was settled one way or the other. They finally told me I've got to go up to the nearest crossing point - Rouses' Point - and see for myself how matters stood. This I have not done yet, but will do it tomorrow since I've got a holiday. Will let you know the result first thing, you bet. We had an interesting party here last night. A charming, wellstructured poetess blew in from Toronto - Anne Wilkinson - who's written some interesting things and gives promise of better things to come.277 You'll see one of her poems, a good one I think - in this forthcoming issue of civ/n. Currie, Duddek were also present, and a young and brilliant composer, Kelsey Jones.278 Also a young colleague of mine from Sir George Williams College, Desmond Cole. Well, the arguments waxed fast and furious and the show didn't break up until 4:30 A.M. This morning I don't feel the least bit sleepy or grouchy, always a good indication as to how successful the previous evening had been. The main argument turned on the 'little mag' and the policy of retreat and panic in the face of a hostile civilization taken by so many poets. You know the sort of thing — they don't like

162

The Correspondence us, so let's scram into the nearest cupboard. I said let's fight the thing through: things may get better, it can't get any worse. The hopeful sign in this country is this: a whole lot of the younger chaps who know what poetry is all about are getting teaching jobs around the country. There's Desmond at Sir G; L.D. at McGill; Eli Mandel, a fine poet, teaching at of all places St. John's Military College, and he's got for three colleagues very wideawake chaps who don't equate poetry with either Trees or Daffodils. There's Doug Jones teaching at another military college at Kingston (beginning to sound pretty subversive), Pacey's at Dalhousie, Birney at Victoria,279 and so on .... Really, the sky is beginning to clear. Those chaps I named, and I could add another half-dozen, are A-l, are giving a new and modern twist to the teaching of poetry, bringing in the poet as the 'Informer' (MacNeice's word)280 getting a whole new generation to look at poetry with different eyes. Two weeks ago I got an order from the Ontario Agricultural College for 180 copies of our anthology; McGill has taken 600. Next spring we're planning to bring out a larger, revised edition. Up to now we have sold more than 3000 copies. Things are at last beginning to move. I sometimes think the situation is a lot better than some poets realize; that the world is changing, that the rule of the middle-class with all which that has meant for culture and decency is now coming to an end. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I believe I discern signs. Anyway it's the poet's job to make a fight for both, and to spit and rage, if he can't hit out with his fists. Anger is a wonderful therapy. The Long Pea-Shooter will be out sometime during next month. It's going to be a nice-looking book; I'm pleased that you're happy about the dedication. That makes two of us. Will send you a copy air mail as soon as I have one in my hands. Those books for review haven't come yet. Will review them for you when they do. In the meantime I'm sending along a poem I finished yesterday. It's a wry commentary on Space/Time and Carpenter/Me. The ambivalence is worked out ironically ... but you'll see that for yourself.281 I hope you like the thing. Your comments either way always interesting and profitable. I hope your new house brings you and yours all the joy you deserve. All our warmest love to you. Write soon, will do the same. p.s. Bet sold two paintings - we eat! Bet's calling me for breakfast, in fact. Whaddya know? Wish you and Ann were here. We'd have loads of fun together. I think you'd both like the crowd we have got here. Lively and not too cracked. Love, Irving 163

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley ENEMIES

The young carpenter who works on his house has no definition for me. I am for him a book. A face in a book. Finally a face.

The sunlight on the white paper The sunlight on the easy Summer chair is the same sunlight which glints rosily From his hammer. He is aware suddenly of connections: I Am embroiled in the echoing sound of his implement As it slides nails into the resistant wood from which later, later Coffins will emerge as if by some monstrous parturition. Is it any wonder He so mislikes me seeing his handiwork robed in black? Seeing I shatter his artifact of space with that which is 164

The Correspondence Forever dislodging the framework for its own apprehension? Over the wall of sound I see his brutal grin of victory Made incomplete by the white sunlit paper I hold on my knee. He has no metal gauge to take in a man with a book

And yet his awkward shadow falls on each page. We are implicated in each other's presence by the sun, the third party, (Itself unimplicated) and only for a moment reconciled to each other's Necessary existence by the sight of our neighbour's Excited boy whom some God, I conjecture, bounces for His joy. Well, Boby, Here's another effort. For me this makes it, but you might find blemishes and defects in it which are not in the first and fiftieth enthusiastic reading not so readily apparent to me. Rhythmically, I think the poem now comes off - suggesting the hammer blows of the carpenter on the one hand, and the exchange of unspoken dialogue between him & his "enemy" on the other. 165

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Anyway, I think I've done something to remove the dullness from my two previous versions. Still, if you don't go for it wholeheartedly, don't use it in the Review. You want the best - always. My Long Pea-Shooter will be out by the end of the week. Today is Sunday. I'll mail you a copy as soon as I have one for you. All our love to you all, Irving. October 23, 1954 Dear Irving, It's late to start this, also we're still in one hell of a chaos - but no matter, and/or bear with me. Ok. I like much about this new poem, and the like the partial heist the new form gives you, i.e., block to block, etc. The speed of the thing, however, seems to me too slow, i.e., too long about its business, particularly when the progression is marked as evenly, hence as obviously, as this is (i.e., as a form, etc.). Do you see what I mean? In such a form, all things (viz, each line) is given per se an 'apparent' balance with what precedes & what follows - and the value of it, say, or what value it has, in itself, is what apparent discrepancies can then be related, as 'equal' wt/s & so forth. But in any case the speed, in such a form, the perception-toperception biz (a la Olson's comment in PRO/ VERSE, for one instance)282 has got to keep going, very quick - otherwise the form becomes a pattern, or tends to - and you face the same headache that a terminal rhyme pattern makes for. Anyhow, here are the verses where I think the lag (tho that's hardly a goddamn good word) is most evident: 4, 5, particularly 6, 9, 13 - mainly these, where, I think, either one, or both, of the lines in question could have been put more quickly, i.e., seem now to be dragging — again, for me. And it is, let me make clear, not even a question of the lines per se, but that they are points where the accumulative effect also gives them this character, I think. Well, to hell with that. I'd simply move it all quicker, even condense. The literal content of it is very great, I mean, I like it very much — wild. I think the end is also very much it. And look, I don't nail you please to a post labeled Perfection - but I'd be hardly any damn good to you, if that anyhow, saying nothing & thinking much, etc. Ok. As it is I think you cut all but the Anointed. So. And being one of Same, you can hardly kick. (Anyhow, if you can make it, and/or bear with me, then wd very much like to see (if you figure it) another draft of both this and the Buffaloes one - viz, don't think I'm shunting you off for god's sake. You have a way so beautifully rich, so goddamn clean, - o well.) 166

The Correspondence It may be, too, I am too close to this form to judge another's use of it, but our rhythms & all are I think sufficiently separate to god knows allow us eyes, etc. But, say, put this against MOTET - do you see what I mean about speed, i.e., hardly a panting, etc. I mean, a clean biz of concision, something which jumps the reader, kicks him, reasonably — and NO explanations, etc., etc., This sort of swings in a hammock I think - and being didactic, that's not good? I.e., if it's to be statement, best to spit it out, zipp? I think. (Because now this hangs between a biz of the description, and yr investment of same, sort of simply too 'relaxed' - almost - perhaps, etc. Well, fuck that.) What, or where, I most like this poem is in undertones like "Later, later ..." — I like that very much, and then fall off (... will emerge/As if, etc.) Maybe the damn form tends to iron you out? So let me get this back, at least. And write you more about it all here etc. later. Very wild news about Betty selling the two paintings - I wish my wife cd do that. (She was writing a novel but we're still waiting. HA.) Ok. Write please. Very good here, think it's going to be a good winter, finally - for once - for real. All our love to you all, Bob Sunday, Oct. 24, 1954 Dear Bob: Next to making a live virgin, moving is about the messiest job ever. I can see you huffing & puffing, with the sweat pouring down your beautiful cheeks, and only refraining from cursing because in the circumstances it will not do or help. Well, I hope the worst is over, the trunks are all in — or out — the crockery undamaged, the broomstick in the right place, etc. etc. What about your cold? Fine time to get one, and you presumably a sensible chap who ought to know how to arrange these things better. If the cognac hasn't burnt it out of you, try spitting against the wind with the shithouse to the left of you. I'm told by some that that's unusually effective. Sent $20.00 to Miss Baker two days ago for the forty copies I sold. This left me with ten copies which I've sent around to people and others who I thot might be interested. Profs, quasi-poets, and dings with long dongs. We'll see. It looks as if you can count on my selling forty copies per issue, for now anyway, in other words, count on twenty bucks for same. I might be able to increase that figure to sixty or even eighty during the year. I'm working at it, believe me. Your books the GD still at the customs. I've written Jonathan asking him to send me an invoice for them but haven't so far heard from the dear boy. If you write him you might jog his elbow for me. 167

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

And I haven't got the books from the confounded university for review. Had a lovely batch of holidays last week and the week before in which I could have read them and given them the once over. Now I dunno. Will try, promise you. Your review of wcw — what can I say?283 I find it difficult to follow you. You, Olson, and Gorman have developed a strategy of syntax, a method of leapfrogging nouns and verbs, a detective game of missing connectives which makes the greatest demands upon a reader's alertness. If the aim is to mystify the reader rather than to enlighten him, you succeed admirably. With the best will in the world and a world of patience I find it impossible to go beyond the first two paragraphs of a piece of Olson prose, even tho to egg myself on I tell myself the man is an original genius and what he has to say is eminently worth saying and perceptive. You will never know how much this saddens me, because I gather from his letters to me that he genuinely likes my own stuff and what is more values it for the right reasons. I don't get it. But to come back to you. It's the eccentric sentence structure that has me down, the piled up intensities (no doubt genuinely felt) and the thumping oracular flourish which bend my ears. Reading you and Olson at your worst I sometimes have the feeling I'm looking over the shoulder of one of my students taking notes: everything but the barest essentials, clues, reminders, tags and signposts. But what in the fucking hell is the good of a signpost if there isn't a bloody road to be seen anywhere? In short what I want to know is this — why don't you write a simple expressive English which can be read and comprehended without too much straining [Added in margin: As you do in your magnificent short stories ...?] instead of the intimate jargon which however novel and fetching at a first reading becomes wearisome after the second or third? Take Gorman's last issue of Origin, I mean the note he attaches at the beginning to tell his readers that Levertov was responsible for the selections, etc.284 There's an archness to it, a 'literary' coyness in the language which makes one wonder if the words aren't jerking each other off. Well, that's too strong. But 'phoney,' affected it certainly is. Nobody talks likes that. Then what's the point of writing like that? Do you, does Olson talk the way the words are written? I doubt it. My motive in writing so plainly is a simple one - you fellows are the freshest, most vital writing today in the States. Beside you the Brinnins, Nimses, Ciardis, and Shapiros are figures laid out on a mortuary slab. Why spoil your own best chances? I seriously believe you're decimating your own readers, slaying the potential hundreds that might be yours with a little care, with a little more or rather a 168

The Correspondence lot more simplicity and directness. [Added in margin: The gist of Mayan heads (C.O.) can be put into two straightforward paragraphs.285 Why fluff it and shred it, and jazz it up?] A style which calls attention to itself or which identifies itself by verbal perversions is simply bad. It ends by irritating the reader and finally shuts off his receptivity to whatever you have to say. If this were my own reaction I would keep mum; I'm civilized enough NOT to take my own likes and dislikes for a norm. But what I'm clumsily trying to report is the reactions of a good dozen of more-than-average intelligent and sensitive readers. [Added in margin: (that must be it. It must be). Williams, Pound write a fine clear prose ... to be envied & imitated!] You asked me to read and report. I've done so. For the rest: Nietzsche - the candid friend. Yesterday, I and my family CROSSED THE BORDER. Think of it, man. Think of what that means! It means we can go down to Black Mountain College this summer, that is if the place is still standing and Charles won't take me by the shoulders and heave me all the way over to the roof of my extension for so thumbing my nose disrespectfully at him. However he's a big man, and big men know how to take criticism. I wrote him that his Maximus poem didn't go down well with me; didn't faze him a bit, wrote me how much he liked my LA MINERVE.286 In literary circles such magnanimity is rare. Very rare. In these matters WE know there must be give and take and much learning from each other. You ought to attend a Civ/n meeting. We literally chew each other up alive. But we go away from our meetings a fresher and, I hope, a wiser lot. The chief vices of literary groups are conformity and flattery, backscratching is the word. In time a kind of insincerity creeps in. What I say is - if we must scratch backs, let the blood flow. Which brings me to your reaction to THE BUFFALOES. What I've always valued about your remarks: straightforwardness. And a rare perceptivity. The latter, all the more astonishing, because we don't write the same kind of poetry, nor have the same concerns or pressures working in us. Yet your criticisms have been invariably fair and to the point. When a poem I write doesn't take you, or simply leaves you cold (apart from its technical deficiencies) I put it down to the fact that we're travelling some of the time anyhow on different wavelengths and that's that. Poems like BIRDS AT DAYBREAK, THE RED AND THE BLACK, SARATOGA BEACH287 und zo veiter I go for them in a way that you don't because I know the central urgency that shaped them, the organic substance and symbolization behind them. Your own poetry has an astringency, a pressure gauge which puts them at the far end of poems like those above. That's that, that's it. It's the gods,

169

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

the fates, our different breaths etc. So with the BUFFALOES. You'd have me stop the poem with 'so much vivacity, now mud' and leave out the next verse with its sexual symbolism (cup-chalice; dying god) which of course ties in with the last verse and supports the entire meaning and structure of the poem. Nature (sex) butchered and bloodied, preparing to lie in winter's infirmary: nature castrated by the autumn, the blood running and visible everywhere. Sex made temporarily extinct (like the buffaloes): the promise of its return. The myth of the dying god, Dionysus. Here then is the poem as my imagination shaped it, each part cohering with the rest, the whole making a pattern of meaning. I can account for every single line and word in it. To eliminate the last two verses is to castrate the poem in the way the life-potency (as I've tried to suggest) has been castrated by the autumn. Nay, nay. As for the meaning about the buffaloes being obscure, I can not with reason believe so, since I've read this poem to several groups in the city with no one perplexed or left in the dark. So, caro amigo, I can't go along with you there; though I know you're a dangerous critic to disagree with because you are so often, most of the time in fact, right. But here like Luther I can do no other.288 Well this has been quite a letter. All I wanted to tell you was how much I enjoyed hearing from you, how good and lively the two BMR'S are and how much we here all love you and yours. Irving [Added in margin: B. Baker just sent the invoices for your bks. Will pick them up this week.] ENEMIES

The young carpenter works on his house, Building. He has no definition for me. I am for him a book. A face in a book. Finally a face. He knows only his hammer. I am embroiled In the echoing sound of his implement As it slides and fixes nails Into the resistant wood from whose doors Later, later, coffins will emerge As if by some monstrous parturition. 170

The Correspondence Is it any wonder he so mislikes me Seeing his handiwork thus robed in black? Seeing I so shatter his artifact of space With that which rabbis call time forever dislodging the framework for its own apprehension? Over the wall of sound he structures Into the air we face each other as enemies; His brutal grin of victory, however, Made incomplete by the white sunlit paper I hold - a warrant, a pardon? On my knee. He has no gauge to take in A man with a book, yet his shadow Falls on each page. We are both implicated. In each other's presence by the sun, The third party, itself unimplicated, And only for a moment are reconciled To each other's necessary existence By the sight of our neighbour's excited boy Whom some God, I conjecture, bounces for His joy.

Dear Bob: Thanks very heartily for taking the time to set down your objections to "Enemies." Your criticism is a bull's-eye. The poem does drag. Reading it over again I could see how many unessentials I had stuck in. Some of these I've struck out, and I've tried to eliminate the "hammocky," "here-we-go-Roll" swing by several devices, foreshortening, questions, etc. Well, that's what happens in autumn & winter. The necessary energy, the "refining fire" is gone, that can condense a mass of material into a poem. One tries to be satisfied (to rest really) with the incomplete. Thanks again, for jogging my elbow. I hope this makes it for you, but if not, I'll not be angry or too disappointed. 171

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley "Buffaloes" I still go for. The only change I've made would be "queans" for "whores." I'm writing this at school. The brats are writing a history exam hence the free moment to write you this note. Don't ever have a second thought about criticizing anything of mine. A serious writer can be known by his attitude toward criticism. I welcome it, because I profit from it, and I'm always deeply grateful to any one who takes the time off to read my stuff carefully so that he can tell me some honest truths. You have already helped me tremendously; you've got the best eye and ear in the business, and I'd be a damn fool if I did not avail myself of both. Please - anytime you see me going off the deep end, just twist my little finger for me. If you're right I'll call "Uncle" soon enough. My criticism of your prose extends only to your reviews where I think you tend to over-estimate the intelligence & staying-power of your readers. Otherwise, you're a damned clear writer, god knows. Olson — I'll be frank with you - I can not make out. Probably my own faulty upbringing, etc. I'm waiting till we get him up here, so that I can learn from him what he's up to. His essay on P/v I find difficult to follow and swallow. I'm probably a reactionary at heart. What a thought! Write soon, my angel. Love to all, Irving October 28, 1954 Dear Irving, I'll have a copy of this 3rd issue off to you in today's mail - and hope it doesn't take too long to get there. In any case, it will be quicker than via BMC. I wish there were not the lapse in time - it would be very great to be able to talk about these things, as they came etc. Well, to hell with that. (I'm at odds about the issue generally, I hope it makes it - I've been on it too long, as usual, to be able to see very much.) One thing while I think of it: if possible, [Added in margin: that's COFF medicine, friend.] I want to make #5 (spring) a jumper of sorts, i.e., I'd like to use parody (for the usual story & verse etc.), and something wild for the pix (I've asked J/ Wms to get shots of as many billboards as he can stand, in this trip west - anyhow something of that order), and then, for the criticism, simply to take on material, quite soberly, that usually is a hell of a distance from such a mag/s area of reference, call it. Like, you know, full gig on The Power Of Positive Thinking (which is coming out in another edition, I see, for 172

The Correspondence 'young people ...'). I mean, to review such things very straight because they are no goddamn joke at that - and the above book has been at the top of non-fiction best-seller list for something like 18 months. Excuse me, 22 months, as of Sept/ 18th. (But soon, I'll send you a list of stuff, i.e., possible titles for such a gig (this part etc), and that will make it clearer, and we can also talk more abt question of how best to write it — i.e., tone etc., for this part generally.) Anyhow, if you can think of anyone you'd like to do parodies on, i.e., poets etc., let me know — so we won't get too much overlapping. (Unexpected & very damn good source of material so far, is this man, Alastair Reid, who did a very sharp one on Eliot (and with that so usual a target, not at all simple) & also plans, he says, to do a couple others.289 And god knows there are several I should like this kind of shot at.) Well, let me know. But here is certainly your chance for some barrel-house. Ok. I heard from Betty Baker yesterday, about the magazine, books, etc. One subscriber has already up & died on us - but he was paid up, like they say. Sort of a grim milestone I guess. She also tells me she was the one who sent the GD/s (as follows: 25 Mayan Letters & 25 Gold Diggers, sent you on September 22. "I'll stop by the P.O. tomorrow, fill out said forms, and dispatch them to Layton ...") So hope that's all clear by now? (I think the confusion re the sender came from the fact it was J/ who was go-between, asked her to send them, etc.) Too, I'll get more of these packages of In The Midst Of My Fever off to you in the next few days - the moving had slowed that, but it can I hope go a little more quickly, being nearer Palma now, etc. In any case I'll keep with it, and I don't think there'll be any actual headache — but for the necessity to send them out in dribbles. So, this for the moment. Write soon, please. And think about this parody business. I hope it can make it. All our love to you all, Bob October 30, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours in — and goddamn good, and likewise straight. I have to call you on one thing, hardly with much pleasure, but anyhow let me say it, and that's that. Ok. Anyhow, please never say again: "You, Olson, and Gorman ..." I don't care what the point is, i.e., whether it's supposed to be a compliment (which for me, any such grouping with Olson sometimes seems, much too simply) or an insult (and I have to be insulted, when you make it that quick & simple a joining 173

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

of myself with Gorman). Well, obviously you are right, I don't want to indulge myself in unreadable prose, simply to be cute, etc. Nor to be part of a clique, or whatever. God knows I care about prose, every damn word it comes to, as deeply as anyone. But I cannot extricate style from content - in short, the compulsions, or whatever to call them, of anything written, why it is written, take on as much a content in the writing, as the literal 'subject.' This leads me to much I wish could be said otherwise, and I shall try, certainly, and always, to be as plain as is possible — but this is not always possible. Perhaps it is better not to print what comes out 'hard' - but that's no reason I'll have to admit, .for me. Anyhow, as to the Williams review. Goddamnit, I am sorry to have you take it so. (And then you go on so quickly to say, "You, Olson, and Gorman ...." Well, to hell with it.) I had a letter from Williams after he'd seen it, and for once, dammit, I have to spit it in your face: "It is very interesting to me because of its theme: woman. I have never come down as hard on that as I would like to or, better put, as I have dared to. Yet what you have seen and assembled under one head is for that all the more forceful. You have penetrated to my vitals ..." And fuck that, too. But see that I was not indulging in bullshit simply for the sake of hearing my own witticisms - nor (damn your eyes!) that a simplification or alternate juxtaposition of the material in question wd have got me where I had to go. That, for you, seems nowhere I know. I hardly like it, but jesus god, Irving, do see that that has nothing to do with either Olson, or Gorman - but is a question of specifically this Wms review. I mean, talk abt that - for christ sake. I don't give a shit what C/ writes as introduction or whatever it is, to Levertov (?). Your "motive in writing so plainly" damn well seems to be to lump, fuddle, generalize, & slide off from - that one damn fact, Irving, that unless you talk abt the thing specifically, obviously I can say nothing, in return, or can either say, well aint he the jolly one, or something equally beside the point. Well, look, goddamnit - have I ever come on, to you, abt yr poems, as, "You, Scott and Dudek all seem to me to be overly concerned with being Canadian. Why can't you forget that... etc., etc."290 How fucking interesting wd that be? Anyhow to hell with, - etc. What to say. Look, let's go at this thing another way. I've written following stuff in 3 issues of BMR to date: BMR #1 - Rene Laubies: An Introduction (p. 23); review of Canadian bks etc. (p. 51); review of Patchen bk (p. 63); BMR #2 - A Character For Love (p. 45); review of Bynner bk (p. 62); BMR #3 - A Dilemma (p. 27); review of Celine & Hawkes (p. 58); Comment (p. 64).291 That's all the so-called 'crit/,' so use that, i.e., damn well give me specific comments on same, one by fucking one. Call it your goddamn 174

The Correspondence penance, like they say. Why not? You know, with absolute clarity, that I wd never put you down for anything said to me straight. Jesus! But to put it that this stuff is 'phoney' - well, you know. Them's fighting words, goddamnit. And I call you, I mean: draw! In any case, who the hell is "you fellows ...." Well, I asked you to read & report. So how abt it? Not wind, please. Is that ok? Well, look. Now 1) I care to be as plain, always, as I can, and I hope to christ that doesn't involve self-indulgence even so because I also know what can come of that "as I can" biz. And 2) anytime a friend such as yourself comes on like this, that counts. I care what you think, very much, and listen, always. But see that it is, as you'll know, a goddamn lonely & usually obscure 'road,' i.e., a man of course follows his nose & has to, as best he can. Voila. And my gauge is only men like yourself. And here you throw me for a goddamn loss 1) because you lump me with others, however amiable, and 2) you do not get down to cases. I.e., you say, for example, of Olson's MAYAN HEADS - it cd have been said in 2 clear para/s. Anyhow that's neither here nor there, but see, that if you feel the same thing true in the case of myself, then show me, i.e., do it even. Is there any other thing that could show me, literally, the error of my ways, like they say? You can hardly be advising me to 'generalize' my goddamn language, so as to be apt for 'any occasion,' etc. If you've had any respect or much better, use, for anything I've ever said to you about your poems, see, too, that I do care, damnit. And that, with such a thing as the Wms review, I cared very, very much. And if I flop, well, that I've done, and will do again, and will also, one hopes or I do, manage to get up & so onward, like they say. I am hardly right all the time etc. (Take, now, this thing re your Buffaloes poem - isn't that the point? That I can, for example, tell you as exactly as I can, etc., how it hits me, what lines, rhythms, parts or effects of content, etc. And then you say - because you're obviously the man who wrote it, and what else? But you give me no such chance, here, on this matter of these various pieces of 'criticism.' I did, I think, ask you specifically about the Wms review? Well, not to be priggish, but that was what I wanted to hear about, specifically. But, though I asked you, I don't even know yet whether you've read the book — and that is much more important, to me, than all this thing of Gorman, etc.) You must know the hell of, say, some kid, or the whole damn flock of them, who will not read the poem — who will want to talk about Poetry, or what the Man Was Like, or anything, anything, else. This is, isn't it, the constant nightmare, in teaching - granted there is any interest whatsoever to get one even this far? But we, damnit, are 175

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

men engaged in a like area, the poem - can't we pay each other the compliment, because it is one, of saying not only what we feel, but why, literally, chapter & verse, we feel it? Is there any possibility of an actual 'correction,' short of this? Isn't 'feeling' the constant damn lump one cannot swallow, facing these things? Don't you, for example, hate it when someone says, or you hear of it: o, Layton may be nice enuf, but I just don't like his face. Don't you feel gypped? Deeply, deeply gypped? And yet you've handed me the same thing, here why 'fluff,' - that's what you say to me. You don't even damn well mention the actual 'subject,' call it, of one thing. I am not Gorman. Damnit, Irving. I am also not Olson, much as I love & respect him. Talk to me. Well, of course we're 'big,' all of 'us,' What else can 'we' be, etc. The generosity of the poor is an incredible but persistent phenomenon. Like Wms' saying, "We who have, perhaps, nothing to lose." I haven't a damn thing to lose. But friends like yourself, and that I hate, whenever it seems dark or messy or unclear, between us. So please bear with me — and make it me, the work, literal, not generalities. Ok. All my love to you, Bob November 9, 1954 Dear Bob: Alright, what I wanted was to call attention to what seemed to me a growing school of writing, and it seemed to me that there were certain similar eccentricities of expression in you, Olson and Gorman. Nothing else was intended in lumping the three of you together. I think you know by now that I rate you the best of all the lot, nor would I stop there. You're the liveliest eel kicking about in the waters, Spanish or anywhere, the one real hope for American writing today. Your letter brought tears to my wife's eyes, and moved me more than letters have the right to. You're in a class totally by yourself, and my letter to you was not intended to take your measure. I like your driving style, the passion and vigour and cleanness behind your words. But that's old stuff and I ain't telling you anything new or anything you don't know already. I read everything you write with pleasure and interest always. Where you go into the woods is when you don't allow for the slower pulserate or mental pick-up of your readers. For me certain tricks of repetition designed to secure intensity put me off as in your review of wcw: Here it is ... as still persists in - in that PERSISTENCE, which because it knows itself (and will NOT understand) is love too.292 Now

176

The Correspondence for all I know you may be saying something terribly important, but for the life of me I can't make you intelligible. In fact, it's difficult to follow your line of cogitation throughout and where I can I want to cry out... MORE IRONY, for GAWD'S sake, MORE HUMOUR, MORE OBJECTIVITY. You're too serious by half, no doubt the model is too, but anyone who hasn't learned to take women and sex with a large grain of humour for my money just ain't civilized. No excuse for wcw at his age, some for you, I understand you're considerably younger. I can understand, that is, an absolute passion for metaphysics or aviation, or poetry - but WOMEN! Well, put it down to an oddity of temperament or a happy sexlife in a conventional marriage, but a chap of seventy who speaks of his KNEES KNOCKING etc tickles me in the funniest bones I have. Of course there's the real limitation of wcw - his inability to laugh at himself, the complete absence of selfirony - I wish he had read more French authors or if he has had given evidence of having done so. So what does it come down to? That I wouldn't have written the kind of review that you did? Precisely. I would have made it sharper, more ironic, more objective. Well, each to his own kind of madness. One thing bothers me. I don't just recall you phoney, or your stuff. May I be blasted to hell under your eyes, but how could I? Will you favour me by reading that sentence again? I probably said that the writing might strike one as being phoney ... in the sense of unnatural ... in the sense that no one talks that way. I certainly had nothing to do with the substance or content or intention. Jesus, Bob, do you want to give me nightmares? To set your mind at rest about reading wcw's book. I saw it and read it when Gorman was at my place. And read it with much pleasure. About the best thing he's done in years. But there's that limitation. I'M strictly a child of the Aufklarung.293 Pushkin fucking every woman he could lay his hands on, and they came to the thousands ...294 Byron ... Shelley ... these were men, not puling adolescents, mistaking a rash of pimples for spirituality or a particular problem a la Lawrence. Can you imagine what Pushkin would have thought of Lawrence? That inverted Puritan, and passive male. All this is to laugh, the posturing, the intensity, the idealism, the terror - what are they but the inevitable contortions produced by a christianized society — with the best of them, I mean, exhibiting the above variations on a self-same theme. The worst are dull sheep or pigs and there's no point in talking about them. But for myself, I have learned more wisdom about sex from whores than from cripples like Lawrence. Until the air is cleaned from a lot of foolish talk and foolisher attitudes there will be no health in us. That's the revolution of the future .... 177

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Well, that's a long way from a discussion of your prose. Your other reviews are fine, no complaint about them, except the odd word here or there, or the bizarre phrasing, it would be picayune to select them for a pasting. So let's put it this way, Bob. What I was worried about - and I can now see it was needless worry - was that you might fall under the influence of Olson's peculiar style of writing (as I think Gorman has, and Duncan)295 and that you would write yourself out of a potentially large market. What you have to say is good, original, deeply and perceptively felt. I thot it would be a crime if taking Olson's bizarreries too seriously you would be tempted to imitate him and that one day I would find myself reading something by you that sounded like the pathetic gibberish of Duncan. As I say, I see my anxieties were uncalled-for, you're too much yourself to be anyone else, or to commit literary suicide by imitation. So let's drop the subject. I haven't seen NO. 3. but I'm looking forward to reading the reviews you mention. I'll give you a line-by-line discussion after I've read them. I'M having a coming out party for THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER. I wish to heaven you could be here this Saturday. There'll be a crush of people, some of them even knowing what poetry is all about. Perhaps if I pray hard enough IMOMF might arrive before then. I could sell quite a slew of books if they came. So far haven't seen a single package. Have written two poems in the same number of weeks, but I don't think they interest you. If I had more time I'd type them out but I haven't. In fact I've got to hang up and say adieu right now. I've only got about twenty minutes to get to school. So don't mind the white space that follows, I'd gladly fill it up with more chat. But since I can't, you fill it in for me with all the love and respect I bear you. Love from us all to you and yours, Irving November 21, 1954 Dear Irving, I'm sorry to have been so brief last time, but without this goddamn machine, only me can read it, etc. You know - communication, & so on. Anyhow it was a wild letter. I wish to god one could find that simple literal sanity, of not so obscuring women that they become goddamn monoliths (is it). Or something. Anyhow reading this recently: "... much of the Freudian interpretation of mythology is valid only for those Western sub-cultures where the repression of sex has led to its obsessive over-valuation. The notion that sexual experience is so much the summum bonum of human life that it is the 178

The Correspondence

final, inner meaning of all mythological symbols, is a point of view which seems quite fantastic to those for whom sexual realization is as natural and usual as eating and sleeping." By the way, I like this book very much, called, Myth & Ritual in Christianity, by Alan Watts - if you can find a copy, or have not read it, etc. Very clear sane man, I think. Anyhow you made a lot of sense. Williams is a 'problem' I face generally, because I feel and have felt great sympathy with & for him, probably all too simple. But I did learn a great deal from his sense of structure, etc., and that invariably gets into anything I can say about him. Just now I'm facing the job of reviewing his Selected Essays — which are not so simple, actually in point of the way they've been 'cleaned up.' He wrote, at one time, a very quick & deep thing on women, per se - but that's out. Also out, reviews of the Pisan Cantos (Imagi), National Book Award Address (which tho short, was beautifully put, literally), and one thing I had prized very much, called Letter To An Australian Editor.296 In any case, there is much trivia in this selection - which the jacket blurb somewhat gives away, i.e., "Much of this book concerns poetry and poets - T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Karl Shapiro, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, e.e. cummings, Carl Sandburg, Robert Lowell and many others ...." He is not unequivocally 'nice' to all those, but it's surprising how many he damn well does treat with gloves. As, re Chas Henri Ford no less: "To me the sonnet form is thoroughly banal because it is a word in itself whose meaning is definitely fascistic .... But for Ford's sake I am willing to ignore the form as unimportant and look for the small excellences ,..."297 O well. It's not going to be very simple - and I confess, not at all so, for me. At that I suppose it is the inevitable necessity of prying the goddamn poet off his poems, etc. Say, at 20 you blush if anyone knows you wrote it, at 50 you bellow if they don't. What a life. I hope to god it's all right about that poem, Enemies. I have seen a proof on it - and again, I do like it, very much, in this draft. But I can't beat you with that - and if you've written me about it, and don't want it so printed, etc., there's time enough still to get it out. (I'm sorry to be rushing on #4, but I'm trying to catch up some of this damn time, etc. Hence leap abt here like chicken minus head. Ok.) I had a very damn good & kind letter from Dudek. It got me into the biz of 'groups,' to answer - and that's a red flag these days. But no matter. Anyhow I think groups make magazines & men 1 by 1 books - and the former is too goddamn often muck. When hasn't it been, finally. 'Groups' are only useful for the idiots who can't make it alone - of whom one I may be. Ok. You know, to hell with it. You 179

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

& yr goddamn CIVILIZATION! I'll stick to the American Pigmy Pouter Club any time.* All our love to you all & write soon, Bob *They give prizes. November 21, 1954 Dear Bob: Good, very good, to hear from you after so long a silence. I hope your typewriter is all better by now and the flow of letters between us will continue as happily and uninterruptedly as before. At this point of my psychic development a letter or at least a short note from you once a week is a necessity — and I ain't kidding either. Last week was one of the glummest I ever remember spending, all because throughout the seven bleak days I had no word from you. Two days ago I sent you a copy of TLP, but it will be a long while before it reaches you since my finances compelled me to send it by Book Post and not Air Mail as I wanted to. I hope the book takes your fancy, all the more so since it is dedicated to you and I would hate to think it made you squirm each time you took it down to look at it. Anyway I trust you will overlook its very real deficiencies and think only of the intention that lay behind the desire to dedicate the Long Pea-Shooter to you. Take it as my very real and very earnest desire to express my admiration for you both as writer and person. You're the best thing that has happened to me in years. Last week I had a pleasant surprise. Some chap from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation phoned me to my place of work and asked me to come down and record my voice and poems for a fifteen minute coast-to-coast hook-up. That's real fame for you, though being the hard-bitten materialist I am I confess I've been trying to figure out just how it will translate into dollars and cents at the end. Betty and I have been carrying on heated arguments in our fanaticism to pin it down to the exact amount. So far we are poles apart in our respective estimates, due no doubt to the different evaluation we each set upon my poetry. Anyway it should come to a sizeable chunk of money, the down payment on a couple of Christmas turkeys. Tonight I address the Sir George Williams College. It's a pity I do not have any IMOMF on hand to sell. The twelve copies you sent me are all gone - reviewers, friends, etc. Everyone who holds the book in his hands becomes straightaway lyrical over the coverpiece and layout. Truly a beautiful job, for which I cannot thank you sufficiently. 180

The Correspondence Bet's been under the weather the last few days. It's all my son's fault. He went out after washing his hair and brought back the most hacking cough you ever heard. He then very generously proceeded to share it with the other members of the family, so now all of us are coughing away to beat, quite literally, the band. Bet's somewhat worried because she has a T.B. history and yesterday made me take down a sample of her sputum to the hospital. The trouble is we won't know for days and days the story on it; in the meantime, as you might expect, the two of us are a tangle of nerves. It would be nice if the whole thing blows over with no more than a grim scare. How do you like your new setup? I wish you much happiness in it. Write me something abt Dahlberg. Seems to me we were together in last year's ND annual.298 His stuff struck me as being somewhat long-winded. Yes? Write when you have time. All our love to you. Irving [Added in margin: Haven't a copy of the version of the "Enemies" which pleases you, so can't compare. But if it's all right with you, it's the same with me.]

Nov. 23, 1954 Dear Bob: No time for a longer chat, but wanted to send this newer and I hope improved version of the poem I sent you a couple of days ago.299 How do you like the phallic symbolism of the spear and whorls? I think the psychological evolution in the fourth stanza from hope to despair is nicely managed. The word 'cast' of course sums up the real ambiguity in his mind, the conflict between subjective feeling and the awareness of objective fact. You do want me to send the money for THE GOLD DIGGERS directly to you? I'm selling it for $1.25 less 40%. What about IMOMF? Is it Okay to sell it for $1.75 less 40%? Shall I send you all moneys for that as well? If the books come in soon I shall have a sizeable chunk of gold for you before Christmas. By the way, how many author's copies do you want me to help myself to? Here am I with the first really severe chest cold in my life — one day before my audition with the CBC. Why must the fates be so fucking ironic? Yesterday we had our first big snowfall of the year and the winter seems to have settled in for the next few dark and gloomy months (you will notice from my poems I'm a Zoroastrian). Since I do not ski (I should, though) and seldom skate, winter is just a lot 181

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley of trouble to me - usually motorist's. And my kids sniffling all over the place. Ah well, this ain't supposed to be a place of enjoyment. Do write when you can. All our love. Irving November 27, 1954 Dear Irving, God knows your letters are likewise a deep & abiding pleasure like they say. I'm sorry to have got off, etc. Anyhow let me answer this one just in, straight off. I'm damn sorry, all of us are, to hear of Bet's being sick. My mother has believed, firmly & absolutely, for the last 15 years that if I didn't have TB, I should have - which is hardly the pt. Anyhow I do damn well hope it's over by now? Write, please. I know how very dismal such suspense can be, and I hope to christ you're thru with it by now. Dahlberg took off last night, more or less phht, etc. I don't know. He cares for my soul I guess, I hate to seem quick - but my god he does go on & on & on & on. One of these men who never compromised, Irving —god help him. He knew Olson long ago, when same was abt 24 - and of course 'taught him everything he knows.' That's ok - and if quick, still is in fact partly true, since he kept at Olson, & so forth, and that's it anytime. Also D/ knows a lot, if it comes to that — but I am damned if ever again I want to be so cornered as I have been this past week. Nothing made it for him. He fought with everyone, yesterday refused Graves' hand — all this absolute bizness, etc. It's no good. He also is a misogynist, or tends very much to be one. Ann & he were at loggerheads almost from the first word — finally they fought, and he left — and I don't know. I can't say I'm a peaceful man, etc., but he never gets tired. (Very crazy, finally getting him off, I did up packages etc. for him - I cdn't stay to see him on the boat, - who knows but this aft/ in Palma there he'll be??? O well.) Well, you know. He did get me reading the pre-Socratic philosophers like they say, in self-defense. And I did like some damn things abt him, very much. But to say it was less than hopeless, wd be an Untruth. Ok. (I wonder who the next Great Man will be.) I spit here much more than I should - that again is to you, i.e., who else. But jesus he will never have any peace, never. It's an agony to see it day after day after day — tho I hardly saw him that much. But nothing will give him rest. And I, very literally, simply do not believe in life like that. I hardly can. Anyhow you may hear from him, re this English magazine NIMBUS, for which he's supposed to be Am/ editor. But that's hopeless too, he can't stand them, etc. Not that I blame

182

The Correspondence him. Anyhow he damn well does try, and means well, and is 54 now - it's not very damn simple. But to hell with that. Very damn good to hear abt that recording. By god! You'll be Poet Laureate of Canada, by the time I can get there. And why not - ah. Ok. Thanks for the two poems,300 of same I like POET & DANCER best (the most I think) but for, like, verse 4? I don't think it's 'reference,' etc., god knows that wdn't be it. Just that it goes out, light, etc. Well, to hell with me - voila. And this just to get back, quick - I'll write very soon. Also very kind of you re ENEMIES — I hope it makes it for you, it does for me very much. All our love to you all, Bob November 28, 1954 Dear Bob: Nice and snug to get your typewritten letters flowing again. Glad to hear you agree with me on sex & sanity, etc. As I said before, my case may be special, my love life is normal & good, so I'm blind as a bat and can't see what all the fuss is about. For that matter can't ever see much sense in absolutes of any kind, and if a guy is making himself miserable about something he's a damn bloody fool and had better do something about it in a hurry. I think most people (in my circle) carry more intellectual baggage than they strictly need for life's journey (!) What in the hell is the use of all these fine theories, generalizations etc. if they leave you limp and unhappy at the end of it? Fuck it & and chuck it I say. If a chap lets anything stand in the way (particularly ideas) of the enjoyment of the immediate second he's a confounded fool. I'd better can this, I'm beginning to sound like Eddie Guest.301 You'll be glad to hear I sold 15 copies of the GD. But the douane cost me $3.40. Miss Baker put the absurdly low price of $1.50 per parcel of 13 books, and the customs officials thought it too ridiculous and charged me ten percent on the wholesale price of the book. Anyway I'll send you some money during the first week of December after trying to sell the remainder. I'm not having much luck with Olson's stuff, and have only succeeded in selling about five copies of the IMMORAL PROPOSITION. I've sold to date about 30 copies of BMR. Will send BB the money for the same. It's perfectly all right about ENEMIES. I'm looking forward to seeing it in the next issue of the mag. By the way, did you send copies of IMOMF to the reviewers? Will you get someone to review it for the BMR? I sent you a copy of THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER. Perhaps you could get someone to do both of 183

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

them in a single review since the books are the two halves of my poetic personality. Needless to say I've made lots of enemies with the LPS, but that as it should be. They're the kind of enemies that does me honour, and makes me feel that poetry as a means of correction and chastisement is not yet wholly dead. The academics and puritans are howling like stuck pigs, but I must confess their squeals are music to my uncharitable ears. I'm getting my next book, THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT, into shape. It's going to be I think my strongest volume. This morning I came across a sentence from Emperor Hadrian which I'm going to take as my epigraph: "Let us try, if we can, to enter into death with open eyes." Glad to hear Dudek wrote to you. I'd be a lot happier with the boy if he were a consistent fighter and didn't veer with the wind as it blew this way and that. But that's another story. I like a good fighter, I like good haters. Too much grape juice in Dudek. Love to you all. Irving 30111154

Your other letter just came. I like the poem, and make, I think, what you say of it. Still I like others better - how to say it. But it does get an odd 'circus' biz in it, just now thot for example of that 'whirling' scene in that english movie, Dead Of Night.302 Send money for any of our books here, i.e., Gold Diggers, Mayan Letters, or yours. Re yours: I think best to keep it at $1, i.e., no matter you could get more. Production-wise, it's not worth $1.75 — and hate to hype people, when whole gig was aimed at low-cost bk/s etc. So keep it at a buck, if you will. Anyhow make it: Mayan Letters - $1; Gold Diggers - $1.25; In The Midst Of My Fever - $1; all minus 40%. For author's copies, you're entitled like they say to 20 anyhow, but if you need more, take them. Just tell me how many it comes to, so I can keep some track of copies. I'm sorry they get to you so slowly, but this damn douane doesn't let us make it faster. To date I've sent 15 to you (Oct 13); 15 to Louis D/ (Nov 3); 15 to Currie (Nov 10); 15 to Goodwin (Nov 26).303 That leaves 6 to go, and will be sending them right along, i.e., 15 this week & so on. Damn sorry to hear abt yr cold, and hope you're done with that by now. So far so good, here - knock on wood, etc. Still getting pretty strong sun here middle of the day, and fair enuf. Write soon. Will do likewise. [Added in margin: I'll also write soon who I've sent courtesy copies of ITMOMF to, to date. No sense overlapping, etc.] 184

The Correspondence December 5, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours in, and let me while I remember note the people I've sent your book to, [Added in margin: or will shortly] to date: J.C. Ransom Larry Eigner Denise Levertov Paul Blackburn Robt Leed Ezra Pound W.C. Williams Katue Kitasono John Hawkes Robt Graves Alastair Reid Rene Laubies Kenneth Rexroth

Robt Hellman Renate Gerhardt J. Williams Robt Cooper Gael Turnbull Emerson (GG) Fiamma Vigo Cid Gorman Alex. Trocchi & a few other people, friends, etc. But J. Laughlin these anyhow have it, and do not D. Allen (ND) include magazines.304 Fred. Eckman Kath. Litz Lawrence (At. Monthly)

Once the bulk shipment of the book is in the states (it leaves tomorrow from Barcelona, i.e., boat), review copies are sent to the following: Accent; Beloit Poetry Journal; Books Abroad; California Quarterly; Civ/n; Experiment; Imagi; Interim; Intro; Kenyon Review; New Mexico Quarterly; New Republic; Northern Review; Perspectives USA; Poetry; Quarterly Review of Literature; Sewanee Review; Western Review; and whatever other magazine asks for a specific review copy, of any given book. [Added in margin: Also Merlin, Golden Goose, and a few small ones.] This doesn't of course guarantee a single review, and to date the books have not been reviewed, except notes in ORIGIN, and one review which Cid did of my Kind Of Act Of, in Poetry.305 [Added in margin: also Golden Goose - & a few small ones. ("Sparrows"!)] Generally, they're ignored. The problem of getting reviews, in the states, is a considerable one; but my own suggestion would be, anytime anyone has eyes to do a review it would be best if he considered the list above, i.e., he'll know they have at least seen the books in question. Of that group, those most possible, and also most useful, in order: NMQ; New Republic; Western Review; Poetry, etc., etc. Also my own thought, that if someone like Louis D/, say, could do a round-up review on all the books to date, taking it from the angle of a 'small-press' as well as books individually, he might be able to interest something like the New Republic. The man to write there is: Robt Evett, NR, 1824 Jefferson Place, N.W., Wash/ etc. As to reviewing the books in the BMR - I'm against it for several reasons, but mainly for the fact that since I both edit the mag & print the books, to use the former for a place to review them seems too convenient, i.e., it would hurt us more than it would help, and the tie-in is generally known, etc. Actually the continual appearance of 185

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

your poems, etc., is a better 'add' for any book by you, than a review would be. I can and will advertise it there, of course. I'm not against reviewing books by editors otherwise, i.e., viz that review in the 1st issue. But a review anywhere else, particularly outside of the general periphery, is worth a lot more to us; Cid's review in Poetry accounted for sales to libraries et al. that would never have happened otherwise - in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if just that one review was responsible, at least in part, for the fact the book sold out, granted it was a small printing. Anyhow it got us a lot of welcome publicity. More generally - the whole bizness is a funny one, i.e., in NYC I was surprised to know how much of a dent the books had made, qua publishing. It always has that undercover flavor, and yet I met very few people there who didn't know abt it - and I had no eyes for talking abt it etc at the time, I mean, my ears weren't hanging out etc. But people like New Directions, Caedmon etc., had been impressed apparently. As were what few bookstores I got into, particularly the 8th Street Bookstore (which just had a write-up in Publisher's Weekly, on their handling of 'paper-backs' generally).306 They gave us a very good display, in their window, etc. In fact, I saw our books in the windows of several of the stores around that area - and even Brentano's had them so displayed, before they started pulling slick biznesses, etc., hence stopped ordering because we kicked. Anyhow, granted it's all hand-to-mouth, some kind of dent seems to be made. And god knows I get the nice-est letters, like they say — tho that is always a bit equivocal. So that's briefly the run-down, like they say, on the biz as it now goes. Happily, the woman who is now acting as our agent in NYC seems to be doing ok;307 and recently wrote that most of the bookstores have now ordered Mayan Letters & GD/S, i.e., contact is picked up again, etc. It was hanging for almost 6 months. Jonathan did very well by us on his trip west, and got stuff into bookstores I didn't think wd even let him in the door — like in Atlanta, Mobile, New Orleans, etc. And with him on the West Coast, now, whole gig gets a little better spread. Usually hell of a vacuum west of Washington, and that whole bunch, West Coast, very private self-protective outfit - from writers to bkstores - except for one or two like Emerson. (Rexroth, for example, now calls me an assassin, etc. Wow.) What we can do this coming year, I don't know; I may try to pick up some more loot somewhere. Who can say. We thot that Mossen wd have his hands full from a deal with people in Madrid he was telling us abt, but now it seems that didn't come off, so he's looking for more work again. But at the moment, we're broke - and still have Paul's bk to do, and also this novel to finish. So. 186

The Correspondence Many many thanks for all the help with the books there, you have by god just abt earned yr Free Pair of Rollaway Roller Skates. How abt that. Well, you know. It's very damn good of you - and think you've done incredibly well. (Don't worry abt TIP,308 for one thing poor J/ was able to sell something like 6 copies in the us, after some 4 or so months. I used to have to console him, at BMC. Very sad it was - but now I guess it's picking up some. I think that one is doing better in France, finally, from Laubies' part. I hear L/ is having a show of all such things, litho/s, seriographs, etc., at Wittenborn (art dealers, books in NYC) this spring - another plug for us too, as it happens. Also a big Jap/ magazine has taken cover from Larry Signer's bk, for a new magaz gig they're starting there, i.e., sans present lettering etc. It all helps.) Ah well — let me fuck this, and write soon, abt other things. Write yrself, please. #4 all set but for Franz Kline, who is supposed to send stuff for pix this time - apt to be vague abt such things I think. I heard this summer he got into hell of a mess over a car, i.e., he had an old one, traded it, and thot you cd just take the old plates off & put them on again, etc. "They're mine, aren't they?" This plus piling into some other car, is costing him abt $500. When the police came, Kline & Pollock (who was with him & who went thru the windshield I think) were pulling themselves together, and Kline sez: of course you know Jackson Pollock, Great American Painter, etc. Police answer: yes, we got a record on him. So that was that. Write. All our love to you all, Bob December 6, 1954 Dear Irving, Weather damn well gets cold now -1 guess it was too good to hold, anyhow fair enough. It's a somewhat grim, though sane enough, day. I was thinking anyhow of this thing of your epigraph, for THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT (which is a damn fine title I think - moves me at least very much). How is it you had it: Walking with eyes open into death. Hadrian, etc. Horrible thought, I think! I know what you mean - but emporororers? How do you spell it, etc. I want at least to die with eyes shut. Like that biz of, and then we gently closed his eyes - o. O then we gently closed his eyes, For death to him had come For three long days we said, Goodbye! But he would not succumb. 187

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

But Mary dear drew up her chair And to his fevered lip She proffered strychnine mixed with beer Which he did mildly sip. O then, o then, we watched him twist And how the wretch did roar! But we did smile for well we wist: He soon will be no more. O then we gently closed his eyes, For death to him had come We gently, gently closed his eyes And Mary wiped his bum. (Hassenpfeffer) [Added in margin: Written For Offb Basw Oabh Ofwa, On The Occasion Of His Probable Demise. Adamo me fecit. R. Creeley Gert.] Why not something Happy, like: For Gods sake, walking by the way, If you my Heart doe see, Either impound it for a Stray, Or send it back to me. (Drayton)309 Or something Happier, like: Let me be what I am, as Virgil cold; As Horace fat; or as Anacreon old; No Poets verses yet did ever move, Whose Readers did not thinke he was in love. (Jonson)310 Etc. But Eyes Wide Open Into Death - ahhhhhhh. Tis a grim & weary thot, I think. He that precludes the Muses wisdom, he/Will most long wearie yeares in durance be;/But he that with sage wit does recommend/ Good laughter, meets a pleausant ende. (Goofer) Take care. All our love, Bob 188

The Correspondence

December 7, 1954 Dear Bob: Yours came yesterday and I'm sitting down with the first free moment I have to answer it. Your description of D's visit limned the man and the moment for me as if I had been there. So he refused Graves' hand? And out of principle, too? What a man? What makes people do things like that, Bob? Rigidity, or heroism? I wish I knew the answer. Anyway, you sound as though you had been battling a plague of locusts all by yourself, with Ann pitching in from time to time to help you out, what with your back to the wall, screaming imprecations and bits of pre-Socratic philosophies to frighten them off. Glad you liked both poems. Yes, on the whole, I think I prefer POET AND DANCER of the two, though the phallic imagery of the other will always endear it to me. The tumid spear bending over the whorls of light.... Pardon me, but wow! I think the fourth stanza of that one pretty accurately reflects the changing drift of the man's mind going from hope through the intermediate state of doubt and finally to the certainty that young pussycats aren't for an A.K. (alte kakker - old shitter: Yiddish expression) like him. I dunno, but I may learn to like it even better than the first one after I've read it a couple of more hundred times to myself. I'm enclosing two more poems which I hope will take your fancy. Metaphysical is a bit different for me: D. and your recent extension course in THE GREAT THINKERS should be an adequate preparation for it. As for ON THE DEATH etc. it's a helluva tight thing, beginning with vocabulary and the poor duffers who're tongue-tied before their wives and bosses.311 But here I go poking my grubby thumb in your eye again. I've sold 15 copies of the GD out of I believe it was 25 sent to me. I haven't sold any of the Mayan Letters, but at the price you quote I should be able to sell a goodly number. It's a damned attractive book. What else? The prose? I feel like a stinker to keep carping away at Charlie's prose, but I show it to others, reasonably intelligent etc., and get the same blank stares. So I feel I'm letting my side down ... but you understand, it isn't cussedness. Hate to admit it, but it may be stupidity. I mean my own, of course. Those that have read your GO'S think you're Al. Ask me when your next book is coming out, are alert and interested in what you're doing .... Have sold 34 copies of the second issue of the BMR. Am sending the money on to B. Baker. Will send you a pile of money one week before XMAS. Can I use the unsold copies for goodwill & advertising, or do you wish me to send them to BM College? So far 189

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley I've rec'd 27 copies of IMOMF. Have used up 15 for Can. reviewers and friends. Sold the rest. As you say, I'll keep twenty as complimentary copies and send you monies for all the rest. This includes of course the 15 I've sent out for reviews etc. All our love to you. Irving [Added at top of letter: P.s. Bet's cough is gone, but we haven't the report from the Hospital yet. But our fears are for the time over. What a relief! My own health is shipshape. Glad to hear yours is too.] [Added in margin: I see I've got time to type one more poem. The Dark Plebeian Mind.312 Perhaps you will like it well enough to use in that lively satire number you plan. Perhaps. Anyway let's hear what you think of it. Did you get the LPSf] December 75, 1954 Dear Irving, Yours in, and like the poems, two in particular, very much, i.e., Metaphysical and The Dark Plebeian Mind. The first I'd like to use in #5, next to come - and the other, as you suggest, for this 'parody' issue (which I've had to put off till #6 since there's not enough material now in hand to take a chance on the rest, etc.) Anyhow, is that ok? I don't mean to put the Vishinsky one down - Ann & me both make it, etc. - but a question, if that is the goddamn word, of liking other 2 more, etc. O well. As to left-over copies of the magazine, use them for anything you can. I'd written them, you were to have 50 copies per issue (until you said otherwise), and that's that. I.e., sell what you can, and use the rest for anything you want — light yr fire, etc. Ok. It's very damn good of you to help as you do. I haven't heard from Dahlberg yet, I don't know what the hell may have happened - he was off to see Aldington, but had lost the address, but I think I remembered it straight, i.e., I used to correspond with him, like they say, when we were living in France.313 Let's hope to god I remembered it! D/ was very skeptical, but went no matter. Actually, the nightmare was that Ann & I were 'divided' on him, i.e., she rightly enough cdn't stand him, but I did like some things abt him, and also he was a friend of a friend, a good one, and that is never very simple. I owed him some kind of care, god knows - also he is a very damn worn & sad example of what happens to a 'writer in America.' It's pathetic. And he knows a hell of a lot of these materials I wish I knew better -journals & so on, early American &

190

The Correspondence so forth. For one thing he had complete edition of Purchas - and almost worth being called anything, to get at that.314 Tho it didn't work out quite that way — and what I have are these goddamn preSocratics, poor devils. Also this idiot commentator thereon, 19th century Scot, St Andrews,315 - nothing that don't relate to the 'dawn of science' gets in. (He tosses out Pythagoras' lists of what to do & not to do, etc. So goddamn condescending, etc.) Anyhow, D/ was sometimes good company, alone, etc. But I was caught in a crossfire most of the time. As he put it, sometime, 1960, say, some friend of Creeley's will come walking down the street, and find him sitting there, covered with bruises, on the sidewalk - and, 'What for god's sake happened???', and Creeley will answer, now you have to understand the circumstances, you see, in 1934 my mother was out buying radishes, and that wasn't very easy for her because my uncle was in Cuba, and if you knew, etc., etc., etc. In short, I think he thought me a bit 'clever,' in the not so very great sense of that term. Olson, he says, has got the will & not enough 'sensitivity' (he thinks up these things as he goes, by the way) & you got the s/, but not the w/, etc. It got a bit dreary, like they say. But, charitably, I hope he gets some goddamn PEACE some day. He is as bitter a wanderer as ever I met. Well, to hell with that. As it is, I came very damn near to flipping last night, some friends up the road, were in, 'writers' - and trying to 'explain' idea of theatre having too limited a sense of 'vocabulary,' i.e., same tends to take the 'verbal' for a lead, make gesture & so on all a 'reinforcement' of that head. Finally ended sitting on the floor with 2 chairs, i.e., to 'show' (god help me) 'idea' of chairs being an equal object, presence, as a man, und so weiter. They thot I was trying to be a chair. Goddamnit! Well, write. Hope it's all making it there. Xmas rush going well, etc. Ok. All our love to you. Bob December 19, 1954 Dear Bob: I hope by now the L P-s has reached you and given you some laffs. I sent out copies to different people in the five continents - the response has been exceedingly fine. Even received a postcard from Ez Pound himself with one word scrawled on it, very large, you know - CHEERS. As I told my good wife — who's much recovered, thank you — anything after that would be superfluous, or in the nature of an anticlimax. I sent a copy to Charles Olson but haven't heard from him yet. What does bother me is that I included in the same letter 191

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley one for Miss Baker PLUS a postal note for $17.00 to pay for the 34 copies of BMR 2. That was about two weeks ago, and have not heard a single syllable from either of them. I'll drop B.B. a note: and what about BMR 3? Haven't got my shipment yet. This week I'm having my bank send you $27.80 (Canadian money — you'll get more American dollars since the exchange is in our favour) for the following bks which I've sold. Ten copies of IMOMF at sixty cents per copy; 18 copies of GD at 75 cents and finally 14 copies of the Mayan letters also at 60 cents. I trust this is satisfactory to you. By the way, you'll be happy to hear that I've at last seen the light re Olson's prose — that's why I sold fourteen copies of his book. It came all of a sudden - a kind of revelation it was - and on the strength of my enthusiasm was able to sell the books to members of my class. I even used two paragraphs from said bk to illustrate the evolution of Eng. prose. However, I intend to hold on to my commas, for there's no point in imitating a style so individual as his. But he has made me see some things I was blind to before and I am grateful to him. To date I've received 3 packages of 12, 15, and 15 of IMOMF. As per your instructions I've taken 20 copies for myself which I've sent to Can. reviewers and friends. The list you sent me is most impressive. I hope the book gets a number of reviews: if you see any let me know. I've made a recording of seven poems with comment for the CBC. I chose tough poems for the occasion & hope to stir up some excitement for poetry by giving the hoi polloi a bleeding nose. We'll see what comes of it. I'm enclosing another poem which I did recently. Hope it makes it for you. Got your lovely Christmas booklet.316 A damn fine thing. Bet and I are both delighted with it. Write as soon and as often as you can. One of the pleasures in life I absolutely count upon is a letter from you. All the very best to you and yours. Love from us all. Irving December 27, 1954 Dear Irving, I'm very damn sorry not to have written — but you'll know what Xmas is & so on. Anyhow we now have a monkey — goddamn equivocal beast (female), who likes mainly Ann - and makes a fearful grimace at me whenever she thinks I'm deserving, etc. But to hell with that.

192

The Correspondence THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER is now in — very damn fine! Again, all my thanks for that dedication, I wish I didn't feel so undeserving like they say — but that is dreary & also smug way under. Ok. I like, particularly, the Prologue, Literary Smoothie, Cyril Tishpish, Poetess, Canadian Spring (very much), Metropolis, University Buildings, On First Looking Into Stalin's Coffin, All-Too-Human, Now That I'm Older, Misunderstanding, Brief Encounter, On Mr & Mrs Y's Reaction To Z's Misfortune, The Masked Marvel (!), Eros Where The Rents Aren't High, Author With A Pipe In His Mouth, June Weather, New Tables, The Law, Rain At La Minerve (very much), Address To The Undernourished, The Ravens (very very much). - And goddamnit, that says nothing - ok. It's a clean decent book, very damn good. I hope to christ it does get thru to some. What else. To note it: two Oxford students were down here visitingjust before Xmas (friends of friends in Germany, i.e., the Gerhardts), and both came from Newfoundland — one Rhodes scholar & the other, pleasanter, some kind of grant to do graduate work in Eng/ Lit/ like they say.317 Hence I was able to introduce them to their National Poet, yet — namely yr fine self. It was a great pleasure to damn well see them read it — like the latter (Ed Flynn), by god, really sitting there & getting it, all, sound by sound. A damn fine thing to witness. Anyhow, I sent them back loaded as best I cd with copies of ITMOMF, and I also gave Flynn your address, etc. He wd be a fine addition to that city, I think. A gt. pleasure meeting him & as sane a 'yng man' as I have yet met - very pleasant, in short. Let me also answer some of these questions. To begin: wd like to keep poems as follows - The Dark Plebeian Mind; Metaphysical, and this last one (very good) Afternoon Tea.318 Is that ok? I don't like to be so damn vague - well, you know that. Those three anyhow, but please do send what you have as, etc. Ok. (Also, has that damn book(s) ever come, for review? They may not have published the damn things as yet? Who knows. Also, did you get a copy of Contemporary Issues (magazine) with biz re Diderot? That was for comparison (ho) with Diderot bk from Michigan. Well, fuck that. (Henry Regnery press was the other, was supposed to send you bk re schools - but goddamn them they are very slow & loathe with such as ourselves goddamn them - goddamn them. Fuck it. Goddamn them.) You ought to have #3 by this time. I did send a single copy on from here - has that come? They ought to have had the bulk shipment at BMC by now. The place 'closes' up (vacation) Nov/ to March but they CANT ALL GO AWAY. O well. You know - I'm just the South European representative. God knows. I'll keep at Chas to get something clear, etc. But don't worry. (I did have a very enthusiastic letter

193

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley from him re Long Pea-gun — and you ought to have damn well heard by now? Anyhow was certainly on.) [Added in margin: Like, very much, Bet's drawing of you!]319 This just to get back - hopeless time. Do not know whether to laugh or cry, or anyhow get stoned etc. But I did that. Do write. All our love, always. Bob [Added at top of letter: Will keep yr bk coming from here - Xmas also threw that off. Hopeless time really. Like ALL Sundays, etc.] Thursday, Dec 30, 1954 Dear Bob: I hope by now you have received the bank order & the L P-S. If the one doesn't cheer you up, the other should. Heh, heh: some joke. Did I or did I not mention kind of casual-like in my last letter to you that I received a post-card from Ezra Pound after I had sent him the Pea-Shooter. If I know myself & the occasion offered I probably did. BUT in case I didn't I want you ole frien' ole chum to know what the history-making postcard contained. One word - CHEERS. Now, say truth, wasn't that a lovely Xmas gift, for between you & me and the censor, in this business, everything but the approval of a man whose excellence you concede & venerate is just so much hossshit. Agreed? Fuck all reviews, radio programs - one word, ONE WORD, and it's enough to make a chap feel that he hasn't altogether wasted more than fifteen years of his life learning the niceties of his craft. Remember it was the LPS, not IMOMF - which fills me with the delight of a bird at dawn because it was the publication & after-effects of the former which led to a serious quarrel between me and Louis the Dudek; me holding forth that writing peashooters required O so much craft & cunning, cunning running along the blood & into the fingers that held the pen. Ah well, let me not spoil the grandeur and innocence of the birds' dawnsong by anything so foolish as a human gloat. Sufficient unto the day is the goodness thereof! AMEN. Finally got a short note from Eliza Baker, saying she received my postal order for seventeen bucks. Good. I thot the thing may have gone astray during the season's madness. I've told her henceforth to send me thirty copies for each issue and I will assume full responsibility so that whether sold or not, she'll get fifteen dollars from me four times a year. I expect to raise the ante, but just now I'm scraping the barrel. I'm having no luck with the KoAo but maybe it's because I let myself be put out by the format. I've sold abt a half-a-dozen to

194

The Correspondence some of your admirers, but I'm sure I can do better than that. Will try, you may be sure. Your description of D puts a lump into my throat. I can see him, argumentative, intolerant, superior, making enemies & naively not understanding why, because anybody can see he's right and/or has his heart in the right place, wants everyone really to be as wellinformed, superior, and well-disposed as he is. And grumpily packs his few belongings and is off to another place to see another body hoping that this time, THIS time, the gods will be kind and permit him to find someone who'll allow himself to be instructed with no fuss, but with the gratitude coming out on the face like beads of perspiration under a hot lamp. I have a theory that what's eating people nowadays is not original sin but much frustrated goodness. The societal instinct is being smashed, pulverized. Frustration: you know, the way a child gets when its impulse to hug and show affection is thwarted. He becomes resentful and can throw something at your head just because you didn't let him kiss you. What a race! I've sent AFTERNOON TEA to Cid, so I hope you have no mind to use it. Your choice of METAPHYSICAL and THE DARK PLEBEIAN MIND pleases me. Have been writing some things during the hols, one or two things not half bad. Liked your own things in the single copy of BMR which came a short while ago. Will write more abt the issue in my next letter. Till then, all the best to you and the family. May the coming yr be the happiest ever you had. Betty sends you loads of love and good wishes. Love, Irving January 8, 1955 Dear Irving, I can't find your letter in this incredible mess - however. That was very damn fine, about Pound — certainly as you say, it is not at all simple, to manage that kind of poem - however professorial such a pronouncement sounds. It takes a sharp knife, and a goddamn sure hand - and any slip is ignominious failure, etc. Actually it's a risk far beyond what anyone 'will think' - it runs the edge of all the goddamn nightmares, viz all the Xtian sins. But - briefly - I think you made it. Voila. Many thanks for sending on that money — we just got a notice from the bank. But, while I think of it, next time if you can send a check made out to me, i.e., we can cash such checks here, and we get the advantage of the unofficial exchange doing it that way - not much, but a little. This present way, the banks get their cut, and also give us official exchange, etc. Which is always bitter. 195

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley I'm sorry you sent that poem to Cid, i.e., AFTERNOON TEA - if at all possible, I'd like very much to have it - it's a damn good one. Well, don't break your back on it, but if I can have it, so much the better. (I'll try from now on to answer as completely and as promptly as I can on such things, i.e., whenever you send one, you can expect some kind of answer as to whether or no I think to use it, by return letter — as, in this case, I had written you re this poem immediately on getting it. But that's no threat for christ sake; if it's going to be a mess, to hell with it.) One other thing: if this book you're talking about not selling well there is THE KIND OF ACT OF, please tell me 1) how many copies you damn well have & 2) send Vz of them to me, and Vz to Miss Steloff, Gotham Book Mart, New York 19, New York. Thanks to Cid's review last March in Poetry, that one had a very good sale - and I thought it was out of print, i.e., half a dozen college libraries, plus Gotham's, and one or two others in NYC, plus even Booksearchers yet, have been bugging us for copies. Anyhow I'd be very grateful to get whatever copies you have there, if that's the one — I don't even have a decent copy left here for myself. Voila. All of which is slight exaggeration - but there are, in truth, no copies left that I know of (but these), and Gotham's has in fact been trying to locate some - as letter from BMC today reminds me. Ah well. By the way, Betty Baker is quitting BMC - something about 'incompatibility' she says. Too bad, really. She was I think very reliable for the most part, god knows she helped a lot. Still in this post-Xmas slump, so let me give this up for the moment & will write soon. Please do likewise. Hope things are all ok there, I would give a hell of a lot to hear that recording — can one talk copies out of them? Is there a Service, like they say. All love to you all, Bob January 9, 1955 Dear Bob: Today I went skiing for the first time in my life — and me a Canuck too - and here's the record. With my first fall I broke my bamboo ski pole, so I had only one pole to engineer the difficult feat of climbing the hills which loomed now high and monstrous before me. A few hours later and many falls to mark the passing time I thundered down an insignificant gradient, fell, and sprained my ankle. That put an end to all further skiing for the day. On my way to the car I discovered that my keys were gone and there wasn't a chance 196

The Correspondence to find them in the numerous graveyards I had made for them. Luckily I had a spare key to the car and I was able to take my bad temper and my worse ankle home. Now I hobble about the house and listen to Bet's encouraging compliments and the poorly concealed derision of my children. Why in the hell didn't I get a line from you all week? Are you well? Overworked? Your account of the two Canadian students was very welcome - glad to see you're making friends for me over there, and among Newfoundlanders, too. Well, well. Very well. I haven't seen a review anywhere of my IMOMF or the L P-S. Have you? I guess it's the familiar story of why review books when the publisher is unknown & not likely to advertize in your mag. No profit in that. O well, to hell with all that gooseoil. Your own reaction to the two books, and particularly to the L P-S is good enough for me and all that I really want and care. As I said to you in my last letter, the praise of someone whose own work you admire and respect is the only thing that really counts in this damned solitary business. I'm especially glad about the poems you picked out for blue stars, THE RAVENS, RAIN AT LA MINERVE, CANADIAN SPRING, ETC. Those are also among my own favourites in the collection. Thanks for the good word about the others. Last night we had a coming out party for Civ/n 7 - our strongest number to date. I've got a short article in it on Pound;320 I hope it goes over with you, also two poems you turned Roman thumbs down on: THE BUFFALOES and THE DEATH OF A. VISHINSKY. If I'm not wrong,

you also saw and didn't want the third one either, SARATOGA BEACH. That makes three strikes and out, I suppose. Somehow was pessimistic about chances of AFTERNOON TEA and sent it along with a batch to Cid. Have sent him a letter to put that one aside as not for use: it's yours if you still want it.... I'm enclosing a poem I wrote this afternoon to commemorate my strange & eventful outing. Not much of a poem, I suppose, but still .... it says something about this country ... mixture of irony and affection ...,321 Seem to feel that you might want to do THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT now that your printers' troubles are over. Is my feeling right? If you did, could you have it for April, May the latest? I've got 30 poems .... If you can't do it, I hope to bring it out sometime in March. I think it's my best to date. You'll see a good number of them in this forthcoming issue of Origin. Let me know how you feel about everything. Haven't got any more IMOMF packages, nor BMR 3. Take care of yourself. All our love. Irving 197

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

January 10, 1955 Dear Bob: My beloved spouse omitted to put fifteen cents postage for airmail on the letter I wrote you yesterday. I say I did she says I didn't tell her to do so, so it's something to fight about and relieve the tedium while I wait for the ankle's swelling to go down. The first day of skiing in my life - and this! I'm bitter. It took a whack of borrowed money to outfit me, all so that I could lie on my back and stare into space. No, I haven't either. Been re-reading Ellis' Psy. of Sex.322 Fascinating as always, wonderful spirit of sanity and love shines through the whole work. The man's life & work is the best answer I know to such poisoned arteries as Eliot's — humanism is no dream and the monks can get back to their cloisters or go to hell. Haven't heard from C.O. Wrote him awhile back, telling him of my discovery of his excellence as a proseur. Apparently unimpressed. O well. I suppose he's got his sprains and aches too. Do you hear from him often? Scheme to get him here fell through - L.D. uninterested and the Lit Soc of my college too small & poor to finance such a trip. If my own finances were in a healthier state I'd pay his way here and back, so curious and keen am I to see him. But I'm literally living on borrowed money, my extravagance on the LP-S being no help either. Am sending a revised copy of CAN. SKIERS and another one I just finished. You said I shd keep them coming in. All our love. Irving [Added at top of letter: If I don't get a letter from you I'll bust a gut. Bet wants to know what you thot of layout of LP-S.] [Added in margin: My friend Bill Goodwin phoned to say he sent package. Yippee!] January 15, 1955 Dear Bob: Yours in and glad to have it. Wondered what was holding you up, your health, worries ... I'm terribly stupid about money. I shd've thought of the unofficial rates and sent you a cheque. Sorry. Will amend in the future. As soon as I have another pile for you which won't be long by the way the parcels are coming in & I'm selling I'll enclose ... I repeat: you've got the best ear & eye in the bizz. You picked AFTERNOON TEA out of the stuff I sent you which increases (if possible, 198

The Correspondence which it ain't) my respect for your ever-so-cool judgment. I kiss you on both cheeks. A guy like you I could live with. Go ahead & use the poem; I've squared it with Cid to whom I sent it to make up a group of poems in a moment of vanity and weakness. Forgive. It won't happen again. All my fault, because you were unusually prompt about telling me whether you'd use it or not - you always are when you have pleasant news for me, and otherwise when otherwise, a gentleness of soul I much appreciate. If you have THE KIND OF ACT OF send me about a dozen copies. I am certain I can sell them to your growing circle of friends here. I've sold several more copies of the other book and two more of the GD. I've gotten Prof. Cole, a colleague of mine, with his head properly screwed on to look at your work. Damned interested. Right now, without wilful exaggeration, you're the best known American poet in this country among the few that matter. I only have about ten copies of the IP left. I'll send Gotham's four copies and four to you .... A book of your collected poems and stories would be terrific. And why not, and why not.323 (Incidentally I hear this refrain now from all the Creeley readers.) I liked Cid's thing on KS, your own things (very much) the short story and the reviews which are always perceptive and intelligent with a difference.324 There's quality of madness, of distortion which gives these their vigour and freshness. The best thing about them is that they don't read like reviews but like someone bursting in to tell you that he's just finished a book that's worth talking about. It's OZONIC.

The books haven't come in for reviewing yet. The mags did, some heavyweight stuff in it. Do you know the editors personally? Your poem in the current number of Civ/n - one of my favourites. I think Aileen Collins has some others of yours for the next number, but I'd better check on it. By the way, what's the reaction to BMR? Are you getting anything of a response? Who's interested, etc. The persons I sell it to down here keen, though some, naturally, raise eyebrows and questions. I'll try to place it in a couple of more bookstores; the one that takes it regularly sells his ten copies without fail, a good sign. Tell me, Bob, how much would it take for a family of four to live in Mallorca. I mean the minimum. Would an income of $1200 do it? Would there be any way of supplementing that income by work as a teacher? It might well be Mallorca or Israel or Italy for us. We're thinking quite openly of making a break. After all I have gone skiing and have made my obeisances to this country and its national sport by writing a poem about it although hardly a good one. I'm enclosing 199

Irving Layton and Robert Creelev another version to show you how I revise. Anything else? Ah yes, as always, all our love. Irving [Added in margin: P.s. Don't let me push you about "The Cold Green Element." But looking through some of your earlier letters, read something which looked like you might do it. Put me straight, if I'm wool-gathering. What happened to the pictures you were going to send me? Cid sent me some good news. Sankey & Cooper and MSS reprinting some poems & one story of mine. How are Ann & the kids?] January 18, 1955 Dear Irving, Things so much of a muck at present, let me at least tie into the actual, like they say, - viz, Bet's question re format of THE LONG PEASHOOTER. God knows I can't make much sense, at any time, re such things. But let me go at it assend-to, i.e., even like a variant way of how it could have been done. I think a smaller page, for one thing — figuring most of the poems in the book have 'narrow' form. But, more than that, one night we'd cut down a page from IMOMF, for some reason or other, to the dimensions of a GD/S page, just to see what it looked like — and it looked the end, i.e., jumped like crazy. With LPS, in particular, energy, and satiric character, wd have done very damn well in a 'jammed' page, i.e., wd have given effect of jumping right off it. As it is, — it's almost too formal. Does that make any sense? (I'll enclose page of IMOMF, as noted above, to show you what I mean here.) Anyhow, think something like an out-size pocketbk wd have been it — i.e., a small, tough book, with a real leer to it. Something to throw, in fact - a rock. (Too, I think yr present jacket design wd have been sharper on such a size. [Added in margin: That green wd be unnecessary.] - it is a little spread here?) [Added in margin: A Collected Poems of yrs, wd be very solid I think in such format (i.e., see page enclosed), and substantial, etc. I hope to god one day I can offer it. Ok.] Anyhow, with above in mind, like they say - wd figure layout as it is, abt — with possible exception of a little less fine type for text. Jonathan called us on using a semi-futura with such a 'fine' type in IMOMF — and he has a point, I think. Tends to go flat. But shit. This kind of thing can get very dismal, and belies alto-

200

The Correspondence gether my own pleasure in the book. So let me shut up. Voila. We're having a headache with the mag at present, lootwise. The whole college is in damn desperate straits (as ever), anyhow I think perhaps to switch to a biannual, [Added in margin: size of GD/S - as I've wanted to do for some time anyhow.] with about 150/175 pages, more pix & so forth — wow — anyhow, looser, gayer, cheerier, — etcetera. All to heave off the wolf. That wd make it Summer/Winter - and wd also give 6 months to get stuff, and 6 months to circulate finished product, on any given issue. How does that sound? I'm damned if I'll let go, in any case. So don't get worried - and do damn well keep sending stuff, plus any ideas you have. (We cd publish the above for very little more than we now pay on any given issue, i.e., GD/s was 225, and Woolfs novel just done the same. So I think 250/ 275 wd give us a real wild job.) Anyhow that's on my mind, and related nightmares. I like yr two new poems, skiing one best — but not as much to be straight as others. So leave me wait for yr gems? Ok? I hate to be so goddamn finicky abt it, but then you do damn well make it so much. Phew. Write soon. I've just written Chas (again & again) to send you more bks, notably copies of KK/S Black Rain. Good for the ladies maybe, who like Pretty Things. For 750 hardly taking a chance. Ok. Write. All cool, if frantic. So. All our love to you all, Bob [Added at top of letter: Cd you send a copy of LPS to poor old Dahlberg, as follows: Edward D/, General Delivery, Santa Monica, Calif. He's back there now - head-shaking commences, etc. Ah well. It might damn well cheer him up! Also, he liked poems I showed him of yrs, very much; but think he forgot to take copy of IMOMF - very like him - so send that too? Or I can fr/ here, - you say. What the hell.] January 21, 1955 Dear Irving, I'm sitting in here with a somewhat absolute disrelish for everything, perhaps it's just the reaction, like they say, from the magazine, etc., etc., etc. Anyhow, I hope all that made sense to you (and thanks for letting me have that poem after all - would figure to use it in the 1st issue of this new format, etc., granted all that works out). I don't know, it's not even despair - finally. But all the sniveling petti201

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley ness of the business, has left me more or less cold. (Cooper, by the way, seems to have been bugged that I asked he note an acknowledgement to Divers Press, in the next issue of ARTISAN; I thought he had right to credit magazines like that, but books, no. You'd think the son of a bitch wd see the virtue of telling where someone's work might be bought, etc. But swine like that wants to argue, he found it all by himself. He is also the man who said (while visiting us, yet), that Hitler had the 'right idea' about the Jews. I'd trust him about as far as I cd throw him, if I were you; Martin the same, albeit he has a better sense of humor.) So fuck it, what. And do come, goddamnit, that would be terrific. Though I warn you, you must be prepared for a life amid ghouls & idiots — and can expect NO sustinence whatsoever as far as matters of simple human intercourse are concerned. Unless you choose to learn Mallorquin, etc. - and god knows their existence is much like that of a contented cabbage. So anyhow, that you should know. It's otherwise a lovely place, with a damn lovely climate — and room enuf. Also cheap - much cheaper than either Italy or Israel (where you'd have to have more than it wd take to live in the States). I'll certainly be here. Also, Dan Rice is coming; and he is very great. Alastair Reid is pleasant; also Graves on occasion. That's abt it - or has been for me, anyhow. Duncan is coming — that will be something else again. You cd get by on $100 a month, — you'd eat ok, you'd have nothing left over however. Alastair & his wife live comfortably on $75 a month; but we, with 3 kids, and a much sloppier sense of money, live on abt $175. Perhaps you cd figure a reasonable mean. I don't think there would be any way to supplement the income here; or none you'd be cool to count on. Anyhow, ask me any questions you can think of I don't damn well dare let myself hope, like they say. I.e., you ought to know how great it would be, for me, to have you here. Ok. You're very good, always, about people who read me there — jesus christ. You bring tears to my eyes. Yet I can't care much, except that you and Chas, and perhaps four or five others make it. Or say, I do, etc. God, it's sometimes a bleak world! Which may be only a statement of my own inability to make a goddamn thing out of it. Again — fuck it. It's a bore! By the way, if you haven't sent copies of THE IMMORAL PROPOSITION to Gotham's & me - don't. I was talking abt THE KIND OF ACT OF which is out of print. Ok. This just for now, less dreary letter very soon. All our love to you all. Bob [Added at top and margins of letter: Re: THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT - the problem on that was, that we cannot (because [of] customs regulations

202

The Correspondence here) ship a book directly to Canada; if you're agreeable to having it go 1st to the us, and then be reshipped (in small lots) to Canada, etc., etc., that wd do it - and be the only hitch, etc. We could (and can) print the book; but it was this headache re shipping (as we found out re doing CIV/N) that had stopped us. I'm not, for example, even sure who cd reship it to you, if BMC continues as shaky as it now is. Anyhow god knows I wd like to do it, very much; I can't offer to do it as a D/ Press bk, because we don't have enuf money. You could use the name certainly; and do it here, etc., etc., but I don't think it's worth the much if anything. Well - whatever. Anything I can do, god knows that's it — always. Thanks for the revision of ski-poem. Like it, but still not as much as some of yr others. Well, fuck that. Voila.] January 27, 1955 Dear Irving, I had a letter from Frederick Eckman (1908 Main Bldg, University of Texas, Austin 12, Texas); and he likes IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER very much, e.g., "I should like to do a review of the Lay ton, which impressed me greatly ..." He wants to know whether or not I'd have eyes; and I would have, but for the fact we published the book and also that you're one of the mag's ed/s, etc. That is not too cool - or get hung with self-admiration biz. But he ought to write the damn thing; and try it around (which is not as hopeless as all that). Could you send him a copy of THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER? He could do both together; and that might help re placing the review. I suggested the New Republic to him; and he'll have his own ideas. Have you any? He writes soberly, and without any tricks, i.e., he did the review of Pound's Selected Essays in BMR #3. And, as you'll know, he's one of the ed/s of Golden Goose.* Anyhow it seems an angle - and god knows that's something. I'm still sunk with the mag, viz format & so on & so on. Olson wrote, keep going - but how, is not so simple. Still no money for part of #3 and all of #4; tho he also writes they'll have some soon. But the idea of a bi-annual, and the changed format, still seems good to me. It would be much simpler to do; also to distribute. We've already had trouble with deBoer on #3, because of its lateness; and there is no damn way to stop that, not when nothing damn well comes. So I'm arguing for a bi-annual — in short. Too, while I think of it, the poems I have of yours for the next issue (no matter what it comes out as) are: 203

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley AFTERNOON TEA THE DARK PLEBEIAN MIND METAPHYSICAL

plus whatever else you can get me, between now & whenever (viz, deadline for next appearance, etc., etc.). But that's it, from what you've sent me to date. Material is ok, generally, i.e., I have three good stories (one by Lippman & other two by new people), fairly decent poems — a good article on Pound by Paul Carroll.325 But I'm way behind on brief reviews — and if you can manage anything, damn well do. Really, any book that catches your attention - I begin to despair of the goddamn publishers coming thru regularly enough. Ok. In spite of goddamn depression re the mag - at least I begin now to get some comment abt it, mostly fair enough. I guess it is a case of staying in - tho I can't convince myself there's enough good writing to warrant a quarterly, anywhere. Well, that hardly helps - to hell with it. I'd like to make it stick - no matter. Well, you know. Here - amid these professionals (wow ...) - often all seems a bit unreal, but they are hardly the people to ask. So. Write when you can. All our love to you, Bob [Added at top of letter: *He would, apparently, do one for that, but he says they've decided to reduce their reviewing to spot notices — which is a shame, I think.] January 30, 1955 Dear Irving, Yours re the aft/ on the slopes just came limping in. So now I know all, etc. You are surely the wild one - but take it you are getting around again & all that. Actually, like they say, I like skiing very much, i.e., I used to do a lot as a kid - and some while we lived in NH, we were just the backside of the mt/ from Cannon Mt/, aerial tramway & all. But it's too goddamn expensive, finally - the tows all charge like crazy & I am too lazy to climb anywhere any more. But I wonder when we'll see snow again at that. Well, spring is coming - voila. Again, as to THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT: as I wrote, the main hitch is shipping. (Other than the fact that we have not, sadly enough, loot left to do any more books on our own for awhile (but Paul B/s I still want to get out, if possible) - and just when things will be better,

204

The Correspondence god knows. We're facing some more grim news possibly, in that we haven't heard from the bank re some checks sent them; which were payment from the pigeon magazine company, for the book on pigeons. If they have been lost or stolen, or simply don't get there - well, we're fucked for some time to come. It amounted to $475 which just covered the expense of doing the book as it was.) Anyhow, if you can figure any simple way to have the books forwarded from the us - how about your brother on the line? - then we'd be altogether agreeable to help with printing, and/or print it here, etc. But for one book - sizeable - we're doing for a woman (on Cocteau, drawings, etc.) and another small one for Cid (i.e., his Sparrow Press book — we'll do it for them for old time's sake, etc.)326 - there's really not much up. And poetry goes pretty fast - or ought to - tho it never damn well does in fact, god knows. I tell you what: IF you want us to do it (because I would like to, simply to have the pleasure of printing it & all) and IF we can send it to your brother (and you can manage someway of getting it from there by car, in lots or whatever) - THEN send the manuscript as soon as possible, and tell us how many copies you want, etc. Because right at the moment, there's a lull generally at Mossen's, and this is the time. But make it fast - and also do figure in this problem re getting it to you (we can ONLY ship to the States) - and also that we can't help with the damn money for it. Anyhow you say - that much we can do, and wd be more than glad to. Ok. Just make sure you have some way to get it from the us into Canada; and let me note too, that customs on books going into the us so far have been very low, i.e., for an example, $4.85 on your book and Seymour-Smith's, both together; $4.80 on Kitasono's; $14 on Mayan Letters and Gold Diggers together. That's something, but not hopeless. Anyhow let me get this back, quick. There's not much else to tell you. There haven't been any reviews of your book that I know of — well, they don't review our books god knows, and it's only via interested people like Eckman, perhaps, that there's ever much hope. We do send out a fair number of review copies; but being a small press — etc., etc. You'll know what it's like. Anyhow write soon. Let me know what you think about the new ideas for BMR - ok. All our love to you all, Bob [Added in margin: You're god knows welcome to the press name (Divers) if that means anything (or else joint Laocoon-Divers — or else simply let us have small credit for design (as in ORIGIN #8)?)327 - but time enuf.]

205

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

Feb. 8, 1955 Dear Irving, We're going to Perpignan for a couple of days to get Ann's visa straightened out — i.e., she has to "leave the country" & start all over again. She let it go 11 months without doing anything like they say. So. Will be back in about a week's time I would think. Again - as I wrote - I'd be more than pleased to do the Cold Green Element here for you* - I don't think it need be hopeless re costs & all. And I have I think a wild design & format for it. Or have been thinking about it anyhow. I saw Origin #14 — congratulations! Story don't goof me but poems - ah well!328 You are a great man, old friend. But look — let me know about your book — how many copies if you want us to do it & so on. Ok. Typewriter is broken again but will write as soon as we are back — also tell you more about the mag. etc., Voila. All our love to you all, Bob *With those things noted in that letter figured in. I.e., if you can get someone to forward copies, that's it. Sunday Dear Bob: Forgive the long silence; busy correcting exam papers, trying to write some poems, teaching myself to ski without breaking my ankles. Today I stayed home - bitter cold, too bitter to go skiing - and nursed a cold in the chest with some rum and tea. No cold really, not even a cough, but I've got to find some excuse for the extravagance of rum. My Hebraic conscience, I suppose; or remnants of it. Anyway home I stayed, didn't even bother to dress, revising poems, jabbing away at the critters here and there. Last night Bet & I went to a small gathering at my younger nephew's. His name is Nathan; writes crappy poetry and crappier prose. But he's happy not knowing how bad they are — the gods that way are merciful. Otherwise as nice a guy in a brainless sort of way as you'd hope to meet. His wife is extraordinarily beautiful, just now pregnant with her second: an accomplished musician with both the piano and recorder. In the company was a chap who knew me when: precisely in my first year in High School. I remembered him as a brash, insensitive chap, superficial, but clever with the phrase, and a real gift for colourful vituperation. The only change discernible in him last night was an excess of avoirdupois and a mustache which 206

The Correspondence gave him an odd resemblance to Trotsky. Right now he's sitting on the top of the world - he has by the way a broad ass to give him stability and balance - being the owner of a large & successful advertising agency. He greeted me by making some ironical reference to my being a poet, etc. Then began a wrangle abt literature about which as you may well imagine he knew exactly nothing, but that didn't deter him one bit. He let fly in all directions giving us the benefit of his ignorance with a generosity that was truly astonishing. Well, the upshot was that he was a communist & his outlook was pretty much the run-of-the-mill doctrinaire kind of that persuasion. By god, I said to myself, if that guy came into power it wd go bad with chaps like me, or any other non-conforming jerk of a whoreson. Fuck you I said to myself, fuck you a thousand times. Over my dead body, you christless bastard. So, steamed up, plying myself with rhums I wrote the poem FACTORYTOWN MIST. The other poem MY FAVOURITE COLOUR'S GREEN was written last week, but under the impetus of increased feeling I revised - improved - a few lines. Timshmock may baffle you, but the Communist bigwig around these parts is Tim Buck. What a shmock is I do not need to tell you - the word shmo is a dandified abbreviation of it. I think you'll go along with the sentiments in NOT BLOWN AWAY.329 Three times a week or so I'm in the periodical room of the college, and I go through the YALE, KENYON, ETC. And let me not forget to mention PARTISAN. Did you ever see such dead stuff? Hopeless. So help me angels I haven't come across a poem, a really live poem, not the contrived puppets I see, in all the years I've looked at those mags. Whatsa matter with those guys? Literary leukemia! Hence the poem. Well, I shd be grateful; this old stupid world of ours supplies me the materials for my poems. For me to complain wd be hypocritical. Just the same, fuck them .... It's goddamn nice of you to want to put out THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT. I'm moved & grateful. But for several reasons I'm letting it slide. For one, the business as you say of getting the books over here, and for another & more importantly I'm flat as a puncture, owe everybody and his brother. The L P-S set me back a lot more than I had reckoned on, and the money is coming in god-awful slow, much too slow for the eggs and butter my kids need to grow up to be healthy citizens. There's an outside chance that one of the Jewish organizations might advance me the money to publish it here, but I ain't optimisitic. Fact is, I have an appointment with the director - who's personally a nice guy and means well by the poets, though he doesn't know a poem from a banana peel - which may pretty well decide the fate of T CGE for this year. In any event it will keep. The 207

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

worst of it is I have another book finished, or just about which is another version of THE LONG PEA-SHOOTER. Might even give it that title, ANOTHER VERSION. Pah, it stinks! WHAT about MUD IN YOUR EYE. Naw that ain't very good either.330 Anyway, as you see, friend Bob, I'm in the title-hunting stage. There are forty poems in my folder and by the end of the summer if I have another brain-burst as last year, there shd be sixty or more. Here's a sample: ADMONITION AND REPLY

I have three acquaintances A, B, and C; 'Why do you write of the wenches?' They rail at me. 'Fie! For shame, man. Mild Christians we disapprove Your always singing The pleasures of Love. 'They offend us, Your songs bawdy and raucous; Purify your soul, sing The glory of suffering.' A's wife is algid. B — a sick worm - prays for death; C's wife has prurigo And a vile breath. There are others; obscene and pointed. Real peashooters. Hurrah for the peashooter! wcw wrote me a beautiful note which brought tears to my eyes, so I babbled away in a sentimental reply which he answered by sending me a translation of a Spanish bk he did.331 Bless his heart. Said I was a genius and that we had much to learn from each other, he from me, and I from him. But I guess he says that to all the young poets, eh? But again Bless his great heart, it made me feel that good. Abt the mag, twice a yr. or as is. I like as is very much, but you're in the driver's seat & only from where you're sitting can anyone tell whether there's enough stuff to warrant four issues a yr. It occurs to me, Bob, why can't you get a dozen guys or so to kick in $25 bucks a yr to keep the mag going so that you don't have to worry your 208

The Correspondence balls loose ... I'd be willing, in addition, to sell 30 copies a yr. Why can't some of the others do likewise. That's the only way to keep any good mag. alive these days. And you've got one of the best, besides yourself being the best, most lovable jo in the world. No more parcels of IMOMF. Can't you get someone in the U.S. to send me 200 copies or so? I'll pay the duty on it. Cd sell them in no time. But you know best. All our love to you. Write soon. Irving February 18, 7955 Dear Irving, That's dreary news re your book, i.e., for doing it here — but god knows my own disappointment is not the point and I hope you can manage something there, one way or another. If ever things do get better here, I'd like to do it - but to suggest it even, at the moment, is goddamn sanguine. As to the magazine - that too is a nightmare just now, and it is mainly the money, as ever. There's some still owing on #3 and #4, and little hope for any for #5, if a quarterly issue is to be it. Time alone fucks us up - tho I do have for once material enough in hand. Yet I am convinced (I suppose it's a question of necessity) that a biannual will prove a solution for many of the horrors, i.e., distribution, loot, and so on. We can, for example, print such a thing at half the cost per year - and can equally get a more solid looking job out of it. Well, I no longer think very clearly about any of it. It now depends on what money can be got — and that's it. Your suggestion of $25 from interested people, each, etc., is a very Christian one but there aren't five or even two I know of whom I could ask with the least hope. I don't even say that bitterly, i.e., it's a fact like rain or bread or whatever. You yourself are completely unique, in the damn decent way you've pushed everything for us - there's simply not another man who both can & would. I can't find him (not to speak of, 'them') at least. Anyhow, angles as always - and I have a few goddamn irons in the fire. I won't see the thing killed out of inertia anyhow. And I'd written Laughlin re distribution of a biannual,332 and got a surprisingly helpful letter in answer; he suggests I try Gotham's, and tells me if they get an order for less than 3 copies of a book, they lose money in literally filling it (by virtue of the costs of book-keeping, packaging, etc.) - and says if that doesn't make it, to let him know. Well, that's more interest than I've yet had from any of these people. At present I'm up to my neck re a deal with Grove Press on this 209

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley Cocteau book (i.e., 100 or so of his drawings plus an 80 page commentary by this woman Elga Lippmann, who's putting out the money for it) — they are agreeable to distributing it, but they want all credit and no risks. That's no good - but I think we can get a deal on it somewhere or other, with Cocteau's stock on the rise, etc. But all of it is a dreary bizness - and we do it mainly for the possible hoist (public wise) to the press. Ah well. Also abt to do Cid's book of poems for this character Stefanile - who hasn't yet condescended to write me directly. But the book is, oddly, solid enuf - I was very surprised. It's competent work, in any case - tho I'm goofed by very little. Yet I am goofed by very little - period. Lekakis came thru anyhow with a very fine drawing, for use with it - and it should be kicks to do.333 But to hell with this. I like *Theology very damn much [Added in margin: this is "genius," old friend - or if not, what is.] - the others too, but this is real goddamn beauty.334 I think you damn well earn Wms' praise, genius or no. And why not. Anyhow very great. Also - I'll try to get you more copies of IMOMF thru BMC, and Chas' wife sd she'd sent you 10 - but I'll ask them to send you a whole big batch, etc. The present way is too goddamn slow, and I can use in fact these copies here, etc. Ok. I'll get on it - wow. So anyhow goddamn well write, please. And I'll keep you on re all the above. What a life. All our love to you all, Bob *Can I hold on to this for the moment? Saturday Dear Bob: I hope you're all straightened out about Ann's visa. I take it you both intend to hang on another while where you are. As you describe the climate — ah, sun and water — I envy you. If we cd ever straighten out our financial affairs, I'd join you as fast as the first tramp steamer could take us across. We're both of us pretty fed up with the long & useless winters, and everything that goes with them in the way of inconveniences and labours - rubbers, shawls, etc. But as things are at the moment we couldn't count on the kind of money you say wd be required. I had thought it might be likely we cd supplement our income by work of some kind - teaching, preferably - but from what you tell us, they don't want teachers over there but tourists. And I guess, after all, that if some kind of teaching job had been available, you wd not have travelled over an ocean looking for one in North Carolina.

210

The Correspondence By the way, what's up with BMC.? Is that a closed episode for you, or do you intend to return there some day? Got a good name, I think, for my next bk - THE BLUE PROPELLER. Here's another sample to cheer you up: LOVE'S D I F F I D E N C E

Love is so diffident a thing. I scoop up my hands with air. I do not find it there Nor in my friend's pleasure Nor when the birds sing. I am confused, forsaken. I have lost the way. Love's not as some men say In women's eyes, blue or gray; Nor in kisses given and taken. Love, I call out, find me Spinning round in error. Display your dank, coarse hair; Your bubs and bulbous shoulder. Then strike if you will, blind me. The chap I am supposed to see about financing the publication of the COLD GREEN ELEMENT had been putting me off as if I were all the fabulous dunners rolled together, until finally I got an appointment with him for this past Thursday at 10 in the morning. And what do you suppose happened then? I was laid flat on my back with the flu and couldn't keep it. How do you like that? Well, I've made it for this coming Monday and nothing, not even my own funeral, is going to keep me from seeing him. I'd say there's a fifty-fifty chance they'll put it out for me, though I'll insist Bet designs the book. But I'm jumping ahead of myself. Here's a revised version of Factorytown Mist F A C T O R Y T O W N MIST

Invades easily the open society of fields, outflanks the bright upright maples and hangs up its breath, a frieze of halitosis, over the gay roofs of houses. 211

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

And here, there, muddy patches of colour, stained cantlets which deceive eyes and brain flutter beneath the low slow communal mist, this humourless proletarian bearing slumgerms. Got Kit*KAT's BLACK RAIN. Lovely-looking book, a work of art. You're the best ever. Will you please let me know by return what you want me to sell it at. I'll try placing them in the stores, and a couple of copies I ought to be able to sell to friends. A few days ago it looked as if I were going to be bounced out on my ear from Sir George Williams College. And I think I wd have too hadn't it been for Prof. Compton who's the head of the Eng. Dept., and who went to bat for me with the Dean. It seems some of the younger generation took exception to my Long Pea-Shooter & began to stir up a commotion in corridors. Also one or two deadbeats (so-called profs) who couldn't stomach my rather large popularity among the students & wd I think like to get me out so that they could go back to their former somnolence. Amazing thing is: Prof. Compton so much didn't like my L P-S, that he wrote a scorching letter to Civ/n. slanging me all the way to hell and back. But fair play is fair play, and as long as I can get the students excited about English poetry he doesn't give two hoots what I say or do outside the classroom. Pretty broad-minded of the chap, decent all around. Of course, the publication of THE BLUE PROPELLER may bring the whole present shaky structure down to the ground. We shall see if we live long enough. No more bundles of IMOMF: with all the local stores sold out and people clamouring. Any chance of getting some from the us up here? I'd pay the tariff. Delighted that you liked some of my poems in the last number of Origin. Agree with you the story isn't much, certainly no where near the poems' drive - some of them. Hold your seat. I've been thinking seriously to stop writing poetry for a couple of years & try exclusively for prose. A novel, say. I may try to get THE BLUE PROPELLER published & therefore all decks cleared for the masterpiece to end all masterpieces. IF YOU CD DO IT FOR ME, WHAT would approximately 500 lines cost, a bk of thirty poems, maybe a few less, maybe only 24? If you cd do it, wd do it, and the price something I cd look at without my eyes blearing, well, maybe .... Forgive the vagueness; at this point I'm punched drunker than a bruiser. Ah, forget it, I'll let it slide for the present. All our love to you all. Write soon, Irving 212

The Correspondence February 26, 1955 Dear Irving, Two letters in,335 and many thanks for the check - very goddamn good. As far as I can judge - A/ Collins ought to get a package & also Mrs. Hershorn (if she hasn't yet). Then I'll get the rest to you from BMC, since it's quicker. OK. This way from here is a little hopeless. As to THE BLUE PROPELLER: as said, I'd be glad to do any book, certainly this one. But for example, when you say, can I guarantee getting it to you by May - I can't literally guarantee getting it to you at all, and/or you'll have to find someone (like your brother?) in the States to whom I can ship it, for reshipment to you there. I'd suggest someone close to the border, so that packages might even be driven over — or whatever. Like that. But we cannot ship in bulk to Canada. So anyhow — granted that's clear — I think the book would cost about $125, tho again that's a rough estimate & we'd have to have the ms/ to be more accurate. But I think about that, from what you tell me. Time-wise, I'm pretty sure we could get it to you by the end of May — or rather to whoever it will be, in the States. It takes about 3 to 4 weeks to print it, then perhaps another week for getting all details re shipment clear, then 4 to 6 weeks in transit. So if we can have the book, say, immediately, or by the 1st week in March - then I think we could make it on time. Cid's book has gone very fast, i.e., sent final proofs to him in less than a week — and whole thing ought to be printed & bound in more or less two - but that's unusual, and because there was a lull, etc. Yet, if you can get me that ms/ very quickly, I think sd lull will be holding for awhile, and can get it back to you certainly as fast as possible, etc. So. Also, while I remember: Kitasono & Martin ss/s books are both 75^. Not comparable production-wise I know, yet that's what we'll sell them for no matter. We could probably get more for KK/S, but to hell with it. Anyhow, 75 tf each - ok. I think that rewrite of Factorytown Mist helps it - but still bug on the last word, not for any 'content,' but rather for its sort of makeshiftness, i.e., sounds strained to me. (I'm talking abt 'slumgerms.') Can you think of the same thing, sans that quality. Even 'onions' or 'bunions,' wd be it. O well! I know come to think of it's the mist who's the humorless etc. Still it's too forced a word for me, at present. I like, very much, Love's Diffidence but for that last line, actually rhythms in it - sort of dull, really, for what is, or has, been building to that pt/. What do you think? I hate to bug you like this - it hardly makes clear what I do like, god knows. Wild flatness to it, - anyhow, just that last line now for me, doesn't sit well. The Executioner I like 213

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

less, too much for too little, I think? Long abt its bizness, etc. Yr self-portrait very goddamn wild. Wow! Very good. Nocturnal Emission etc. — I don't make this one - very goddamn unpleasant in any case.336 Maybe that's a score, I don't know. O well! So - look, do write soon & say what you think re the bk. Also, will help all I can with ORIGIN #18, viz pass the word & also send stuff, etc. Don't have anything just now - but obviously will as soon as all the rejections are in - anyhow, won't forget. Write. All our love to you, Bob Sunday Dear Bob: Well, here's THE BLUE PROPELLER. I think there's a book there, not a bad one, though admittedly the poems are uneven. But I'm of the mind of DHL, I don't think every poem in a collection must be a 'gem' — it can be a 'pansy,' something to look at, sniff, and throw away.337 It's the total bounce that matters, whether the poems in the book add up to the revelation of distinct temperament, outlook. Using that as my criterion — agreed it's my own - I think TBP deserves to live. I hope you've got a good design for the bk, have in fact no worries on that score. If you give me anything as good as IMOMF - don't take that to mean it's got to be the same format, the two bks are quite different - I will give you a warm handshake. Some more IMOMF came from BMC, another ten, or did I write you abt THAT parcel? I think I paid you for the first ten. Also the parcel to MRS Herschorn. I got twenty KITKATS from BMC, as well as twenty ADF. Will do my very best with them and see to it that you have a pile of money next month. Acknowledgments for TBP are Civ/n, Origin, and BMR if you take THEOLOGY & FOR MY DETRACTORS. Open for your consideration are THE IMPROVED BINOCULARS, MUTE IN THE WIND, MOUNT ROYAL, HUMAN BEING.

This book is FOR WILLIAM GOODWIN When it's printed you can send it to my brother, who lives in the U.S. His name and address are as follows: Mr. Larry Latch, c/o Latch Bungalows, Ellenville, N.Y. Someone phoned me to read me a rip-roaring review of the LPS. It appeared in THE FIDDLEHEAD, a poetry mag published by interested 214

The Correspondence parties in The University of New Brunswick. I suspect it was done by Desmond Pacey — the damn thing was unsigned — who wields considerable influence in academic circles.338 He's one of the less stuffier critics, somewhat more open and resilient. I'm eager to get my hand on a copy, the thing sounds so incredibly good. The country is beginning to move. There will be reviews of IMOMF next month in several important mags and reviews, have been told so.339 Will send all material on to you as soon as anything pops. What have you decided abt BMR - is it to be two or four? I've sent $15.00 on to Charles Olson. I hope he got my cheque. Haven't heard from him. Nor have I received NO. 4. When? Saw yr name mentioned by Viereck in last week's NR.340 Yer one of the new hopes of America — take a bow. Anyway, glad I was, and much proud, though V is plenty wet behind the ears about other things. [Added in margin and at top of letter: Did Ann get fixed up with the visa? How are your children? My own rascals are flourishing, always get hold of my cokes before I can make myself a rum & coke. Bet's doing some fine work, getting into her stride. We're both applying for Royal Scholarships. If one of us gets it, we'll be seeing you sooner than you think. Ora pro nobis! I'm enclosing $25.00 to get you started on TBP. Best luck to you with it & all our love.] Irving Tuesday Dear Bob: I got the manuscript off to you yesterday, air-mail. Please let me know as soon as you can whether you received it. The thing has been insured so that if it got lost in transit it could be traced. I think a book of 25 poems wd do it. I included two poems abt which I was somewhat doubtful and in a way I asked you to make up my mind for me. If you have no violent objection to them & you don't think it will harm the bk, go ahead and use them. I slimmed down on the volume in order to save something on the cost. I have another dozen or so poems in my folder but they're not up to snuff. What you've got there is not bad and with an imaginative layout, I think the bk ought to have some kind of an appeal though at times I'm ready enough to turn my back on all writing, believing that high thinking and deep feeling belong to a bygone age. Anyway, don't be too surprised if one day you hear from me that I've taken my family to the jungles of Brazil and have burned all my books behind me. 215

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Let me clear up something. In the accompanying letter I said you cd credit BMR if you used THEOLOGY and another poem, what was it? I think FOR MY DETRACTORS. I also sd you cd use or consider for use in BMR a poem titled THE IMPROVED BINOCULARS. Well, originally, the first and third were in the manuscript but I yanked them out at the last moment and substituted others for them. One of these was PORTRAIT,341 which appeared in the summer issue of BMR. So now you can go ahead and credit BMR, whether you intend to use any of the poems or not. Since I have selected the poems I think it's only fair to credit the bk to CONTACT press and let us assume responsibility for it, however much I shd be gratified to have it appear under yr aegis. But I feel that many of these poems may not appeal to yr taste or that you might have some reservations abt them. I'm still angling to get money for TCGE; up to now it's been 'the runaround,' being put off with hopes and benedictions from wk to wk. Will let you know if anything gives — or anybody. Let me know what the total cost for TBP is going to be. I've written my brother & and I'm rather sanguine that he'll help. You might be interested to learn that at this point my break with LD, which was in the offing for abt a year is now complete, and civ/n is kaput. He just got his Doctor's degree from Columbia on a thesis abt contemporary publication.342 I've seen parts of it; damned good. Do send me No. 4 of BMR if you have one available. I haven't received the issue from co, or anybody. Am enclosing two poems. All the best to you and many thanks for this, your latest, kindness. Let me know abt the bk's progress. All our love to you & fambly, Irving March 10, 1955 Dear Irving, This ought to be recorded, etc., i.e., I had a dream last night, like they say - very funny. Briefly, or from where it begins as I remember it now, — I'm in Canada somehow, having 'gone up' from, say, New Hampshire or some place like that - and being there, think to, you know, look up Ray - and wander around a bit, whereupon I bump into some man who knows him, and we start talking - and he tells me, you have quite an audience up here, and, also, by the way, we've been doing a few records of the various 'poets' reading, and so on, and also of you. I'm very flattered & eager by virtue of all this, as I then think, well now, he probably got them (viz, the recording, to make the record he speaks of) from someone or other - and so forth. 216

The Correspondence

So I say, that interests me very much, I like reading my poems very much — like this. And I quote one, my voice suddenly going into a falsetto, very fast, mumbling etc. He looks tolerantly horrified. I say, but did you notice how fast I read it? Also, how I make use of local inference? Then he says, well, that's interesting, but I think you'll like the record better. So off we go, ostensibly to see Ray and also you - I have asked at this point, do they have one of you, etc. Now it seems we are in someone's suburban home, well appointed livingroom, and to show - there are now several of these people, i.e., poetry lovers — our bohemian lack of care, we all take off our coats and roll up our sleeves, etc. Then out comes the little phonograph, and at this point I wish my uncle were here to hear it - since he never thought very much of poetry, etc. I even begin to ask if they can't wait till I get him, thinking for some reason that he lives nearby. But anyhow, they put on the record, ostensibly or so I think, of me reading — and then I hear this voice reading, if it can be called that, a few of my poems — i.e., it's like Basil Rathbone, he plunges on in a cultured British accent, making neither stop nor pause for anything, - and hangs on any word, if it so pleases him to, etc., etc.343 In short, — Poetry. I am aghast, and once it's over, I try to indicate, goodnaturedly, that it is not really the way I had conceived the poems viz, his reading - and also, that, as I had indicated to the first man earlier, there are specific things I intend by the lining & so forth first man now smiling tolerantly but firmly, etc. But they explain to me, very slowly, that this is, you see, the conversion of my 'materials' into poetry, i.e., this is the objectivity, the actual projection, of what I had thought to have done - and that, of course, this man reading is a trained reader, and further, much more equipped to understand what I have said, or I have tried to say, than I as the author could ever be. - At that point, I wake up mumbling, etc. And that's it. And where the hell were you??? Anyhow to hell with that. Good news from Charles, i.e., I got a telegram from him, that the mag was 'safe,' which I take to mean they have $$$ now wherewith to continue it. And I hope to get this next issue, in the new format, into press very soon. I have these poems of yours for it: The Dark Plebeian Mind; Metaphysical; Afternoon Tea; Theology. If you can get me anything re reviews - or article even — quickly, I'd be very grateful. Well, you know. I suppose those goddamn bks never showed up, goddamn the publishers thereof - etc. Anyhow, what you can. Write. I've missed your letters — what abt the Blue Propeller. I'm standing by, like they say. So you say what you figure. All our love to you all, Bob 217

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

March 12, 1955 Dear Irving Your letter and then the ms/ of The Blue Propeller just came, and think we can make it fair enough. The printer also showed up just after (with a dummy for the mag in this new format, i.e., 200 pages bound up so we could see the effect, etc - and it's very damn solid ...) — and says he can start setting your book anytime (Cid's being done as of Wednesday). So we'll take it in with the layout etc on Monday, and ought to have proofs very soon — and the whole job done in 3 or so weeks, I hope. As to costs, I can't yet be too accurate, I would guess, seeing it, about $100/125 - that may however be a little high, at least the $125 — but somewhere around that. Have an idea for it all, cover etc — so hope we make it. In the format planned, it will come to 44 pp/ - which is good I think, i.e., gives it a little heft at least. So. I am figuring it as 300 copies, - is that right? Anyhow will keep you on, and try to get you a more accurate estimate of costs, probable, soon (and thanks for this $25, to start it off). Ok. Too, I'll write you soon about the poems, i.e., I want to - but am at the moment so swamped with all the details of the printing, etc., both this, the mag, and Cid's book just in back of us, that I have no head, nor whatever it is, to make much sense. Looking thru, I liked several of the new ones (to me anyhow) very much, and think generally it's sharp enough, tho there are some I don't make — yet, why haggle. To hell with it. I'll do my best to make it look ok. You'll have my other letter on the mag by now, but I haven't as yet heard more from Charles — I ought to, any minute. And following, now, your book - which won't tie up the types very long - I'll put same into press, all things being equal. I did an order for it the other night (now having the bulk of the contents), I like it, i.e., material, plus this format, ought to make for a real goddamn rock - I hope. At least the double room, and smaller page, are a relief for me - that other, no matter what it looked like, wasn't the simplest thing to hold together. (Did I tell you I had this article from Jung? That too makes for another angle, so to speak - and it is that diversity I'd hoped to get, finally - and perhaps can yet.)344 I'm sorry to hear civ/n is out, that's a damn shame - at a time it seems when such things can be least afforded. I wish Ray could be persuaded to get back in, i.e., I think he was a natural, qua editor. I don't know anyone who ever gave me more kicks, in spite of that mimeograph, etc. God knows he has a heart, and doesn't seem to be committed to playing games - both a pleasure to find, I think. Why don't you try to persuade him? At the time he quit, or felt it no point continuing — I'd been writing him re changing the format to a seminewspaper, which wd be cheap to produce, and also a malleable sort 218

The Correspondence of format. It's a shame not to have something there, direct, wherewith to keep up that steam you certainly have. (There was in any case a magazine, Quarto, in England, that, with some few changes, seemed an answer - did you ever see it? Anyhow.) So look, let me get this back quickly, and write you a less goddamn bizness-filled letter soon. I hope things are ok. Here it's cold now, but to hell with that. I feel good - at least something is in hand, and that is a goddamn pleasure. Voila. All our love to you, Bob Will see you get a copy of BMR #4 - I'm damn sorry you haven't before this. The shipment is supposed to be in BMC now. Saturday, March 19th 1955 Dear Bob: Yours in this morning, nice way to begin the day and week-end. Very relieved to hear you got the mass okay, was somewhat worried when I received your earlier letter during the wk, and no mention of the BP. You sound busy & happy, locked in cheerful combat with the philistines. If one must live, that's as good a way as any. I recently saw some phots of Mallorca; maybe you don't know it, or know it all the time, but, man, you're in heaven. I'd give my five gold-filled molars to amble beside you near the wharf and hear the sun-baked accents of the natives. That dream you had - let it be a dream! B-r-rr, the mere thought of your coming to Canada after such delights as you must have known sent the temperature down my spine so the whole of me congealed with horror. But it was nice of you to think of Ray and me; if I can tickle my subconscious into some show of courtesy, I hope to repay your ghostly visit, a veritable chateau en Espagne arranged nocturnally. Maybe a year from now or so, when some of my obligations won't be so harrassing, I might start a little magazine devoted strictly to poetry & short reviews. If Civ/n goes there's nothing here, absolutely nothing. That wd be a crying shame because there are a number of good young poets coming up and in the main there's more ferment now than there's been here for over a decade. Without a mag, this huge country of ours becomes a frozen cemetery, a waste, a derisive epithet. Someone must give battle. Already the forces of conservatism have begun to move, to take account of us. For this yr anyhow, and very likely for subsequent yrs our anthology CANADIAN POEMS 1850-1952 is out as far as McGill goes. We have reason to believe the higher-ups took a good hard look into its contents and yelped blue murder. Anyway it's out. At this point Dudek isn't too sure that 219

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

his contract at McGill will be renewed when it comes up tor reconsideration the following year. And where I am at Sir George Williams College, there was a move started to boot me out — the Long Pea-Shooter & my unorthodox opinions in the lecture room - but luckily the chap who heads the Eng. department went down the line for me and the thing has been temporarily squelched. Items from the battlefront! Good things: CBC has asked me to give another reading from my poems, which I shall do sometime next week. That helps to pay for the BP, a totally unexpected gift from the kind fates who watch over silly extravagant fools like myself. Next, the same outfit has just informed me that AJ.M. Smith is going to review both the LP-S and IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER on a coast-to-coast hook-up on April 17th. You very likely know something about him; he's just had a book published by Chicago Press, A KIND OF ECSTASY.345 Too academically thin for my blood, but competent; as a critic he's got his head screwed on the right way. His opinions shd be interesting. Am looking forward very eagerly to seeing yr new baby in different rompers. M'MMM, 200 pages adds up to a real blockbuster. I feel happy to know that something of mine is going to be between the covers .... As for reviews, those books never came. Currently reading Shakespeare and Melville — and you don't want reviews of THEM? Otherwise my reading is strictly utilitarian i.e., confined to what I'm teaching. Wd you be interested in a review of Russell's HUMAN SOCIETY in ETHICS and Politics?346 All our love to you Irving [Added at top of letter: When will the new format issue be ready? What's your subscription list to date? Bet and I have made application for a Royal Scholarship. If one of us gets it, we'll be seeing you.] [Added in margin: 1. Its a dash after Picasso, not a hyphen.347 2. Are you going to use the two poems I was doubtful of? 3. What's the size of the page, anything like IMOMF? 4. I'm enclosing another cheque for $25.00 to take care of current expenses.] Dear Bob: If you think these poems or any of them, might add something to the BP, go ahead and use them. I think the Love Dream of A. Smythe is interesting, a picture of the wealthy man who can't give, is afraid 220

The Correspondence of love & sex, because these require giving etc. What abt Eros? When I See A Giant? Might give the bk more body, heft. Use your own good judgment.348 Irv March 20, 1955 Dear Bob: Yesterday I sent you some poems for possible inclusion in the BP; that is if a) you think the poems might add something to the book, and b) if you haven't already made up the dummy so that you can't fit them in. It's about one of these poems that I'm writing you now - LOVE DREAM OF ALFRED SMYTHE, MAGNATE.

The last stanza shd read as follows: Like kerosened worms on fire they fall into my brown derby, one by one. Also: a line above somewhere shd read with a leaking jockstrap, not 'in.' If you intend using this poem please make the corrections now, so that I don't fuck you up as I did the last time. I know that the inclusion of these poems might jack up the costs somewhat; as against that a bk like the BP relies in the last analysis on sheer bulk to make its point; the hard rock metaphor that you used some time ago in reference to the LP-S comes to mind here. For this country the shits and pisses etc., the sex and scatology are a necessary antidote to the prevalent gentility and false idealism. Aside from the purely local and geographical I am convinced that the only protest, the only effective protest that a man can make today to the pressures seeking to annihilate him either physically or spiritually is the biological one. It is for our time that the paradox is reserved that the soul must be saved by the body, the highest by the lowest; and men's equal claim to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness justified by their common possession of an anus. The teachings of a vaporous Christian idealism for almost two thousand years has falsified our position; to remind ourselves that men in addition to being God-seekers and truth-seekers are also farting and excreting animals is a piece of wisdom that might save us from the follies of pride and overweening ambition. Still, the poems may be unsatisfactory and therefore better left out. Here I need your objectivity. Use your own good judgment, 221

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

friend. I thot it well to give you my weltoutlook so that you might see the poems in relation to my own peculiar perspective, but whether you decide to include the poems or leave them out I shall be no less grateful to you. Try them on Ann & others; if they raise a laugh or even a chuckle - well, that's a good sign. Remember, I'm not going after great poems here, only throwaways mitt a bang. The question is whether there's a bang or a blowout with frayed edges of smelly rubber. Whatever you decide, you have my blessings beforehand. Let me know yr own mind on this & the other two doubtful poems. What's the size of the page. Sorry to bother you, Bob. All our wammiest love to you. Irving [Added at top of letter: From now on I'll write short reviews of anything I read that might interest you and send them along to you. You can select anything you want from the miscellany. When's the first issue coming out? Still haven't got no four. Can you send me 3 copies of no 1?] March 26, 1955 Dear Irving, Your letter just came (but no poems have shown up as yet). But the book will be all done on Monday, and will be shipped to your brother on Tuesday (the 29th). So it's much too late now to add anything to the original ms/, or in fact to make any changes. In case there has been in any question, I used your original ms/, without any tampering on my part, i.e., your order, just what you had in that, in short. I think it makes it, very much — certainly in point of the use you conceive for it — so I wdn't worry abt it. Bulk might of course have helped, yet it's enuf- or I should think so - to make yr point. Voila. (I'll send off a copy airmail on Monday - and you ought to have it shortly after this letter.) I had another cable from Chas, today, and will put the mag into press on Monday. I have abt everything I'll need for the main body of it, like they say — yet brief reviews wd be god knows welcome. If you can make it, then very gt/ — as fast (now) as possible, since time won't be too much, tho we'll have a little, since they'll have to print it in sections, etc. Anyhow, what you can, as quick as you can, wd be it. As to precisely when the issue will appear - I don't know, but wd guess - June, or the end of May. But I'll mail copies from here, as soon as they're ready. (On #4 - that is at the college I am now certain, and will write them to send you a batch as soon as possible - I'm 222

The Correspondence sorry, as ever, the goddamm delay had to be put up with.) Also I'll send you 3 copies of 1 (i.e., the 1st issue, is it), from here. The one to write at BMC at present is: Mary Fiore, BMC etc. - she's in charge, and a very nice girl, etc., so ought to go ok in the future, she's wife of Joe F/, who's the art dep't, etc., a pretty good painter very often & certainly a pleasant man. Ah well.349 Robt Duncan came on Tuesday - also with a friend Jess Collins, and both a god knows welcome relief. I was at the end of the proverbial rope. Anyhow D/ is as sharp a man as I've ever met, i.e., c l e a r . And that, against the usual o it's the feeling etc - is a pleasure. I think we can get him a place ok out at Banalbufar, and it should make a decent summer.350 Anyhow he writes, and what else — i.e., not at all the New Grit/ or any such bullshit, but literal clarity, word by word. This was in fact a surprise, to me, since I'm often or in the past have been, put off by what I've thot 'exoticism' - yet it's hardly that, in his conversation. And too, seeing more of his work, it's hardly that simple. I think he's one of the half dozen, if that, that matter. The rest is not interesting, that I can damn well see. Well, let me give this up & write soon, and please do likewise. How are you all. Hope spring is there by now. Very lovely here. All our love to you all, Bob 28 March 1955 Dear Bob: Forgive the temporary hiatus in our correspondence. All of a sudden, bang, a hundred things descended upon me and almost broke my back. First, there were the mid-term exams I had to correct; and on top of that, the high school papers I had to set. Then application forms to fill for that Royal Scholarship I wrote you abt. etc., etc. Now I'm writing you this from the McGill Library. I've piled up a lot of periodicals beginning with the N.R. with Frieda's revelations of her talented & erratic husband;351 underneath that, the Spring number of the Yale Review, and underneath that several issues of Philosophy. But I know after I've finished this letter my real problem will be to stay awake. Usually after scanning the first couple of paragraphs, my eyelids come down like weights of lead or iron and to the amused surprise of my studious neighbours I make off into a world which is much simpler than the one I know when my eyes are open. My pleasant after-reading naps sometimes last for two hrs; by now I've learned how to slide into forgetfulness without the least discomfort or loss of dignity. I can even fool strangers or the librarian seated at the table some distance away from where I am into thinking 223

Irving Lay ton and Robert Creeley

I am absorbed profoundly by some esoteric thought. Very truthfully, they may think to themselves that they've never seen anyone with so much concentration written upon his face! Did you get my last letter & poems? I'm eager to hear from you whether you think them worth including in the BP. As I wrote you, I'm not in a position to be objective about those poems: sometimes I like them, at others I don't. Or rather, I don't think they add anything to the book. But again, the day following I feel confident that their inclusion wd strengthen the book, provide a few more quivers for the world's flabby backside. Well, what's your opinion, friend? Wd. it be possible for you to mail me a sample cover? Bet & I have been holding guessing games over it since I shipped the mss over to you. You have us both in a fever of impatience. Cid writes he's extremely pleased with the job you did on his bk: if he's pleased, it MUST be good, since he's not the least fastidious man I know. What's the size of the page in the B.P.? So far the BMR'S haven't come. About a wk ago I was notified by a post card that they were being shipped to me - and that was that. I don't doubt they'll turn up eventually. What has been the reaction to BMR? I mean, are you making any headway? What's the subscription list? How many copies are sold? Has anyone written it up in some blasted periodical? How about getting someone to do an article on contemporary poets in England? France? Assessments on contemporary trends in poetry in those countries, in yr own United States? Am still getting the runaround with the Cold Green Element, but I've decided to go ahead with it anyway. Betty has finished such a wonderful cover for it, that I simply can't pull out or away. If you hear I've been arrested for debt or for murdering my creditors in a fit of extreme despondency you'll know why. In the meantime, the fight goes on. Do write soon. All our love. Irving Did I write that: C.B.C. has asked me to do another coast-to-coast broadcast for them? A.J.M. Smith will review both the Long Pea-Shooter and In The Midst of My Fever for the C.B.C.? 31 March 1955 Dear Bob: Yr kind letter just in to find me playing truant from school. I thot I'd take the day off on the principle that what's good for my health 224

The Correspondence shd be encouraged. I do that from time to time when the pressure mounts, when I begin to hear doors opening and closing mysteriously in the brain-chambers. This damn donkeytrot of a routine plays havoc with my spirit: last night it was a Parent-Teacher's Meeting; the week before it was a Teacher's meeting, and next week it'll be god knows what. Nonsense - but necessary they tell me. Maybe it is. But you shd hear the barrel-kegs of foolishness that are rolled in at those meetings. Last night one of the irate mothers almost cut my throat because her dear o so talented and o so sensitive Griselda didn't get the rating in English grammar & composition which she (in the opinion of this four-year newcomer to this country speaking in a halting unpronouncable English) was entitled to. Ah well, 'tis no doubt for sins done in a happier day. Just as well those poems came too late for inclusion. Last moment thots are seldom happy or useful inspirations. If you think of it you might send them back and I'll use them as a basis for another collection of shit-flying satires, tho I don't foresee their appearance in any volume for a very long time to come. I've cleared my decks I feel. I've gone ahead with the CGE; that shd be out soon, though I've had to sell the Enc. Brit, to pay the costs, anyway a part of them. My financial angel has not materialized in any visible form: if you'll forgive a bad pun, he's still beckoning from the wings. My brother is enjoying himself in Las Vegas, sent me a postcard to prove it! Apart from that miserable piece of highly coloured cardboard I've not heard from him. Still, I think he'll come through. In any case don't worry a moment about repayment on the Bp: I've many more saleable articles, old clothes, my wife's promises to reform and do her housework, etc. Well, actually the sit. isn't as bad as I've painted it. I'm doing another broadcast for the C.B.c. - going down to make the recording today - and this will bring in a healthy chunk of coin. That and the sale of the E.B. shd lift my head somewhat above the seething waters. So let me know what the printing bill comes to and I'll send you the balance. Have you cashed the two cheques for $25.00 I sent you? Sorry to bother you with these dull details of my financial adventures, but next to listening to the money troubles of others I like airing my own. Glad to hear you & yr wife have company. I wish I cd join you and Robert Duncan to bask and converse under the Mallorcan sun. If that Royal scholarship comes through the wish will be translated into many belly rumblings of laughter. There's a chance, Bob. There's a chance. I feel powerful emanations from the spirit world, ectoplasmic monitions. Just keep your big toes crossed for me, that'll do it. But make sure they're clean first, otherwise the charm won't work. 225

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

And again, thanks friend for doing the Blue Propeller. Believe me always grateful for the kindness. If there's any tangible way I can show you my warm appreciation do let me know. Have you got any enemies you want bumped off, etc.? Let me know what intellectual mayhem you and RD cut up, what books you discuss; maybe from where I sit I too can tell you what the the moon looks like. Give yr guests my liveliest regards. BMR just came. Will give you a detailed run-down on it in my next letter. All our warmest love to you & all good Mallorcans. Irving [Added at top of letter: Can you send me some prose & poetry for Origin xvm? Will you ask R.D. for me to do the same? Thanks, God knows I'm no editor, but I've got this thing to do & I'll do it or bust.352 Am writing some short reviews to mail you this Sunday. Hope you can use them. Then I'm going to try some stories.] April 4, 1955 Dear Irving, You ought to have a copy of the book at this point. It was done a week ago today, and the bulk shipment went off to your brother the day after (March 29th). So. Those poems you note having sent haven't as yet come, but the whole thing is a bit of an academic question, now, at best. But I'm anxious to see them no matter. And equally to hear how the book strikes you. So anyhow it is done, and off and that is something, I hope. I will let you know what it all comes to, as soon as we see the printer again. The mag is now in press, so that will be soon. It's hard for me to calculate the reaction to the magazine, more generally. I don't you see get much other than letters from people interested to begin with, and I don't know what they may get at BMC. The distribution has been a nightmare, from the start. De Boer is hopeless. That was my main argument for a biannual, i.e., 6 months to move it in, as against 3, etc. Though I wonder if that still is not too hopeful. Because a half dozen like yourself, and all this would be beside the point. But. There just aren't such people, at present. I had asked a young French poet, Droguet, to do a piece on current Fr/ poets - and he sent me a very oblique, ironic gig on how everyone was anonymous, since no one made it enuf by himself to have a 'name,' etc. In short, he said there was nothing. And his piece being finally dull, or we are all not Gallic wits - well, that was or is that, for the time-being, though I'll look further, certainly. As to England 226

The Correspondence - I think in the issue after this present one I'll have something of this kind by Martin s/s/ — who just wrote he'd like to try it, and will also get together a few poems, qua illustration, etc., etc. But - that isn't the goddamn problem, as I see it, i.e., we are much too goddamn literary, in our boundaries, as it is. What I am much more after, is writing to break this box — i.e., Jung does some, in this issue coming (and speaks from a base however questionable yet much more solid & complete, than almost any other contributor's - and that, you see, is where current writing (literary) shows its goddamn Achilles' heel). I want work outside of the goddamn circle, Irving - I don't actually want more circumscriptions - though I shall have to use them, just to keep any steam & variety in. But Assessments? How interesting are they. Such a funereal bizness, etc. When it would be obviously to the point, too god knows, to indicate other references, and other parallels, not as yet even guessed at. Well. Anyhow, as a friend wrote recently — the mag is incoherent, because it is over-coherent - and paradox tho that is, I know what he means. It's too damn narrow a swath. As to how many they sell, etc. I should guess perhaps 300 copies of any given issue get out, in some sense. It does move in some vague sense, tho numbers give no indication, - I mean, little by little, I hear of random, and more wide, pick-ups, etc., etc. But. We don't as yet have the base of a goddamn mag (not to suggest anyone has, at present) — so what can we expect. Duncan came in last week, very great to have him — he is a goddamn clear man. The most, that way. So. Weather is good, life not impossible. And let me get this off & go fix up a goddamn garden for some corn — which if I don't plant now I never will. Voila. Write soon. All our love to you all, Bob [Added at top of letter: That's very great abt CBC, - I wish I cd hear it. Well, terrific. Also that you intend to do the CGE, no matter. But don't hang yrself. Wow.] April 9, 1955 Dear Irving, The 'm/s' abt to give out any minute on this thing, so bear with me. Your other poems came this morning, what had happened is they came straight mail, viz 'Shortpaid for Air Conveyance.' So. Anyhow I don't think they cut what you have in the book, nor that they would add much but bulk - which is or would not have been negligible, certainly, but anyhow, it's done, what. And so it's no good 227

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley worrying abt it now. (Of the bunch, I like the giant one, also Snivellization - but I don't think they are as sharp as others you have in, viz Love's Diffidence, Canadiana - et al. But to hell with this.) I hope the bk makes it for you — at this pt/ I'm of course damn well sweating blood on that. Ah well. This is by the way, i.e. the page is, abt what the mag page will now look like, except that there will not be those big leading caps on the first word of poems, etc. But this manner of titling & so on. Generally - if it can now matter this size book interests me very much, it's simple to do, also cheap, and can be varied considerably, i.e., the look of it can, by way of typography. Cid's is roughly the same, yet the two books are not at all alike — his is much 'sweeter,' which begins to bore me some - but so far they are all cooing, so. I like the way a book 'bulks' up in this size, I also think it's very readable. What I did do, was send Laughlin copies of both yrs & Cid's, with a letter abt plans for a 'series' of books in this format, with the difference that I'd plan them to be 64 to 72 pp/ each, prose & poetry, etc., with five possible titles as follows: de Angulo, a short bk on language; Zukofsky, on Shakespeare;353 Kitasono, current Jap/verse; Levertov, selected poems; Duncan, on poetics, with addenda by others. I.e., I wanted five titles, and suggested that none be issued until all were done, etc. With a subsequent 'five' to include, if we make it at all, selected poems of yourself, something by Charles, perhaps a longer prose narrative by me - etc. I.e., once going, and/or if he could be interested in the distribution of these things (which is all I wd ask of him), then that wd be possible enuf. These first 5 titles are loaded a bit, i.e., the de Angulo & Zukofsky immediately - yet I think both wd be interesting (Duncan's suggestion). Too, cd we get the distribution somehow worked out, there's also a possibility of picking up more backing for it all. So - I'm hoping - but not of course very much. Other than that - the press biz is very sick at the moment, we are not making it — except for people & outlets like yrself. Not at all in the States, except for isolated people like Jonathan. But in NYC I think there are some 4 stores only, carrying any of the bks at the moment — and that's mainly because we can't find an active & interested friend, like they say, to push them. The woman who is doing it is amiable enuf, but nothing much comes of it. I have a dummy of the mag now, it has a hell of a wt. to it. I think it will make it. Also have a cut of the cover. Here's the contents: Lippman, A Game of Rithmomachia (story); Oppenheimer, The Rain (poem); Duncan, Several Poems. In Prose., Shells (poems); Litiz, Notes on Some Works of Paul Goodman (article); Gautier. The Hippopotamus (poem); Zukofsky, from 'A'-12 (poem); Rumaker, The Truck

228

The Correspondence (story); J/ Williams, Aaron Siskind/ 8 Signs (note); Siskind, 8 photographs; Lay ton, Metaphysical, Afternoon Tea, The Dark Plebeian Mind; Jung, The Mass & the Individuation Process; Olson, O'Ryan (2) (poem); Layton, Theology; Creeley, note on Guston; Phillip Guston, 8 drawings; Bailey, Carol for My Lady (poem); Purdy, Sound of Talking (story); Bronk, The Changes, For An Early Italian Musician (poems); Carroll, Pound's Propertius (article); Some 13th Century English Verse, adapted by Lititz; Creeley, A Wicker Basket (poem) - and perhaps one or 2 more poems, don't as yet know or more literally, have them; then brief reviews by Olson (on Herodotus & Thucydides); J/ Williams (on Ives biography); Lititz (on 1st vol. Freud biography); Creeley (on 2 novels Ramon Sender);354 Duncan (on Graves Gk/ myths bk (2 vols.) - and again, what else I can get, etc. It's still too goddamn 'literary,' and that's a drag. Yet the whole fall of the thing (at least as it cd be) excites me very much. And by another issue, I think we'll be swinging, more. I hope, anyhow. And having the extra time, think it can make it ok. Well, this to get back. That is, again, terrific news abt the new CBC reading - and also the review. Can you get copies of the latter? I wd be very grateful to see what he says. Anyhow. Write soon, will do likewise. And have my fingers crossed re those fellowships - by god if there be Justice, - well, you know. Write. All our love to you all, Bob Ann & the kids & Carmela (the girl who works for us) are all off to the feria in Palma this aft/, and I'll probably sit here reading Leopardi - which is fit for the time, etc. Do you know if there is any decent English translation of the Pensieri? These few I have are in a very soggy issue of the Quart/ Rev/ of Lit/ - poems same issue (of which Cid has trans/ 2, yet) are the same damn mishmash - and yet one can tell he is very very good, in spite of the mangling they make of him.355 Dear Bob: I'm off to the States to visit my brother for the Easter hols and this is a brief note to let you know the Blue Propeller arrived in tiptop shape. I am delighted with it! The format is excellent, wish now I had let you handle the Long PS. It comes also when a bookseller whom I know in other than a business way has opened up a store which is to handle exclusively paperbacks. I think I can persuade him to stock BP'S & IMOMF'S (if you can send me more of them). Can you? 229

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley When I get back from the U.S. I'll run down to see him and see what deal I can work out with him - for Divers Press too. My wife's calling me. Will write you from Ellenville — which is where we're going, All our love, Irving April 21, 1955 Dear Irving, It's a great relief to know the book made it for you - because such things are always such an aggression (my own) - and so on. I don't know. At times it all gets so goddamn dull, just by that - yet it was, this one was, a pleasure to do, so again it's terrific it gives you the same. Ok. I hope it does well for you there. The magazine is most on my mind at present, it has to be - since the present issue must be done by roughly May 14th, in time for shipping before the printer's permit runs out (and hence loss of time to get another, etc.). Anyhow about a quarter of it is done, and it ought to go quickly from now on. The format looks well, i.e., makes a nice page - much like yours in the book above - and also allows for some variety, etc. Finally, the whole thing ought to be varied as much as possible, materials-wise. It can hold a lot, that way. This issue anyhow lets me get some feel of it all, and by the next one, I can perhaps pick up more than I've been able to this time. (Anytime you know of anyone who cd give it some more spread, i.e., any geologists, or whoever, etc., etc., for god sake do nail them - because that's what we now lack, too much - i.e., it's too tightly 'literary' but I said that. To hell with it for the moment.) Duncan & Jess Collins now have a place in Banalbufar - and while I think of it, D/ wd be pleased if you cd submit something for a 'dada newspaper'356 they want to do - and which ought to be kicks, I think. (Goddamn heaviness gets very hopeless, as you of course keep saying.) Anyhow, whatever you can send, as wild, as impossible to print elsewhere, and/or as free as you want it — that's it. Poems or whatever. His address is: (just) Banalbufar, Mallorca, Spain. I don't think there's any deadline at the moment, but I suppose the sooner the better, as always. It's too good a plan & all, to see dropped, so the faster we come thru, the less chance there'll be of that. Ok. So that's the news, at the moment. Charles writes things are looking up at BMC, i.e., enrollment was up for the first time since 1946 - so that's good news. God knows it's about time. Here it's making it fair enuf. Another friend, John Altoon, painter I had met in NYC last summer, is now here back of us, and like him

230

The Correspondence

very much.357 Relief to hear someone talking Am/ like they say, after all the goddamn Brit/ etc. Ah well... Anyhow fair enuf. Write when you can, please & will do likewise. All our love to you all, Bob

1 May 1955 Dear Bob: I wonder whether you received THE COLD GREEN ELEMENT. I sent it out to you some weeks ago, but you do not mention it in your letter. I hope it hasn't gone down to the bottom of the sea, there to poison the marine monsters. More than likely, you have got it in your hands by now. If you have you will have noticed that I used the poems which you had accepted for BMR, and I pray fervently it did not make you too choleric with your friend. Since I am as you know applying for a Royal Scholarship, I thought the book would be a fine piece of window-display, more persuasive even than IMOMF; at any rate, the two of them offering some proof that I'm a serious writer worth giving a year of leisure to. It did induce Lome Pierce, editor of Ryerson Press, and quite an influential man hereabouts,358 to write the Committee a most enthusiastic letter, as well as A.J.M. Smith. Furthermore, I want you to know that I am sitting on the edition pretty tightly until the next issue of BMR is out; I've sent out damn few copies to friends. It's therefore highly unlikely that any of your subscribers will see TCGE; what happens in Canada and news of it seldom gets beyond its borders. If however I have displeased you, leave the poems out. TBP have not arrived. I hope THAT hasn't gone down to the bottom of the sea. Cid's book came; you did a fine job on that one too. There were many poems - some of them favourites of mine - that I missed. On the whole, I think he could have made a stronger selection than the one he did. I remember seeing a number of really good poems of his: this book had too many dry straws in it, only a few ever leave the ground. I've been scouting around for that translation of Leopardi, I remember seeing one in the local secondhand bookstores. Haven't located one, but I've got my eyes out for it. Don't despair. I like the old boy myself, as gifted as they come. Beside him, Byron and some of the other romantics seem like swaggering schoolboys. There's a trans, of his poems by Heath-Stubbs,359 J'ever see it? But it's his prose you want, right? Anyway I'll pocket anything of his I can lay my hands to and send it off to you pronto pronto. 231

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley The spring came upon us suddenly with nice sunny weather and the creative sap has started to flow again. I'm enclosing a poem I finished today; maybe it'll make it for you. Which reminds me, are you keeping those poems I sent as an afterthought for the BP? If you aren't, will you please send them home as I haven't any copies of them. What I'm tentatively projecting is a book of short stories and poems to be published sometime next year360 - not by me, since I'm dead broke, but maybe after my European trip (?) I'll be able to interest some native publisher to bring out a book of mine. When is your own book coming out, ALL THAT'S LOVELY IN MEN. Wonderful title that. It seems that CIV/N will be coming out again after all, or did I write that to you in my last letter. Yup, publication will be suspended for the summer, nothing much doing in the dog days anyhow. But in the fall, there shd be a lively issue and a lot of stuffing pulled out from assorted people. Have asked co to send me more IMOMF. No dice. I'm enclosing a cheque for $19.00 to pay for 10 copies of ADF. and 10 copies of Kit-Kat. The balance is for IMOMF. 15 copies. All our love to you and the family. Irving

May 3, 1955 Dear Irving, The mag has me so much on my knees at present, I am not making it - but your book came, the one lift I'd got in some goddamn long time. I like it very much i.e., very damn solid. As Ann said, you can go straight through, with pleasure. Also the design makes it I think, that cover particularly, which is very handsome - I envy you. So goddamnit - you ought to be a happy man. Also this morning the mag (with yr article & the one on you), and newspaper came. Both seem damn good boosts, i.e., not complete imbeciles talking, like they say - and quote enuf & all that. I think one in mag is (and I suppose rightly) the better. Other man sounds a bit like he's conducting culture hunt, etc. So anyhow you get well smothered with laurels, and again, that's it. You've got another coming, via the San Francisco Chronicle, a clipping Jonathan set up & sent a copy of, i.e., he maneuvered it - and says he's sending it on to you too, so won't quote it here. They reviewed 6 Divers books, a real break — except credits get hashed up, i.e., Jonathan stands as designer & apparent publisher of them all, goddamn him ... Which anyhow was their confusion, not his, - so to hell with it. I am dubbed, 232

The Correspondence complete with pix, 'A self-conscious man tells strange tales ...'At least it isn't, dead men tell none, etc. Fuck it. Mag is pounding along, we are now on page 147 or thereabouts - and on & on it goes. By god. Jung's article is a bk in itself... Yet. Eventually I think it could be very interesting. And this one, i.e. this issue, has something in it for the whole family in any case. It ought to be done in a couple of weeks, and will send off a copy from here as soon as it is. Also have, or am now getting, stuff toward the next, — for example, story by Paul Goodman that makes it, a couple of short pieces (prose) by Fielding Dawson (Jonathan just did a little bk of 2 stories for him, very damn good writing, in fact best prose I've seen from anyone in a long time - ask J/ for a copy, it's $1 if you can't wheedle one, F/ Dawson, KRAZY KAT And One More) some Morgenstern trans/ that are very unsettling, and angles for letters between Pierre Boulez & John Cage (music) - and a few other things, i.e., already this twice a year biz is paying off.361 At least it gives me more time. We think to try to get some kind of car again, and I'm going up to Paris with John Altoon (painter, very nice man) sometime after the middle of the month, when the mag's done. It would make a big difference, and it will also be good to get away for a bit. I'm getting damn stale — no matter how wild the scenery. I don't at the moment see much of Duncan & Jess C/ — but will later in the summer, when we're out at Banalbufar. Place around here is really piling up with tourists now, and a bit hopeless. Yet this house is back enough to stay clear of them. And Altoon's place is way back & up on the hill — and no one much around there at all. So, old friend - that's the news at the moment & all that sort of thing. We are still alive, and hope to be making it more, shortly. Too - while I remember - I thought to put an add in this issue for your 2 Contact Press bks, eg., Blue Propeller & this present one, and what address shall I give??? Write me as quickly as you can - since there is no time left to speak of. Ok. Write soon. Hope you had some rest, and that things are making it. All our love to you all, Bob

May 9, 1955 Dear Irving, I don't see that inclusion of those poems in your book will bother anything — and god knows your logic, of wanting to have as much up your sleeve as possible, is absolutely reasonable. So don't worry 233

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

on my account, please. The poems are in the issue, and I'm grateful to have them. Voila. The mag itself is on the home stretch now, and will get you off a copy from here as soon as it's done. It's huge, Irving — if nothing else. We seem to be breaking 200 in a breeze, and hate to guess at the moment just where the goddamn 'length' will at last stop. I'd guess circa page 225/30 .... Jesus christ. Jung took acres & acres. But I enjoyed reading it, so to hell with anyone else. Anyhow it ought to prove cud for some time indeed. Next issue is shaping up very well, to date; I think by then I'll have some more usable sense, of the length, than I confess I had on this first try. I.e., it's a natural for variation, 5 ways to Sunday - and ought to be used as such. So, by the next issue, I hope I have the stuff to do it. And so far as good. So don't forget me, please. I don't know when that book, i.e., All That Is Lovely In Men, will be out. JW/ has got himself so swamped with commitments to do everybody's & his uncles', we all get shifted around like so many billcollectors. I have just written to suggest I take it back & do it here; because we've already done here the plates of Dan Rice's drawings for it, etc. And I'm anxious to get it out & behind, etc. J/ means well - yet is young in some precise sense, at least very hopeful - and that can get very dreary. Well, I'll let you know what happens. It was his intention, or is, to do the book now in Germany, when (and if) he comes to Europe, and also when (and if) he pays his present bill with the printer there. He's simply taken on too much, been too persuaded by hungry men, etc. Of which I am certainly one - yet this time I don't see it, at all. Anyhow I'll let you know. If I do it here, I think it ought to be out sometime in the fall. Thanks for the check for the books sold. I had a letter from Connie Olson not long ago, saying she would send you up some more IMOMF very soon.362 So hope they make it, and apologize for the goddamn delays. Thanks too for seeing what you can find of Leopardi's prose - it's the Pensieri particularly I'm after, if possible. God I hope you make the fellowship. Well, I don't dare hope too much but if prayers & divers other black rites can help, rest assured. Ok. Write soon. Hope it's all making it there. All our love to you all, Bob I forgot to damn well note your poem, which makes it - but not very much for me anyhow. Well, you know me - not that I bug at all on such things, viz 'subjects' - but this is too easy. I think. Hence it lands as a too simple ugliness - and ugliness may be that simple in char234

The Correspondence acter, but not that simple to get at, and away and/or out. I think it takes a stronger, sharper 'tongue' to curse such things, finally. [Added at top of letter: Final bill on THE BLUE PROPELLER was: $101.58 — so you owe us 51.58 - but don't worry abt it, if you can't make it at the moment & certainly don't worry abt it before you have the bks there, - which ought to be very soon. (I.e., at yr. bro/s.)]

May 10, 1955 Dear Bob: Got your letter a day ago. It's all good news about the mag. Sounds a terrific number, what with Jung et al. How did you ever succeed in landing that one? Did you try psychoanalysis? Or some kind of black magic? Well, perhaps the two are not so different after all. What with your being so close to Graves (if that's still so; and I, of course, mean it physically) can't you touch him for some poetry? I recently saw the trouncing he gave Aldington over his desecrated hero, T.E. Lawrence.363 Sounds like a real blood-and-thunder gentleman of the old school - said he'd like to horse whip Aldington and more of the same. Wish to heavens, tho, he could write poetry. Never read a thing of his which didn't sound as if it had been turned out by a brain in a sound-proof lavatory. No, lavatory, is too strong, too gutty for R.G. But from numerous accounts, he seems to be the thing among the younger poets in Gt. Britain. Can't see it, unless its a reaction to the shoot-your-mouth-off-but-make-it-sound-big-andimportant school (phew!) of Dylan Thomas. Empson, I believe, is pained with Graves. But what in the hell am I telling you this for? You probably know these matters better than I do. Just received news today from the Awards Committee - no go! Neither for Betty or me, though as I kept encouraging Bet, if they gave one of us a Scholarship, they'd have two artists for the price of one. It would seem, however, this brand of economics isn't well understood by the Committee who preferred giving the trip to Europe to old geezers who couldn't even fart vigorously let alone write or paint vigorously rather than to Bet and myself who are both in our prime & wd profit most by the chance to, as they say, broaden our horizons. Am I bitter? You darned right I am. As against this disappointment and others, this evening Frank Scott phoned to tell me that the first National Poetry Conference is going to be held this summer at Queen's University.364 One of the foundations is footing the bills - Ford or Rockefeller or Carnegie. Every poet in Canada will have his travelling expenses paid plus his upkeep 235

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley for those days at any hotel of his choosing. All this is the upshot from the Keewaydin Poetry Festival that was held last year. The proceedings will be broadcast, etc. etc. Big Deal. It's a wonderful chance for the phonies, and I've no doubt the profs will march right in and take over - a good number of these have been invited just to give the thing solidity and prevent the conference from going up in the air. But it also may be a good opportunity to create an interest & an audience for a dying art. Certainly I'm going to load my car up with Divers Books. Hope the big no. of B.M.R. is out before then. Will you send back Eros & Social Worker & Love Dream of A. Smythe - if you aren't using them. I don't think they're up to much. Did you get my last poem, Rose Lemay"?365 Write soon. Always a real treat to hear from you. All our love, Irving. [Added at top of letter: Give address for Ad: Contact Press 8035 Kildare Ave., - Many thanks!! Cote St-Luc, Que.]

May 31, 1955 Dear Bob: I had a letter from Cid recently in which he mentions seeing you in Paris. That must have been a grand re-union; his poem on you brings you and your menage very vividly to mind. Since I have not heard from you for over two weeks, I still don't know your whereabouts - this letter may be at the bottom of a heap of unanswered mail. Or you may have come back too fagged from the girls in the Folies Bergeres to do more than look at the soiled envelopes at your elbow and mutter biliously, 'Ugh!' Well, when you come back to your own thoughtful self, I hope you'll sit down on your carbuncles and squeeze out a letter this way. At last, the Blue Propeller arrived. Shipshape. The bloke over at the customs was a French-Canadian who, either because he has not been completely blighted by the prevailing anglosaxon commercialism or because he doesn't mind if the Federal Gov't is defrauded of a few dollars, let me have the books without my having to pay any douane. Thank heavens for small mercies. Now here's what I've decided to do. I've decided to add nine more poems to the books I think I can match your type pretty closely. By using a thin paper it will be possible to insert four pages without giving the book a bulky 236

The Correspondence off-balance look. Some of the poems to be added you've seen; some of them are recent. The ones you've seen are: ENIGMA, WHEN i SEE A GIANT, LOVE DREAM OF ALFRED SMYTHE, MAGNATE; FOR THE MORE DEVO-

TIONAL(?). Now the book will have thirty-five poems, will I think pack more of a wallop. Betty is doing a couple of woodcuts. I'll send you the completed text next week. I'm enclosing a poem which I finished a few days ago, in harmony with what I told you in one of my letters I would do from now on - namely give you first choice on anything I've done. In that way I think I can best fulfill my duties and responsibilities as associate editor of BMR. All I ask of you is that you send back as early as you can what you're quite sure you won't use. Of course anything by way of comment to tell me where you think I'm going off the deep end will, as always, be greatly appreciated by me. You have I think the following poems of mine: MAURER: TWIN HEADS, ROSE LEMAY, FIRECRACKERS, FIAT LUX, and INTERSECTIONS.366 If you are at all interested in FIAT LUX I have another revised version which might just make it for you. It's vastly better than the last version I sent you. However, the theme may not interest you very much. For my money the other four poems are good ones, and this last one - one of my best. But you're the editor. The other poem is the one I sent to Cooper; I thought you might like to see it. I still don't know for certain that I prefer it to ROSE LEMAY.

Write me a long letter. Miss hearing from you. All our love, Irving June 13, 1955 Dear Irving, Things are still in a mess from the trip, and also now from socalled personal difficulties, which I don't have the heart to lay on you. So anyhow. I sail (again & again) from here to NYC the 11th of next month, and will be at Black Mountain shortly after that. It's the one chance and I'm taking it, although I don't know much what I'm doing anymore. But to hell with that. I'm glad the copies of your book all got there safely. I'll write soon re your new poems sent - forgive me for not saying anything here but I've had mind for nothing these past two weeks. But as said light soon & all that sort of shit, and will be back on as soon as I can. Ok. Hope everything there is making it, though that is very bitter news about not getting those fellowships. Hope is a goddamn vague thing, these days. But to hell with that too. Write. All love to you all, Bob

237

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

Monday

Dear Bob: I have a few moments before I go off to work. I've revised one of the poems I sent you a few days ago; still befuddled as to whether it comes off successfully. The other poem I wrote two days ago. Between us, let it be like this - I'll keep sending you stuff. What you don't want or can't use, just put in envelope and send back, so that I can try them on somebody else. In this way you'll be sure of seeing the best of me first. Let me have EROS, SOCIAL WORKERS, and LOVE DREAM OF ALFRED etc., if you're not using them, or any of them. Well, I gambled and lost. I brought out all those books in one big hurry, thinking that that wd impress the imagination of the awardgivers. My miscalculation was that I credited them with - imagination. So now I owe everybody and his brother. But to hell with that. I hope you don't take that inserted wheeze of mine seriously — that abt my genius. That was intended as pure spoof; actually I'm very modest about the small talent I have. I've read too much great poetry to ever fool myself for long. Just got a letter from my brother, telling me the stuff is coming in by dribs and drabs. I'll write him to tell him to send the stuff here the same way. Have settled down seriously with some prose. Will try to have something like a review or an article for you for the next number. Let's hear from you soon. Always a real pleasure. Thanks for news on BMR. Irv. June 21, 1955 Dear Irving, Things are a bit clearer now. It comes out, I leave here July 11th, and will be in NYC the 21st - and then at BMC not long after. God knows why exactly. But, to say it as best I can at present - both Ann and I need out from one another, at least for awhile - and this is the only way I can think to manage it. It's her insistence, at that, which moves me at all. What a goddamn lethargic drudge I had become - or something. Who knows. Well, it's a try, to save it, no matter, so that much I hardly mind attempting. So, - to hell with that. I have some mind back, at least, and would like to plan on using ENIGMA in the next issue; and let me know what you finally do with FIAT LUX, if that's ok, i.e., it's a powerful one certainly, and I only boggle, a bit, on the present heavy conclusion sense, of those last lines, or better, the last line. Because it seems 238

The Correspondence 'wound up,' i.e., almost too much 'said,' by that point. But to hell with this - and, if you'll bear with me, send me what you finally decide upon, as its form, because I like the main-line of it, very much. However niggardly this comment here. Ok. The other two (Firecrackers & Intersections I like, but not as much as these 2 noted.) Also, I'll try to return the copies I have of those poems you mention, soon - and sorry not have before this. I'll write a decent letter soon, it's a goddamn thick time & I'm making it barely - but to hell, again, with that. Write. All our love. Bob July 3, 1955 Dear Bob, Please excuse the somewhat longer silence. My vacation began a week ago, but before that there was the final rush to get the children tucked up under their report cards — a damnable botheration. Heaven alone knows how many poems were slaughtered, for this is a time when the muse must go unpampered - the marks have got to be, and there's the end of it. For the past five days or so I've been busy trying to make grass grow where it just won't, but I'm resolved this year I won't be licked. I bought a quantity of good black soil and spread it wherever the ugly clayey patches showed, a few green shoots are already visible, I laid out a long walk and at last did something for my driveway. Of course all this I should have done six years ago when I first came here. Lately the place has been built up, beautiful duplexes and bungalows all around me, with lovely lawns and rock gardens. Every night the sound of spraying is thick about me, the parade of self-admiring burghers and expensive cars endless. I could no longer let my place be the ugly sore it was, I had to get down to it and forget my wonderful bo tree where I do my writing during the summer. Tomorrow I start to paint my house, though I am getting someone to help me. Maybe in another week or two I shall be out there pounding away at Pegasus and getting something in the clinches. I don't remember whether I wrote you this. There's going to be a writers' conference at Queen's University - the first of its kind to be held in Canada. About sixty writers - poets, novelists, etc. - are expected to foregather. Arrangements have been made to broadcast and televise some of the proceedings. Though I don't suppose any poems will be written as a result of this conference I do expect that the Canadian writer will have some of his obscurity stripped off from him - the great majority don't even know we're around. For myself I'm going up there armed with some furious arguments which I'll spill into the ears of anyone who cares to listen. 239

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley The news about you and your wife saddens me. When I didn't hear from you I was getting anxious, wondering whether it was your health or what. I wish I could say something, do something that would be wise and make everything come out well for you and her, but in such matters the best of friends and well-wishers are helpless. Whatever you do, you both have my love. I hope for your sakes and the children's the separation will be only temporary, serving only to compose your differences and strengthening the bonds of affection and understanding that first brought you together. Unless the thing is impossible, marriage and parenthood is a great opportunity for growth. But I am sure that in all these trite observations you concur. If you land in New York this month, how about coming up to see me? I could put you up for weeks. All our best love. Irving August 16, 1955 Dear Irving, You goddamn poet... Anyhow your card arrived safely, and I feel duly chagrined, and very apologetic about the silence. But do know I'd never take that way of ducking out on you, i.e., not a damn thing is as yet clear between Ann and me - and, at this distance, it's as terrifying as ever. Or anyhow as goddamn confused as ever. I can't worry 24 hrs per about anything, so that has been to the good. Also, this place as ever gets me on my feet in some sense, and have been making it ok with the class - and also the pleasure of Chas' company. Otherwise the place is worn i.e., damn tired out, from the continual battle to keep it above water somehow. The irony is, that enrollment is up, and things re any conceivable educational sense, were never I think better. But the goddamn $$$ of course are the hitch, and it's now a race against time - that other horror. So - like that. Don't please think I don't write for no reason but to annoy you. Well, you know - and I know too, that to write is never that hard, yet it has been believe me the past weeks. Many thanks for those poems, and of the batch, I'd like to use LETTER FROM A STRAW MAN - making it that, and ENIGMA, for #6 plus whatever else you can send between now and the time it has to go to the printer's (probably late Sept). This issue (#5) has gone very well so far, both sales-wise (at least for a little mag) and also re reactions from people like Wms, Zukofsky, etc. Right now we're involved with trying to get enough $$$ to continue, and owe some still on issues to date — but with any luck, will make it - and the twice-a-year gives us a little breather, thank god. 240

The Correspondence Coming over from Spain, stopped first at Halifax, and thought of you all - and was tempted to call or do something - but was so goddamn broke it was impossible. Since then I've learned to roll a very wild cigarette, as against the 24?! a pack for the tailor-mades here - and so on, i.e., I get by, just about. I've had two letters from Ann since getting here, the last more or less: I love you still but with such nervous reservations about having to live with you .... I think I've made a clean break ... I at least have my own life, etc. It's clear enough, and god knows also good, if it means she gets to have herself, at last. Myself, like they say - as said I feel ok, and, at the moment, even half-way exultant, to be so goddamn far out, and still breathing. Because there are only some half dozen men in this world I feel any kin with — no matter who or what they are — and that's it. I can't back up now, i.e., I hope we somehow do get back together, and even now think that seems more possible than ever - yet have not felt in pieces, trying to consider that it is equally possible we will not. It is at least air. And what else. With the class, I can at last make it - i.e., not 'at last,' but as against the goddamn other kind of loneliness I so often lived with there in Mallorca, i.e., sans use (being used). That was no good, and she is clearly sane, to leave it. Anyhow - old friend — don't leave me now. And will not take so long to write again, and please write too, as you can. All our *love to you all, Bob *Viz that don't get cut, no matter. My love and concern you'll always have. Ok. October 1, 1955 Dear Bob: Your letter after travelling across half the province finally got to me here. You must have written to me while I was out in the country, and I must have left before your missive came. Then it went back & forth between the several post-offices until some bright egg decided the time had come to send it on to my city address ..... And all this time I've been nursing a grievance against you for supposedly nursing one against me. I am relieved to learn your feelings towards me have not changed. I'm back at my teaching jobs, but the going is much easier this year. My classes are smaller, and the pupils appear to be better disciplined. Two evenings a week are all that I'm giving this year as against three last year. Financially I'm still in a hole, a damn big one, but I'm going to cancel my debt to you inside of two months. I'll send 241

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

you two cheques in my next letter to you, dated Nov 4 and Dec 4 splitting the $51.00 I still owe you for the BP between them. I am enclosing a cheque for $9.00 for fifteen copies of IMOMF. Two parcels arrived from Spain, but I can't sell them since they don't have errata sheets. Can you fix that? There was a nice review of IMOMF by Northrop Frye in the Toronto Quarterly.367 It's boosted the sale of the book considerably. Can you give me an approximate idea of how many copies of IMOMF have been sold. What are the chances of another edition? It's one of my books I'd like to keep in print. I had a good summer of writing, enough to fill a book of 40 poems. It's called the BULL CALF AND OTHER POEMS and I've written to New Directions asking them if they'd care to see the manuscript. If they turn it down do you think Jonathan may want to take a crack at it — with some financial help from me? Incidentally you'll see about four poems from TBC in the forthcoming issue of Origin and another four in the issue following. Cid's very enthusiastic about them, but you mayn't be. Letter from a Straw Man is also one of the poems from the projected book. If you see JW or correspond with him, you might ask him to send me a dozen copies of ALL THAT'S LOVELY IN MEN. I think I can place them in the stores and/or sell them to persons interested in your work. I am most eager to see the book for myself, though I think I have seen a fair number of the poems in it and selected several for the issue of Origin Cid asked me to edit. That task is now accomplished, the manuscripts now being in Cid's possession. I think it's a lively number with poems by yourself, Bronk, jw, and some of the newer Canadian poets whom you may not have heard about yet. That issue won't be going to press for another month and will not be on sale until some time close to Christmas. But I suppose Cid keeps you as well posted about such matters as he does me. Glad to hear from you that teaching isn't altogether an ordeal to you. Whatever you do, you have my prayers and best wishes. I'd have given a good deal to see you en route to BMC. Is there any chance of you and CO coming up here? I could put both of you up for as long as you'd care to stay .... Have you seen Dudek's Europe? I don't remember now whether I sent you a copy of it or not — but something tickling my memory says yes. Let me know what the thinking down your way is about it. Give my warmest regards to Olson & his wife. All our love to you, Irving 242

The Correspondence [ ]ember 6, 1955 Dear Irving, I'm sorry not to have written - literally I've been swamped the past weeks, what with one thing and another - mainly the teaching and like responsibilities, and also the difficulties with Ann. The latter seems as bleak as ever. I don't give up hope, not without at least seeing her again — which will probably be possible in January when she plans to come to this country with the kids - but even I'm forced to admit it looks not very good, at all. Anyhow that's been on my mind, and to write — with such a thing always present - would mean only depressing you as well. Ok. That's very good news about your books, i.e., that they do well, and are reviewed well, etc. Jonathan told me about the Selected, and I think it's a good idea.368 (If Michigan picked it up, finally - that would probably be best.) I don't have any extra errata sheets for IMOMF sadly enough, i.e., all the ones that were printed were put in the books. If the copies sans errata sheets came from Ann, they're probably some packages of the book we'd taken prior to your word on mistakes, and the consequent errata sheet we then had done, etc. I think I have, in any case, some copies left here, and will try to send you up 30 sometime this week. (They'll have the errata sheets in them, as per other copies sent by us earlier.) I finally got the ms. of the next issue of the magazine off ok. By the way, what is this EROS poem you note. The only one by you named that I remember is the EROS WHERE THE RENTS AREN'T HIGH. If you mean the poem by me of that title, it's in ATILIM - so take it from that.369 This just to get back, in any case. I'll try to write a decent letter soon, or/and when things are less confused. In the meantime, thanks for bearing with me. This can't last forever. Voila. All my love to you all, Bob [Added at top of letter: When you can pay more on the BLUE PROPELLER, please send the money direct to Ann, at the Bonanova address. But don't worry about it.] December 9, 1955 Dear Irving, I'm ashamed not to have written long ago; and more particularly, not to have sent you what copies of IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER I can from here. In any case I will (I will, I will ...) sometime this coming week, when I have again both money for postage and mind enough to tie a string, etc. I'm not yet sure how many I can send - but will send a card noting the number etc., when I do.

243

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

I'm leaving here, as Jonathan may have told you; not through any dissatisfaction, but I'm unable to give enough, teaching, and stay too back of it all - and that's not very interesting for anyone. So I think to go to San Francisco, and have made plans accordingly - probably to go out with Jonathan, who now thinks also to go, since he cannot get money enough together to go to Europe. The last term ended here December 5th, and the next starts January 3rd - so I have to get moving sometime before then; it seems we'll get off sometime not too long after Xmas. But you can write me c/o here, in any case - and mail will always be forwarded. Voila. Life is somewhat clearer, like they say - if hardly gay. And how are you all. The new book sounds very good, i.e., this selected poems that Jonathan will print for you. That is something I'd been hoping to see done for a long time now, and you have all my hopes for a good success with it. I don't see why not. I was also pleased to hear, via J/, that you liked ALL THAT is LOVELY IN MEN. I suppose I should wear it like a sandwich board, and see what can come of that. Otherwise, I have another so-called collection, if I can ever inveigle someone into doing it, i.e., 3 stories & about a dozen or so poems -1 want to see how the prose and poetry goes together, and it also fills more pages at that.370 A lady editor wrote me today (in answer (a rejection) of a 'ballad' I'd written, which I at least like, very much, to wit, Ballad of the Despairing Husband — I'll try to send up a copy sometime if ever anything makes it again, etc.) Anyhow she said ad passim: "Most of my marriage, a "happy" one, has been carried out in the atmosphere of an armed truce ..." I suddenly find myself au courant with a number of such confessions, and it's not very interesting. I think I had best get back into some family or other, and quickly - albeit it continues to seem the one I came from is no longer very possible, or seems not from what Ann continues to feel and I at last begin to. To hell with it. As with those Persian soldiers I think it is, in Herodotus, when their leader says, but how can you leave your wives and families, etc. To which they answer, so long as we have these (and/or their balls), we will have wives & families. Hmmm. And more soberly, the kids I hear are well, and she is I think more settled, and happier — and it need not be a shambles of hate and spite, etc. As I understand it, now, they will be probably coming back to this country sometime this year, and some means to see the kids now and again can be managed; and that is what most worries me now. It has been miserably hard to be separate from them. But I suppose, to have stayed in — and had the cut of both Ann and me on one another - would have bred a much worse despair sooner or later. 244

The Correspondence Anyhow do write as you can. I hope you have a fine Christmas, and that all goes well for you all. And, as said, I will get those IMOMF off as soon as I can literally manage it. Ok. All my best to you all, Bob December 16, 7955 Dear Bob: Have been up to my neck with TIBBY, answering letters of jw and the publisher who's also coming in on this, Ryerson Press.371 It's all fixed now. RP have agreed to take 200 copies which you may be certain is a relief to both me & brother Jonathan. If jw is as good as his word the bk shd be out sometime early in March & then it's a matter of slow death and fingernail biting until the reviews & notices are in. Like hell! But it sounds properly melodramatic to say so. No man gives less of a fuck as to what any of the benighted tribe of crappers have to say abt my poetry or anyone else's. I'll take a kind word from you down their forty yard line anytime. Now after ten years of hemming & hawing the bright boys down here are beginning to discover that I'm writing poetry that's worth taking a second look at. Christ you said it for them more'n a year ago - and you're not a Canuck either. Fuck em. I liked yr book immensely. You're a genuine poet, Bob, and my heart fills with brotherly pride & affection thinking of you. I'm mighty pleased you included the poem to me; it includes me, a rapt stargazer, in your orbit.372 Many, many thanks. Shd like by all means to see your BALLAD OF THE DESPAIRING HUSBAND. It might express what all of us married poets at times feel. Last wk my ownest & I were bitching at each other you'd think we were married to each other not fifteen yrs but fifty. I consoled myself by reading biography of Tolstoy. His wife didn't understand him either. Basically it boils down to the eternal difference & tragedy that women wish to be the receptacle and the artist wishes to create one that includes her & everything else. The one is as imperialistic in its drive as the other. What else can marriage between a woman and a poet be but an 'armed truce'? The passion of the one is to mould and of the other to create. My own admittedly egotistically narcissistically narrowly selfish one is that any woman shd consider herself damned fortunate living with anyone who's got the essential electricity in his veins. With a little humour, give, and tolerance on her part I think she ought to be able to ride out the inevitable calms & tempests of her husband's peculiar gifts. Of course I don't know what you're like to live with, but you can't be much, that is, very much worse than I

245

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

am. Thank my lucky stars I'm married to someone who loves me very much & has as much compassion as anger for my sometimes formidable obsessions. Which is okay, though our nerves sometimes grow taut with hate and spite. But the good moments come, they come. Which all makes me want to blurt out at you - give yourselves time, time. Three children are as strong a bond as you'll find anywhere in this world, much stronger than the bright ring you put on Ann's finger when you married her. And I'm sure it must be that way with her too, no matter what her present grievances are. No man can ever take the place of the one who fathered her children whatever she may think & feel differently at the moment. Give yourself time, and have faith, and be of good cheer. Don't think of getting into another family when you already have one ready made, the first and best spendings of your love. Give yourself time. I'm sorry to hear that you're leaving Black Mountain. I wish it were possible for you to come up here and spend some weeks with us. We could put you up for as long as you'd care to stay. It wd be a deep satisfaction. All our warmest love to you. Irving

Feb. 4, 1956 Dear Bob: I wrote you about 4 or 5 wks ago, but I guess you're either too busy or too distraught to answer. I hope it's the former, though I shall keep on wanting to hear from you. Your letters were always a delight to me. At last I feel able to do something about my long-outstanding debt to you. Thanks for being so patient. The Blue Propeller is selling but damned slow. The notice taken of the book, however, has been, though not enthusiastic, favourable. If you see Jon. W. you might ask him to let you see the article in the Queen's Quarterly. It's a real lalapalooza on my recent poetry.373 I hope you're your usual productive self. Write when you can. All our love to you, Irving. February 22, 1956 Dear Irving, I'm sorry as ever not to have written. The last month was somewhat of a confusion. I saw Ann in NYC about two weeks ago now, then went back to BMC and then came here (Albuquerque, NM) and shortly plan to go to Mexico for awhile, i.e., thanks to Ann I had the windfall 246

The Correspondence of some money from a court suit I'd handled for her in NH. So — things are not impossible. I want to try a novel, god knows I have much to say - like they say. She was very 'new' in NYC, almost literally. She spoke of the grand feeling of walking along the street with everything she was wearing new. Hmmm. She also wanted me to sign the book of poems for her. Think of that. And asked my advice regarding man she is now in love with, it seems. He is a painter, so she also wanted to meet via me Kline et al. Happily, it never worked out though she did 'question' Guston one afternoon until I felt very much like dragging her away. It was very great in NYC other than this part, i.e., I saw Guston's opening, which was terrific.374 He is letting me have a drawing to use in my next book, which I saw about as well, i.e., hope to subscribe it and found some good printers (hand) in New Jersey, a young couple who seem very capable. So that was a pleasure. I also met more painters, i.e., Pollock, Rothko even Saul Steinberg — who is very wild, looks like one of his cartoons and sports a gold watch chain and heavy gold watch, etc.375 He was on his way to Russia yet. Well, a lot of it was too many people, always. But it was a relief from the thing with Ann, this time. She was at that pretty amiable, very much so in fact. We have joint responsibility for the kids, and it was that part that most worried me. She got the divorce in Alabama where you can do it one day. Wow. She is coming back to this country for good in a month or so, and will live somewhere in New England. I hope she makes it. She seemed very unhappy and confused — but then, it might well have been me again who made her so. We wear on one another hopelessly, now. I don't know. Seeing her, I loved her very much, she always moves me more than any other woman does, god knows why. I don't at that worry about 'other women' but I always do it seems, about her. Anyhow I was supposed to meet Cynthia,376 if you remember about her, i.e., girl who had been at BMC when I first went there, in Veracruz no less; but heard a day ago she is in love with someone else now, she always is, and though I am very great, it is not to be. Well, of course it's not. What a goddamn life it is - yet the goddamn humor of it is something I can never put down. I hope to write a novel, now, somehow — I'd like to try some long prose - but I said that? Ok. I'm sorry about being out of it, in any case, so much these past months. I think the next few ought to mean some new hold. I'd been marking time till I saw Ann again, but now have - and 'saw' her pretty clearly, and it's not possible finally, at all. It was crazy but for one thing I could see she never read a goddamn thing I wrote, never. That hurt. It's very great news about your book & Wms intro/ and all of it.377 Well you know. Thank god some things happen. Write 247

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

me c/o the college and as soon as I have any sort of address in Mexico, I'll send it etc. Ok. I hope it all goes well there. All my love to you all, Bob I got your letter with $51 ok, and many thanks.

c/o EDWARD DORN, 184 STATES ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

April 5, 1956 Dear Irving, I found an old check* of yours, apparently sent us last year when we were doing The Blue Propeller — which we never cashed. It's dated March 19, 1955 and is no. 137. I am sorry to say that at the moment I am flat broke, and am en route to San Francisco, and so take the risk of cashing it, to get me there. I wouldn't otherwise - and hope to god it doesn't embarrass you. If it bounces or anything, it will not be impossible, since friends here will have cashed it. Anyhow I can at least warn you. Nothing much solves itself, I feel restless and confused much of the time. I expect it will take a little, to accustom myself to whatever now happens. I did not get the Guggenheim and so have to do something, whereby to eat - which same I think I can manage most happily in San Francisco - or that is, in any case, some place to go. Voila. I liked your editing of ORIGIN, and thanks for my own poems there.378 I liked yours particularly. I also enclose a card I had had from Rexroth, sent you c/o me, etc. I suppose I'll see him soon, but am not even curious at this point — he sounds too often impossible. But, — and, etc. So I will write, as I can; and please do yourself. I've missed hearing from you, and hope that everything is all right. I look forward to your book with Jonathan very much. All my love to you all, Bob *for $25.00 AprilS, 1956 Dear Bob: It's always great to hear from you. Don't worry about the cheque. I'm already so much overdrawn that another twenty-five dollars isn't going to change my bank manager's opinion of me. The only thing that worries me is that the bank may refuse to cash it, owing to the date being such a remote one. In any event let me know, if they sent it back I'll make you out another one. 248

The Correspondence I'm glad you like the ORIGIN number. All things considered, it was a fair issue; gave the bards here a chance to step out into the wider spaces. The opinions I have received on my editorial job have been uniformly kind. I very much enjoyed your poems, among the neatest you've done. How is your novel getting along? If you give it all you've got — and I know you will — it will be terrific. Put me down for a dozen copies. I mailed you a copy of my latest - THE BULL CALF AND OTHER POEMS. I hope it reached you at your present destination. It was sent to BMC. By the way, what gives with BMR/Has it folded up or what? There was a nice little clientele I had built up for the mag here. Just when THE IMPROVED BINOCULARS will show up is anybody's guess. Jon W. says I ought to be getting the proofs any time now, so I'm mumbling incantations to myself and sweating it out. I've had like they say a good press (it started with IMOMF) and Tibby when it comes ought to be warmly received .... Bet and the kids are fine. Bet sends you all her love and mine goes with it. Let's hear from you when you have a yen for a chat with an old friend & admirer of yours. Yrs/Irv.

c/o IMPORTED MOTORS, 610 CENTRAL SE, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. September 22, 1956

Dear Irving, I'm ashamed and sorry not to have written for so long. I got your book while still in SF earlier in the summer — and was both grateful for it, and god knows admiring, as ever. Recently I got an order for in the midst of my fever, from a Montreal bookshop - and I will write to BMC directly to send the copies asked for - and will also try to have you sent any additional stock. Anyhow — things have been in considerable confusion - but 3 weeks ago I got a job teaching (french & english) in a boys' school in A/ — and that steadies a lot. I have 2 small books coming out later in the year; and the 7th issue of the magazine about together at last.379 So anyhow. It's good to be more back together — very much so. I'll write soon at length — but wanted to get this off to you - now. Ok. All my love to you all, Bob [Added at top of letter: p.s. When is your SELECTED figured to be out? I look forward to that, very much.] 249

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley

c/o 610 CENTRAL SE, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. January 3, 1957 Dear Irving, A belated Happy New Year (at least), and god knows shame it has taken me so long to write. I got, yesterday, your Improved Binoculars, which seems to be what I needed, very much so. I think it is a very damn solid book, altogether; I was reading it last night, when a friend staying here for the time would let me get it away etc. The introduction by Williams is a complete pleasure too, and sets a tone of excellent good-temper, and god knows a well-earned compliment. So - congratulations. It starts the whole year off decently. I make it more or less. Today I told the headmaster I would not be with him another year. I spent my Xmas vacation in Mexico, where I saw Mitch & Dennie (Levertov) Goodman, and they tell me I could make it there (probably Oaxaca) teaching english to Mexicans.380 So I am going to try it, come June. I am, in any case, too damn restless to stay here, which is an easy and reasonable job at that - but, sans family, a little pointless it gets to seem. I hear from Ann now & again; she is learning to play the stock market she says. And what have you been doing like they say. She stays amiable in any case, and tells me of the children - but the distance is bitter, and the time that passes, always a goddamn dilemma no matter what it 'solves.' So - in Mexico I'll get a wife or die in the attempt. I think. BMR #7 is partly at the printer's now. I had a portfolio out via an SF publisher (bookstore) & will get you a copy. THE DRESS (poems & stories) ought to be out soon, and will get you a copy of that too. Gael T/ very kindly offered a 'selected poems' of sorts, but after seeing yours, I don't have it — and it's the wrong direction now for me to be looking in any case. So - write, as you can. Again, - it's a beautiful book & I'm proud to know you. Ok. My love to you all, Bob

8035 KILDARE RD., COTE ST. Luc., QUE. January 26, 1957 Dear Bob: A real delight, as always, to get something from you. I am sensible how much I and TIBBY owe to you, and I want to say so now. You started to ball rolling when you brought out IN THE MIDST OF MY FEVER and brought my work to the attention of jw and others. For the which, believe, I have had you nightly in my prayers and called down blessings on your head countless of times.

250

The Correspondence You may have heard that the Canadian publisher, RYERSON PRESS, which contracted to distribute the book in this country, now flatly say they are not going to do so. At the present they are sitting on a cargo of 200 copies; and the office lady in charge spits out at any one who asks that not a single copy will leave their hallowed precincts. I say 'hallowed' advisedly for RP is the publishing arm of The United Church. It seems that one my poems hints that Christ may have had BALLS and that such a frightening thought had never entered the scrubbed minds of the assorted crew cuts & clerical collars who form the committee on book publications. How they got dragged into such an unbecoming mess is a long story which I shall abbreviate by simply saying that Lome Pierce is one of the editors and has an unecclesiastical liking for poetry. About 30 years ago he got them into a similar mess by publishing Grove's SETTLERS ON MARSH, a realistic study of pioneering in the Canadian West.381 Don't fail to send me THE DRESS. And anything else you've done. Gawd knows there's not too much vital stuff around these days, that I can afford to miss anything of yours. If I can help sell or anything, just let me know. My wife's having a three-man show next month. All our love Irving Look, Bob, do you want to do me a really big favour? As you know, I've got troubles with the Am. Immigration. It seems they're in a more melting mood now, and wd let me cross over if I can get a couple of Americans to say my appearance in the U.S. wd be beneficial. Cd. you piece together a sober epistle to that effect: something about mutual cultural contacts as how I'm a good poet, etc., etc. I need the letter badly in a couple of days, since Feb. 3rd is the deadline. A couple of paragraphs wd do the trick. Address it to THE DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION (American). I hate bugging you like this, but you do want to see me some day, don't you? I might even run into you in Mexico. Jan. 28th, [1957] Dear Irving, Many thanks for your letter (and the copy of TIBBY), likewise like they say. I enclose a letter to Immigration 'people' - I was not quite clear if I was supposed to send that to them directly (?) but hope it will be of use — though wonder how etc. Well, fuck them - I hope very much you can make it. J/ had just told me about Ryerson cutting off yr book - almost incredible it seemed; it's a fantastic business. But- tho in part bitterly 251

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley - if it gets articles like the one sent, it does that much at least, and gets you a useful publicity. Let me know what happens please. I've just got married, not in fact legally — but I've about given up on that sense of the holiness of wedlock.382 But — to lull those about us - have allowed as tho it were 'legal' so - anyhow. Her name is Bobbie no less, she has 2 very lovely daughters - and I am again where some air is. Sardonically or no — it 'works.' It all feels possible & good. I'll write soon again, and do likewise as you can. Ok. It's Monday night & grade reports to get thru, which you'll know. Anyhow, all's well. Voila. My love to you all, Bob

Feb. 11, 1957 Dear Bob: It was very good of you to write the Am. Imm. on my behalf. Many thanks. I also got supporting letters from Olson, Paul Metcalfe383 and Jonathan Wms. There's just an off-chance, they'll do the trick. Now that the Red Scare has somewhat died down, and McCarthy as absurd and unreal as a balloon with the air left out of it, the powersthat-be might reconsider their decision to keep my feet from contaminating good American earth. The letters should reach them tomorrow, and I'll probably hear from them in a week or two. I'm happy to learn about you and Bobbie; happy, I mean, to hear that it's working out for you in satisfaction and contentment. Nothing a bloody writer needs more. Of course every now and then, he's got to go out and grab himself a tension, so's to have something to write about, and his life becomes an eternal see-saw between stress and equilibrium. But maybe, here I'm generalizing from the experience of the romantic writers — the solid, Mann types, the so-called classical writers can do without plunges into turbulent emotions. Give them a pen and some sheets of paper and they create the violent scenes that others will live ... All the ruminating because I'm reading another biography of Lawrence. It's good, too - by Harry T. Moore.384 Ryerson won't distribute my book but they've shipped me 100 copies which I am to peddle myself. So be it. But I did bloody their respectable noses a bit. In the future they'll be rather wiser or warier. Bet's having a three-man exhibition. Twenty canvases. The first reviews and reactions have been very encouraging. I'm still sweating bullets. All our love. I.

252

The Correspondence July 24, 1957 Dear Irving, I feel very shamefaced abt long silence, god knows I've missed hearing & all. But — well, anyhow: at present 'going' for MA at local factory. "Indian trails were usually 12 to 18 inches in width & were often worn to a depth of 1 foot..." So it goes. Taking a seminar in Whitman & Twain which, at least, is text-ual gasser, etc.385 How are you all? Save me from Academia etc. Wow. Write as you can. Again, it's been a damn dry & dense past few months, tho family wise, a great pleasure. So. Where & when are you to be in USA? Have you? Write as you can. Ok. When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomd yr friend: Bob

2527 WEST 35TH, V A N C O U V E R 13, B.C. November 1, 1962 Dear Irving,386 Despite the lack of time, as ever, it was a great goddamn treat to meet you at last and to talk even if it couldn't be in the space & time I'd have liked. I suppose the one continuing criticism I do have of the academic, is that it literally wastes time, so much of it, day after day, with the speciousnesses of 'forms' always taking precedent over what is elsewise to be said. Ah well! Anyhow that explains the dullness of my face so-called at that lunch - and I did write Daniells a note to say thanks, for you, and that you were sorry not to have met him etc. I also enclose like they say the paper's story, and then GB/S comments the next day (that's today).387 Well — my anger is really that all that mess did get between you and this place, i.e., a job literally. Granted your interest, and that it will be a slow business at least at the outset, I'd like to keep pushing that chance. Just now the writing part of it all, i.e., of the English department, is sunk in a lethargy of 'teachers' however 'nice' - and your use here would be very specific, and/or the context you'd see writing in, as mine, is what is it, what's said, done, and so on - but now it still is that weird business of the 'formal,' a platonic cart before a platonic horse etc. Anyhow one gets very paranoid at times, and misery loving country, [Added at top of letter: There's a goddamn Freudian slip for you! I meant: "company" - "We'll to the woods no more ..."] likewise a drink, I wish there were someone as yourself here to share it. And finally - most to the point - the place is sufficiently flexible, and the kids sharp & clean enough, to make the work decent if not all that I'd at least like to be doing otherwise. Simply, it feels a decent way to make a living, lacking another, and one is not asked daily to sell one's soul etc. 253

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley I thought that reading made it, very much - and reaction was of that sense too. What else is a university for, finally, but to make a center for such energy, and for some sense of the consequences it points to. Anyhow you did your part clearly. And I was very grateful to be there. Just now your sun has left, i.e., a little foggy, grey, misty - which is fair enough, in fact, it feels fresh and good, and odors get sharpened etc. It never they tell me gets viciously cold here, which is a great pleasure, i.e., water I like, like. So - onward. I saw Louis D/s piece in the Nation, i.e., now there's a man who 'thinks' ... And he's so thorough etc. I don't know.388 I guess any 'investment' means a 'pay-off and people care for same accordingly - but it's not a happy thing to see. Well, take good care of yourself. Write as you can please. I'm sorry we have been so long out of touch, but it's a strength no matter knowing you've been there all the time. Ok! All love as ever, Bob

2527 WEST 35TH, VANCOUVER 13, B.C. January 23, 1963 Dear Irving, I'm sorry not to have written, and belated good wishes for the new year - i.e., the fact that they still keep coming is a pleasure at least. I have been climbing up the goddamn walls here - I simply can't keep a straight face and/or the vagaries of it all have finally got to me. So, like they say, fuck this. It's all been complicated by the making of a new department, so goddamn vague in outline it's like being invited to the city dump for a treasure hunt. No doubt there will be something for everyone, but just what point is intended with any of it is bitterly undefined. I hate to leave a country you had made so vivid for me - and which I'd felt for years might well be a new hope as against the increasing confinement in the States. But here at least it's like living in an endless suburb, with all those fearsome neighbors that scare the living daylights out of me in any supermarket. You can't get a drink without facing something akin to a police department, you can't find a damn bar that doesn't have the look of a bowling alley with card-tables you can't, it seems, do anything but rake your lawn and glare at the people across the street. Anyhow I hate to leave without having ever got to the real possibilities of it all, but the few friends we have here who are able to work, as painters or writers, are so miserably outnumbered and forced to argue every damn inch of their way - disregarded,

254

The Correspondence literally segregated in point of what's open to them for outlets (I am thinking of Roy Kiyooka, for one example - a sensitive intelligent painter, who first had the humiliation as a kid of being removed to a safe area for the war (common as well in the States of course), and now fights that same use of him as a painter and is lucky to sell one damn painting a year, when he ought to be bought by every idiot in this damn provincial waterhole.... Ah well!)389 You see, I am already counted out, in a way, being American. And there is also that Canadian manner you will know much better than I, which only respects something it feels 'above' itself. Once you share a job in common, seem to live in the same sort of world, then they grow suspicious that they have paid respect to someone mistakenly - and grow proportionately resentful. It's that damn pathetic insularity, that wants to be kicked, spit on, degraded, - really wants to trot out to the airport to see the Queen change planes or some damn thing. Wow!!! Well, the point is you know the scene, and can kick it with use - I only grow soured, irritated, lonely, displaced, and bitter. And that is hardly a feeling that I'd like to have spilled out on students who are, bless them, still innocent of that ugly dispossession they will face, if they hope to keep their integrity. As a consequence we are going back to New Mexico, in May it now looks, to return for the three week seminar here mid-July. And that seems to be that. In contrast to this place, New Mexico has given me a $1000 raise - despite the fact they knew they had me, and that I was literally asking for my old job back etc. - and $500 to travel on (again in contrast to this place which gave me nothing to move a whole damn family close to 2000 miles etc.). And a reduced teaching load and some real use of what mind I do have, etc. You would think that at last (by the living Christ or some damn emphasis that REACHES them) at last at last it would OCCUR to such people, here, that if you hire a plumber you DO NOT expect him to fix the TV, and that if you hire a writer, you MIGHT use him CLEARLY in that capacity etc. etc. Or make some use of what he does seem informed about - not what he DOESN'T. Y pues .... I really wish you were here to have a beer with me, a goddamn barrel full, and then we could go blow up the jolly fucking old dear U/who etc. Wow again. I've had it. What more to the point I'd wanted to tell you - though I do not at all advise it, and I know you have already decided for your own part against it — I'm very sure you could get a decent job here - in point of pay at least, the other kind (as use of you) is absolutely not to be expected (and Earle390 is not one whit better than Daniells in this reference, e.g., his answer to my suggestion we might reexamine 255

Irving Layton and Robert Creeley courses, changing structure of some, and/or seeing what we really wanted to get done, was that I was as yet too ignorant of the Canadian context etc. etc.) Anyhow let's all retire. I get so tired of talking, talking, talking like a parrot of whatever it was I'd meant to say. And here it's bitterly pointless, despite the good students - the world possible for them in this place, I mean the university, is just too goddamn restricted. If I'm honest, I can only say, get the hell out of here as fast as your two legs will take you. You cannot mix impossible distortions of value with what your own eyes tell you exists. All goes down the damn drain. I've got the novel done at least, and off to the publisher — one damn thing I'd meant to, so the time hasn't been completely wasted.391 Warren Tallman392 I like, also his wife - another old friend from Burma days, no less, [Added in margin: Fred Ellis] who is likewise flipping, as I am - and leaving also. Anyhow so it goes. I hope things there are better, and that your own appointment went through and gave you a decent situation. You certainly deserve it, if there is any measure used at all. So. Take care of yourself! All's well here despite the fuckers, and we aint about to stop. Ok. All love as ever, Bob P.S. I never did see anything in the Sun, i.e., an interview.393 I did see the one of you on CBC — a pleasure. Though selfishly I wish it had been off the street so to speak, and you in person. But we'll make it yet. [Added at top of letter: P.S. Jonathan Wms sends all love to you. He is really bugging in England - with snow and complacent faces, etc.]

January 20, 1965 Dear Irving, I just wrote that lady at whatever it is re your letters - my stuff is in such chaos from all the moving I can't locate them, nor can I hope to for awhile. But I'm pretty sure they are here somewhere, and safe. Where are you going? I was in Germany/England during the fall at that Frankfurt Bookfair, which was too much, in all senses - then reading around England sponsored by Calder October etc.394 I liked England, and didn't expect to - but people were very open and straight. So - all's well. But I'd give it all up for Asia. Onward ... All love as ever, Bob 256

The Correspondence [Added in margin: Jonathan just here — very pleasant and like old times.1

ROBERT CREELEY, 400 FARGO, BUFFALO, N.Y. 14213 October 7, 1978 Dear Irving. Thanks again for all that generous service to that class. I've put in all the necessary vouchers, for the $300 fee and the additional for your transportation - so, god willing, you'll get paid. They say it can take up to six weeks — but let me know if it hasn't shown up by then. I wish there had been chance to see you both sans the labors but that's life. Anyhow it was a pleasure to have the time we did. Love to you both, Bob

FACULTY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO, BUFFALO, NEW YORK 14260

November 14, 1978 Dear Irving, Everything has been in the works for almost the six weeks it was predicted it would take — so, hopefully, you'll get the money soon now. If you don't hear anything, say, in the next two weeks, let me know and I'll give the machine another kick. Onward! My best, Bob

257

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

1

2

3

4

5

6 7

8

Raymond Souster (1921— ). Canadian poet. He was the founder and editor of Contact magazine and co-founder and editor of Contact Press with Irving Layton and Louis Dudek. Layton's third book of poetry, The Black Huntsmen (Montreal: Privately printed 1951). Canadian Poems, 1850-1952, an anthology edited by Louis Dudek and Irving Layton (Toronto: Contact 1952). Layton's "Vexata Quaestio" appeared in Canadian Poems, 1850-1952, 114, and in Layton's Love the Conqueror Worm (Toronto: Contact 1953), 18. Paul Blackburn (1926—71). American poet and translator. Blackburn's book of translations, Proensa, appeared in June 1953. It was the first book published under the imprint of Creeley's Divers Press. Charles Olson (1910—70). American poet and critic. Olson began to correspond with Creeley in 1950. He was rector of Black Mountain College in 1951-56. Olson's Mayan Letters, edited with a preface by Robert Creeley, was published at the Divers Press in 1953. Creeley's preface was reprinted in his A Quick Graph: Collected Notes & Essays (San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation 1970), 159—60. Layton's reply to Creeley's first letter has, unfortunately, been lost. In a letter to Charles Olson of 17 July 1953 Creeley wrote: "I have suddenly realized, like they say, that we have no money for the broadsheet — nor any ability to pick up any real interest on the part of anyone else. Hence to hell with it." (Charles Olson Papers, Special Collections Department, University of Connecticut Library, Storrs, Connecticut). Contact: An International Magazine of Poetry was a mimeographed little magazine founded by Raymond Souster and Louis Dudek. Its ten issues ran from January 1952 to March 1954. As its title suggests, 259

Notes to pages 4—6

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Contact tried to establish links between Canadian and international authors. In a letter to Dudek of 6 October 1951, Souster expressed some of the key ideas of the magazine: "We want to feature translations, experimental writing from Canada and the U.S.A., the odd poetry review, the emphasis on vigour and excitement. MAKE IT NEW is our unofficial slogan." Quoted by Michael Gnarowski in his Contact Press 1952—1967: A Note on Its Origins and a Check List of Titles (Montreal: Delta 1971), n. pag. Creeley refers to Cerberus: Poems by Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, Raymond Souster, the first book published by Contact Press (Toronto 1952). "The ANTH" is probably Canadian Poems 1850-1952. ClV/n was a little magazine published in Montreal from 1953 to 1955, with Aileen Collins as its official editor and Dudek and Layton as major influences on its policies. Its first five issues were mimeographed, while the last two were printed. Like that of Contact, ClV/ris editorial policy stressed the merging of national and international literatures. Its title comes from a remark made by Ezra Pound in a letter to Louis Dudek: "civ/n — not a one-man job." Quoted in ClV/n: A Literary Magazine of the 50's, ed. Aileen Collins, with Simon Dardick (Montreal: Vehicule 1983), 8. Louis Dudek (1918— ). Canadian poet, professor, and critic. Cofounder of Contact Press and ClV/n. Dudek was influential in promoting the Modernist policies of both Contact and ClV/n, especially with regard to the theories of Ezra Pound, whom he met in 1950. Layton's "Seven O'Clock Lecture," civ/n 2; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 37. Layton's "Weekend Journey" was published under the title "Weekend Special" in his The Black Huntsmen, 27. It had earlier appeared in Layton's Now Is the Place: Stories and Poems by Irving Layton (Montreal: First Statement 1948), 44, entitled "Excursion to Ottawa." In the Now Is the Place version the poem includes the lines: "And across the aisle, disposed on thirty beds,/Two limp virgins eyes below the navel." Copies of The Black Huntsmen omit these lines, though Layton has penned in a revised version: "And across the aisle, disposed on thirty beds,/Two limp virgins." Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (London: Chatto & Windus 1951). W.H. Auden (1907-73). British poet. Creeley refers to Eli Mandel's poem, "Leda and the Swan," ClV/n 1; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 27. Mandel (1922- ) published his first book, Trio, in 1954. He has had a distinguished career as a poet, editor, and university professor. Layton's poems in civ/n 1 are "Love the Conqueror Worm" and "Street Funeral," reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 21-22. 260

Notes to pages 6-9 16

17

18

19 20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Stephen Spender (1909— ). British poet, novelist, dramatist, translator, critic, and professor. T.S. Eliot (1888—1965). Eliot wrote two Sweeney poems. They are "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," in Poems by T.S. Eliot (Richmond: Hogarth 1919), and "Sweeney Erect," in his Ara Vos Free (London: Ovid 1920). Eliot also wrote Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama (London: Faber & Faber 1932). Creeley's friend with a press is Martin Seymour-Smith (1928- ), a British writer living in Mallorca, where he tutored Robert Graves' sons in 1951-4. He wrote to Creeley in 1952 asking him to be the u.s. contact and distributor for the Roebuck Press. Creeley and Seymour-Smith were joint editors of the press until early 1953, when a disagreement over whom they should publish led Creeley to break with Seymour-Smith to form the Divers Press. Seymour-Smith appears as Artie in Creeley's novel, The Island (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1963). William Empson (1906— ). British poet, professor, and critic. "Satires of Circumstance" is comprised of five poems at the end of Lay ton's Love the Conqueror Worm, 42—9: "Ah Rats! (A Political Extravaganza of the 30's)," "Smoke Rings," "Esto Perpetua," "The Literary Life," and "Had I the Talent." Creeley also refers to Layton's "The Execution" (Cerberus, 58) and "Songs of a Half-Crazed Nihilist" (The Black Huntsmen, 46-8). Layton's "The Black Huntsmen" and "Mrs. Fornheim, Refugee," in his The Black Huntsmen, 11—12; "Vexata Quaestio" and "Love the Conqueror Worm," from Love the Conqueror Worm, 18, 6, and "The Execution" and "Terrene," in his Cerberus, 58, 50. Layton's "For Governor Stevenson" can be found in his Love the Conqueror Worm, 31. In a letter to Paul Blackburn of 23 January 1953 Creeley quotes "Vexata Quaestio," calling it "A damn beautifully self-satiric poem" (The Blackburn Archive, University of California, San Diego). In his 14 February reply Blackburn questions this comment, saying "I think only a too-serious self-exposure, with more control than most such" (Creeley Archive, Washington University at St Louis). Creeley settled the disagreement by asking Layton personally. Creeley designed Charles Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket and published it at the Divers Press in February 1953. It was issued as Number 8 of Cid Gorman's Origin, first series. Cid Gorman (1924— ). American poet, translator, and editor of Origin. Robert Graves (1895-1985). British poet and novelist. He lived in Mallorca in 1929-36 and on and off from 1946 onwards. Layton refers to Understanding Poetry: An Anthology for College Students, by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. 261

Notes to pages 9-17 27

28

29

30

31

32 33

34 35

36 37 38

39

40

41

42

43

44

Layton's "Composition in Late Spring," in his In the Midst of My Fever (Palma de Mallorca: Divers 1954), n. pag. Creeley quotes from the first edition of Robert Graves' The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (London: Faber and Faber 1948). In the first edition the poem is ten lines long; in the "amended and enlarged edition" of 1952 the poem has twenty-two lines. Creeley refers to Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). British poet killed in action in World War I. The Faber Book of Modern Verse, ed. Michael Roberts (London: Faber and Faber 1936). Creeley refers to Laura Riding's poem, "The Tiger," 213-17. Laura Riding (1901- ). Poet, critic, and author. She lived with Robert Graves from 1929 to 1939. Probably Robert Graves' "From the Embassy," Poetry [Chicago] 82 (April 1953), 14. Graves has five poems in the winter issue of The Hudson Review: "The Devil at Berry Pomeroy," "Hippopotamus's Address to the Freudians," "The Portrait," "Twin to Twin," and "Leaving the Rest Unsaid," The Hudson Review 5 (Winter 1953), 517-20. Robert Graves, Poems, 1953 (London: Cassell 1953). Martin Seymour-Smith's "All Devils Fading," title poem of his book, All Devils Fading (Palma de Mallorca: Divers 1954). Hart Crane (1899-1933). American poet. A poem from The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams (New York: New Directions 1950), 54. A quotation from Layton's "Composition in Late Spring." Richard Aldington (1892-1962). British author. The revised, second edition of Canadian Poems 1850—1952 was published in 1953. Probably Layton's "The Madonna of the Magnificat," in In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Larry Signer's book From the Sustaining Air (1953) and Olson's Mayan Letters (1954). Larry Eigner (1927- ). American poet. Katue Kitasono (1902— ). Japanese poet and editor of You magazine. Creeley published Kitasono's book, Black Rain, in 1954. Robert Cooper, the editor of Artisan, visited Creeley in May 1953. He appears as Robert Willis in Creeley's The Island (78-85). All poems from Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket: "The Kingfishers," "La Preface," "Move Over," "In Cold Hell, In Thicket," "An Ode on Nativity," "La Chute," and "A Round & A Canon." Ezra Pound (1885—1972). American poet, essayist, and critic. Creeley corresponded with Pound during the late 1940s, gaining valuable insights into magazine editing. 262

Notes to pages 17-27 45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52 53 54 55

56

57 58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

Charles Olson's Call Me Ishmael: A Study of Melville was published by Reynal & Hitchcock in March 1947. Creeley refers to Poems, by Terence Hards, Rex Taylor, and Martin Seymour-Smith (Dorchester: Longmans 1952). "Entrance to Hell," The New Yorker, 29 Nov. 1952, 94; and "Elegy; Birds in His Head. Poems," New Mexico Quarterly 22 (1952), 422. The American poets John Malcolm Brinnin (1916— ), John Frederick Nims (1913- ), and John Ciardi (1916- ). Creeley's poems "The Crisis," "The Riddle," "The Kind of Act Of," and "The Innocence" appear in Nine American Poets, ed. Robert Cooper (Liverpool: Heron 1953), issued as Artisan 2 (1953). Layton's Now Is the Place: Stories and Poems by Irving Layton. Layton would not publish another volume containing both stories and poems until The Swinging Flesh (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1961). Layton's "The Birth of Tragedy," in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900). German philosopher. Excerpt from Layton's "The Birth of Tragedy." Excerpt from Layton's "Vexata Quaestio." Excerpt from Layton's "Love the Conqueror Worm." Layton's "The Madonna of the Magnificat," in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Creeley's book, Le Fou, was published in October 1952 by Golden Goose Press. Richard Wirtz Emerson (1924- ) was editor of Golden Goose Press and of a magazine of the same name, both operating out of Columbus, Ohio. Kenneth Lash, the editor of the New Mexico Quarterly. Layton refers to this incident in his poem, "Human Being," in his The Blue Propeller (Toronto: Contact 1955), n. pag. Layton sent "The Birth of Tragedy" and "Sancta Simplicitas." There is no record of the title of the third poem. A poem from Louis Dudek's Twenty-Four Poems (Toronto: Contact 1952), ix. Layton's "Maxie," eventually published in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Robert Frost, "The Fear," in The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1969), 89. William Carlos Williams, "The Lion (1)," in The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams, 180. Charles Olson attributes this phrase to Creeley in his essay, "Projective Verse," in Selected Writings of Charles Olson, ed. Robert Creeley (New York: New Directions 1966), 16. William Carlos Williams, "Author's Introduction to The Wedge," in his Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams (New York: Random House 1954), 256. 263

Notes to pages 28-35 66

67

Robert Lowell (1917—77). American poet. Creeley refers to Lowell's "The Mills of the Kavanaughs," in his The Mills of the Kavanaughs (New York: Harcourt Brace 1951). The poem is written in heroic couplets. Charles Olson writes in "Projective Verse": "ONE PERCEPTION MUST IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY LEAD TO A FURTHER PERCEPTION," in his

68

69 70

71

72 73

74

75

76

77

78 79

80

81

82

Selected Writings, 17. Creeley quotes from William Carlos Williams' The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (New York: Random House 1951), 390-1. The actual quotation reads: "and that in itself is the profundity." Layton's poem "Maxie." Louis Dudek's Twenty-Four Poems. The book's last poem is entitled "Out of My Sleep Rise Dreams." Creeley's stories, "Mr. Blue," "The Seance," "The Lover," "Three Fate Tales," and "In the Summer" appeared in New Directions in Prose & Poetry 13 (1951), 94-116. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930). British novelist and poet. T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935). British archaeologist, soldier, and writer, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia." Nathanael West (1903—40). American novelist. Nathanael West is a pseudonym for Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein. Stendhal (1783— 1842), pseudonym for Marie Henri Beyle, a French writer. Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Austrian writer. Both of Creeley's poems were published in The Immoral Proposition, illus. Rene Laubies (Karlsruhe-Durlach, Ger.: Jonathan Williams 1953), n. pag. Probably M. Jourdain, in Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, ed. H. Gaston Hall (London: University of London Press 1966), who discovers he has been speaking prose all his life. ("Par ma foi, il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien" (2.4.154-5). Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis. Creeley's The Kind of Act Of (Palma de Mallorca: Divers 1953). Richard Wilbur (1921- ). American poet. Randall Jarrell (1914-65). American poet and literary critic. Theodore Roethke (1908—63). American poet. Layton's "Bacchanal" and "Portrait of Aileen," in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Layton's "For Priscilla" and "Lachine, Que.," in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag.; "Eros Where the Rents Aren't High," in his The Long Pea-Shooter (Montreal: Laocoon 1954), 53. Paul Goodman (1911-72). American novelist and poet. Creeley refers to The Grand Piano (San Francisco: Colt 1942), The State of Nature (New York: Vanguard 1946), and The Dead of Spring (Glen 264

Notes to pages 35—42

83

84 85

86 87 88

89

90 91 92 93 94

95

96 97

98 99

Gardner, N.J.: Libertarian 1950). Goodman published Parent's Day, A Novel (Saugatuck, Conn.: 5 x 8 Press) in 1951. John Hawkes (1925— ). American author whose works include The Cannibal (New York: New Directions 1949) and The Beetle Leg (New York: New Directions 1951). Creeley reviewed the latter novel in the New Mexico Quarterly 22 (Summer 1952), 239^11; reprinted in his A Quick Graph, pp. 20-2. Hawkes' story, "The Courtier," appeared in New Directions in Prose fcf Poetry 13 (1951), 236-45. Larry Eigner's From the Sustaining Air and Charles Olson's Mayan Letters. Katue Kitasono's Black Rain. H.P. Macklin's A Handbook of Fancy Pigeons, published in May 1954. Marcel Proust (1871—1922). French novelist, author of Remembrance of Things Past. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). British mathematician and philosopher. Layton's "Bacchanal," "For Priscilla," and "Portrait of Aileen" in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Layton changes the second quotation from "Portrait of Aileen" in the published version, which reads "has taught me severity, exactness of speech." Thomas Mann (1875—1955). German novelist. Stuart Z. Perkoffs "The Blind Girl," Origin 2 (Summer 1951), 109. W.H. Davies (1871-1940). British poet and novelist. Dylan Thomas (1914-53). British poet, short-story writer, and essayist. Kenneth Patchen (1911—72). American poet and novelist. In the 1950s he was one of the first poets to read his work to jazz music. Rene Laubies was a French painter and a friend of Creeley's. Jonathan Williams founded The Jargon Society in 1951 in order to publish authors who might not get a hearing elsewhere. At this time Williams would have been working on Kenneth Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales (Karlsruhe: Jargon 1953) and Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems/1-10 (Stuttgart: Jargon 1953). See Millicent Bell, "The Jargon Idea," Books at Brown 19 (May 1963), 1-12. Jonathan Williams (1929— ). American poet and founder of the Jargon Press (1951- ). Creeley's second book of poems, The Kind of Act Of (Palma de Mallorca: Divers 1953). Peter Viereck (1916— ). American critic, poet, and historian. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). Irish-born playwright. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Russian playwright and story-writer. Dylan Thomas read at McGill in the fall of 1952. Augustus John (1878-1961). British painter and etcher. John painted Thomas' portrait around 1936. The portrait is now housed at the National Museum of Wales. 265

Notes to pages 42-52 100

Reginald Howard Wilenski's The Modern Movement in Art (London: Faber and Gwyer 1927), plate facing 174. 101 Creeley's "For Irving," in Civ/n 5; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 134, and in All That Is Lovely In Men (Asheville, N.C.: Jonathan Williams 1955), n. pag. Layton has scribbled "The Bloody Lye, the Bloody lye" beside this poem. 102 Layton taught at Herzliah Junior High School, Sir George Williams University, and the Jewish Public Library. 103 Creeley lived at Rock Pool Farm near Littleton, New Hampshire, from 1948 to May 1951, where he farmed and bred pigeons and chickens. Layton refers to Cid Gorman's "First Farm North." The poem was published as the editor's "dedication to his featured writer" in Origin 2 [featuring Robert Creeley] (Summer 1951), 69-70. 104 Peter Russell (1921- ). British poet, translator, and editor. Howard Sergeant (1914— ). British poet and editor. 105 Louis Dudek's book, Europe (Toronto: Laocoon (Contact) [1954]). 106 Katue Kitasono's Black Rain (1954). Martin Seymour-Smith's All Devils Fading (1954). Paul Blackburn's The Dissolving Fabric (March 1955). 107 Creeley's short story, "The Boat," in The Kenyan Review 15 (1953), 571-6. 108 Creeley refers to Raymond Souster, Cid Gorman, and Paul Blackburn. 109 Wallace Fowlie (1908— ). American critic and teacher of French Literature, then head of the French Department of Bennington College, Vermont. Jackson Matthews (1907?—78). American educator, poet, and translator. He won a National Book Award in 1974 for his translation of Paul Valery's Monsieur Teste. 110 Douglas Woolf (1922— ). American author. Later co-publisher and editor of Wolf Run Books. Creeley published his novel, The Hypocritic Days, in January 1955. 111 Creeley's The Immoral Proposition. Drawings by Rene Laubies. 112 Creeley refers to The Kind of Act Of. 113 Kimon Friar, "Barking in Hades," rev. of Canadian Poems, 1850— 1952, Cerberus, Love the Conqueror Worm, and Twenty-Four Poems, in New Republic, 28 Sept. 1953, 19-20. Part of this review is quoted in Civ/n 4; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 115. 114 The only prose work William Carlos Williams published in 1953-4 was his Selected Essays. 115 Layton refers to Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Scottish poet and novelist. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). American novelist. Mazo de la Roche (1885—1961). Canadian novelist best known for her Jalna series dealing with the lives of the Whiteoak family. 266

Notes to pages 52—8 116

117

118

119

120

121

122 123

124

125

126 127

128

William Hume Blake (1861-1924). Author of Brown Waters, and Other Sketches (Toronto: Macmillan 1915). He translated Maria Chapdelaine; a Tale of the Lake St. John Country, by Louis Hemon (New York: Macmillan 1924). Captain Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World (New York: The Century Co. 1900). Layton's poem was published as "Pine Avenue Analyst," in his The Long Pea-Shooter (Montreal: Laocoon 1954), 32: "His face a priest's: wise, round, contemptuous:/One hears the faint rustling of his surplus." The McCarran Act, passed on 23 September 1948, called for, among other things, the creation of a Subversive Activities Control Board and outlawed participation in any organization which aimed to overthrow the U.S. government. While a student at Macdonald College in Montreal, Layton was a member of the Young People's Socialist League. When he asked Tim Buck, the leader of the Communist party of Canada, to speak to a group of fellow students, Layton was investigated by the R.C.M.P. In a letter of 5 October 1953 Charles Olson wrote: "The point is, to find out a classical English poet... whom I can wholly admire, and envy. For you do make those of us who disturb line & rime look like sick cats! And I take the greatest pleasure in just the thoroughness of the great voice of the tongue as you continue & restore it." (Irving Layton Collection, Concordia University Library, Montreal). Partly on Creeley's recommendation, Cid Gorman had Martin Seymour-Smith print Origin 11, the Autumn issue, in Mallorca. When the issue was still not out in February, however, Creeley advised Gorman to return to Sankey for issue number 12. Creeley's The Kind of Act Of. Francis Parkman (1823—1893). American historian. Creeley most likely refers to Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World (1865) and Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867). See Creeley's "By God, Pomeroy, You Here! A Note on Francis Parkman," The Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 43-8. Rainer Gerhardt (1927-54). German poet and editor of the magazine Fragmente. He committed suicide in 1954. Godfrey Blunden (1906- ). British author and journalist. Creeley's story "A Death" seems to be based on Blunden and his family. It is published in Creeley's The Gold Diggers. Creeley refers to Kimon Friar's review, "Barking in Hades." Creeley refers to the magazines The New Republic and The New Statesman fcf Nation. The Autumn 1953 number of Merlin contains a poem, "A Trial in Dream," by Martin Seymour-Smith, but neither Layton's poem, Creeley's story, nor Katue Kitasono's poem appear in this or any 267

Notes to pages 59—69 other issue. Alexander Trocchi (1925—84). Scottish writer, painter, sculptor, and editor of Merlin. 129 Layton did not contribute to Politics, though he did belong to the Young People's Socialist League. 130 Layton's replies to this letter and Creeley's letter of 20 November have been lost. According to Elspeth Cameron's biography of Layton, Irving Layton: A Portrait (Toronto: Stoddart 1985), Layton and Louis Dudek went to Toronto to give a poetry reading on 14 November 1953. They were also planning a series of six poetry readings in Montreal. These were to begin in February, with F.R. Scott as the first reader. Layton must also have been planning the Keewaydin Poetry Festival by this time. 131 H.P. Macklin's A Handbook of Fancy Pigeons, published in May 1954, and Katue Kitasono's Black Rain, published in August 1954. 132 Tom is Creeley's son. His other two children from his first marriage are Dave and Charlotte. 133 In his 5 December 1953 letter to Paul Blackburn, Creeley writes: "It was a fucking rumor re the atom bombs here - all it amts to is military installations (?) on mainly Minorca" (Blackburn Archive, University of California, San Diego). 134 «g» refers to Martin Seymour-Smith. 135 Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). British novelist of Polish descent. 136 D.H. Lawrence: A Personal Record by E.T. [Jessie Chambers] (London: Jonathan Cape 1935). 137 Creeley published his first novel, The Island, in 1963. 138 In his article, "Black Mountain Review," in Was That a Real Poem fcf Other Essays, ed. Donald Allen (Bolinas: Four Seasons Foundation 1979), Creeley acknowledges his debt to Pound, who gave him "a kind of rule book for the editing of any magazine" (17). Pound suggested Creeley "get at least four others, on whom [he] could depend unequivocally for material, and to make their work the mainstay of the magazine's form" (18). 139 Francis Reginald Scott (1899-1985). Canadian poet and Constitutional lawyer. He was instrumental in the establishment of the CCF and NDP parties in Canada and fought many civil rights cases against censorship and discriminatory practices. His The Collected . Poems of F.R. Scott (1981) gained him the Governor-General's Award for Poetry. 140 Phyllis Webb (1927- ). Canadian poet. 141 Issue no. 4 of Civ/n contains three items on Pound: a review of The Translations of Ezra Pound by L.D., "Why Is Ezra Pound Being Held in St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C.?" by Louis Dudek, and "Ezra Pound: A Difficult Man" by Camillo Pellizzi. Dudek's article on 268

Notes to pages 69-73

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

Pound's incarceration in St. Elizabeths suggests that "an appeal should be made to the President of the United States" for Pound's release. (Reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 118-25). In an article by J.M. aV. entitled "Poesia en el Canada," Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 43 (1953), 91—3. Eliot was active in promoting Pound's release from the time he heard of Pound's arrest. In May 1945 he circulated a petition for clemency in the event that Pound was found guilty. He also tried to arrange better living conditions for Pound at St. Elizabeths. As Creeley notes, however, Eliot and other interested parties, such as Archibald MacLeish, had to work carefully, because if Pound was declared sane, the government could once again bring treason charges against him. Following Pound's receipt of the Bollingen prize for his Pisan Cantos in 1949, Robert Hillyer wrote two articles attacking Pound. The first, entitled "Treason's Strange Fruit: The Case of Ezra Pound and the Bollingen Award," appeared in The Saturday Review of Literature, 11 June 1949, 9—11, 28; the second, "Poetry's New Priesthood," in The Saturday Review of Literature, 18 June 1949, 7-9, 38. Peter Viereck continued the controversy with an article, "My Kind of Poetry," in The Saturday Review of Literature, 27 Aug. 1949, 7-8, 35-6 and later in his "Pure Poetry, Impure Politics, and Ezra Pound: The Bollingen Prize Controversy Revisited" in Commentary 11 (1951), 340— 6. Arguments for both sides of the controversy appeared in the April, May, and June issues of Partisan Review. In "The Question of the Pound Award," Partisan Review 16, no. 5 (May 1949), 512-22, W.H. Auden, William Barrett, Robert Gorham Davis, Clement Greenberg, Irving Howe, George Orwell, Karl Shapiro, and Allen Tate argued the question. Of these, Auden, Shapiro, and Tate had been on the Bollingen prize committee, with Shapiro voting against the award and Auden and Tate supporting it. See also Tate's "Further Remarks on the Pound Award," Partisan Review 16, no. 6 (June 1949), 666-8. D.D. Paige, editor of The Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941 (New York: Harcourt Brace and World 1950). Dudek had visited Pound at St. Elizabeths in June 1950 and had been in correspondence with him since 1949. See DKI Some Letters of Ezra Pound, edited with notes by Louis Dudek (Montreal: DC 1974). Probably Louis Dudek's "Phainetai Moi...," in his The Transparent Sea (Toronto: Contact 1956), 70. Layton's "First Snow: Lake Achigan," in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. "End of the Affair" first appeared in Contact 10 (March 1954), 5. 269

Notes to pages 73-85 149

150 151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159 160

lei 162

163

164 165

lee

Kenneth Rexroth (1905—82). American poet, translator, essayist, and painter. Louis Dudek's "For I.P.L." appears in his The Transparent Sea, 104—5. A quotation from Dudek's poem "Foresight," in his The Transparent Sea, 63. "S" must be Raymond Souster. Creeley had published several of his poems in Raymond Souster's Contact and in civ/n, both of which were mimeographed magazines. Creeley quotes extensively from "For I.P.L." throughout his letter of 23 December 1953. '"pell me, where is fancy bred?/Or in the heart or in the head?" William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 3.2.63—4. (The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Kenneth Myrick). Although the harp in Coleridge's "The Aeolian Harp" is outside, and not by the fire as Creeley suggests, he probably refers to this poem. Creeley may be referring to the chapter "Sailor's Manuals" in Victor Berard's Did Homer Live? (1931) or to his four volume work Les navigations d'Ulysse (1927—9). In the published version Dudek writes: "The fact is people. An eyetouch of love/makes us wise." See "For I.P.L.," in his The Transparent Sea, 104. As Creeley notes later in the letter, Dudek here quotes Ezra Pound's "Canto i": "And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows," The Cantos of Ezra Pound (London: Faber and Faber 1975), 4. Ezra Pound, Make It New: Essays by Ezra Pound (London: Faber and Faber 1934), 138. Ezra Pound, "Canto xxxix" (excerpt), in his Cantos, 194—5. Louis Dudek's "An Air by Sammartini" was published in Twenty-Four Poems, x. \villiam Carlos Williams, in, among other places, Paterson, Book 1 (New York: New Directions 1958), 6. Creeley quotes from a letter he received from Pound some time during the period March 1950—October 1951. It is reprinted in Creeley's "A Note Followed by a Selection of Letters from Ezra Pound," Agenda 4, no. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 1965), 20. Emile Zola (1840-1902). French novelist. Theodore Dreiser (18711945). American novelist. Both writers were famous for their Naturalistic writing styles. Thjs poem was printed in Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 19, and in Layton's In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Georg W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). German philosopher. perhaps "The Birth of Venus" and "The Disappointment," which appeared in Civ In 5; reprinted in Civ In, ed. Collins, 132-4. 270

Notes to pages 85-8 167

168

169 170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

Layton refers to Creeley's "The Changes" and "The Charm," Contact 9 (Jan.-April 1954), 17. Of this list, the Editorial, Creeley's story "The Gold Diggers," Rene Laubies' "C'est Beau Comme Plick et Plock," and Jacob Leed's poem "Filling It In" do not appear in this issue. William Bronk (1918- ). American poet and essayist. Jacob Leed (1924— ) was a college friend of Creeley's. They had planned to edit a magazine together in the early 1950s but the plan fell through when Leed's press succumbed to mechanical difficulties. For more information, see "Robert Creeley and the Lititz Review: A Recollection with Letters, "Journal of Modern Literature 5 (April 1976), 243—59. The poem Creeley attributes to Leed, "Filling It In," appeared in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 39-40. Thomas White: a pseudonym occasionally used by Creeley in the Black Mountain Review. Creeley evidently enjoyed thinking up identities for his alter ego. In the notes on contributors in the first issue he wrote that "Thomas White lives in Germany, and is working on a collection of Heine translations," Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 34. Later he was "living in Tappernoje, Denmark where he [was] engaged in research on pre-Christian ritual," Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 37. Presumably Douglas Woolf, Robert Hellman (whose story, "The Quay," appears in this issue), and Larry Bronfman, though none of these authors have reviews in the first number. Larry Bronfman was a poet and friend of Paul Blackburn's who helped with the distribution of Divers Press books. Robert Hellman (1919- ). American writer and teacher. Creeley refers to Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) and W.S. Merwin (1927— ). American poet and playwright. Merwin tutored Robert Graves' son in Mallorca in 1950. Carl O. Sauer (1889-1975). A geographer admired by Charles Olson. Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz (1915- ). Analyst and associate of C.G. Jung. Pierre Boulez (1925- ). A modern French composer. Origin's, sales had dropped considerably, and Gorman was having difficulty financing the magazine. Frances Steloff (1887- ). Founder (in 1920) of New York's Gotham Book Mart. She is well known for her attention to little magazines and new writers. See "Frances Steloff: A Heroine of Gotham," The New York Times Biographical Edition (Dec. 1972), 2270-3. Creeley's "Chasing the Bird," civ/n 4; reprinted in ClV/n, ed. Collins, 101. The poem also appeared in Creeley's The Immoral Proposition, published in Autumn 1953. This might be Creeley's "A Form of Adaptation," which, as Layton comments, has a longer "breath" than Creeley's usual writing. There is, however, a considerable gap in time between Creeley's sending the

271

Notes to pages 89-93 poem and its publication in civ/n 7; reprinted in Civln, ed. Collins, 220. Charles Olson's "On First Looking Out Through Juan de la Cosa's Eyes" would later be published in Olson's The Maximus Poems/11—22. (Stuttgart: Jonathan Williams 1956). Creeley actually writes "leter." Although we have chosen to read "letter," "later" could also apply. Judson Crews (1917— ). American poet and publisher involved in editing several literary magazines in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Crews published under several pseudonyms, and, though Crews has denied it (see Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, vol. 7, 131), one of these was probably Mason Jordan Mason. Mason's poem, "The Place of the Skull" appears in Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 22. In the published version, the poem begins: "He when the reply/came." Wallace Stevens (1879—1955). American poet and essayist. Bronk's work is often compared to that of Stevens. Creeley reviewed Contact Magazine; Louis Dudek's Twenty-Four Poems; Louis Dudek's, Irving Layton's, and Raymond Souster's Cerberus; Canadian Poems 1850—1952, edited by Lay ton and Dudek; and Layton's Love the Conqueror Worm and The Black Huntsmen. With one exception, the books were all published by Contact Press. Ironically, Creeley quoted a poem from the only book not published by Contact. "Mrs. Fornheim, Refugee" was published in Layton's The Black Huntsmen, a book brought out by the author in 1951. Creeley's review is reprinted in his A Quick Graph, 229—33. Creeley's "Song" and "Alba" appeared in Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 18, 47, under the pseudonym, Thomas White. Perhaps Notebook #23 (c. 1950) and a three-volume edition of poems containing Dream in Heliotrope, Mussolini Has Met His End in the Mad House, and The Blue Green Whale (1952). Both works are edited by Crews. Both Crews and Mason published numerous pamphlets during this period. Louis Dudek reviews Paul Blackburn's Proensa, Charles Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket and The Maximus Poems 1—10, and Robert Creeley's The Kind of Act Of, in civ/n 5; reprinted in civIn, ed. Collins, 147-62. While Dudek calls Olson "one of the most energetic, and verbally gifted, of the new voices in poetry" (160), he criticizes Olson for his tendency to write "the private-monologue-in-privateshorthand" (158), feeling that Olson's work lacks discipline and direction. Layton's "Mrs. Polinov," Origin 17 (1955), 25—40; reprinted in Layton's Engagements: The Prose of Irving Lay ton (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1972), 269-84.

272

Notes to pages 93-106 187 188

189

190

191 192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200 201

202

203

Raymond Souster. Basil Willey, The Seventeenth-Century Background; Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion (London: Chatto & Windus 1934). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). English philosopher. Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947). Canadian Confederation Poet. His poem "The Forsaken" is one of his many poems dealing with Indian life. See Selected Poetry of Duncan Campbell Scott, ed. Glenn Clever (Ottawa: Tecumseh 1974), 37. Jane Austen (1775-1817) and William Makepeace Thackeray (181163). British novelists. Olson's Mayan Letters. Probably Layton's poem "Portrait," published in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 38. Martin Seymour-Smith had contracted to print issues of Vincent Ferrini's Gloucester magazine, Four Winds, and Alex Trocchi's Merlin. Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, and E.W. Mandel, Trio: First Poems by Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, E.W. Mandell [sic] ([Toronto]: Contact 1954). Layton's poem "All Too Human," in his The Long Pea-Shooter (Montreal: Laocoon 1954), 37. Layton's "The Ants," Contact 9 (Jan.-April 1954), 21; reprinted in Layton's In The Midst of My Fever, n. pag. Layton's "Me, the P.M., and the Stars," Civ/n 5; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 131—2; reprinted in Layton's The Cold Green Element ([Toronto]: Contact 1955), n. pag. Creeley's "The Birth of Venus," "For Irving," and "The Disappointment," Civln 5; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 133-34. Louis Dudek's review of The Kind of Act Of is in the same issue. Beginning in the summer of 1944, Creeley helped pay his way through college by working on the Boston Globe. A letter from Layton to Creeley is missing here. Layton's "Motet" appeared in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 7, and in Layton's In The Midst of My Fever, n. pag. The other poem is probably "Me, the P.M., and the Stars." In his letter of 13 February 1954 Creeley comments that Layton's poem, "Me, The P.M., and the Stars" is "a little slow." Creeley drove an ambulance for the American Field Service from December 1944 to late 1945. His division was attached to the British 14th Army. Kenneth Rexroth's translations of Artaud appear in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 8—11. Gorman had translated several of Artaud's poems for Origin [Antonin Artaud and New French Poetry] 11 (Autumn 1953). Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). French actor and author, creator of the "theatre of cruelty."

273

Notes to pages 106—14 204 "Artaud," trans. Kenneth Rexroth, Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 8. 205 Paul Blackburn's "The Dissolving Fabric" in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 12. 206 Ronald Charles Mason (1912- ). British author. His book, Spirit Above the Dust, was published in 1951. 207 The Keewaydin Poetry Festival, a weekend devoted to poetry held on D.G. Jones's island, Keewaydin, took place in the first week of July 1954. For Layton's poetic comments on this occasion, see his poem "Keewaydin Poetry Festival," in his The Cold Green Element ([Toronto]: Contact 1955), n. pag. D.G.Jones (1929- ). Canadian poet and critic. 208 Layton's "Portrait" appeared in Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 38; reprinted in Layton's The Blue Propeller, n. pag. "Death of a Construction Worker," Origin 14 (Autumn 1954), 78; reprinted in Layton's The Cold Green Element, n. pag. 209 Creeley's "The Disappointment," Civ/n 5; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 134. The last two issues of civ/n (nos. 6 and 7) were printed rather than mimeographed. 210 Louis Dudek reviewed Creeley's The Kind of Act Of. In view of Creeley's letter to Layton of 30 October 1954, Dudek's comment that the book "is practically the same thing as Olson—only more so" must have rankled. Dudek called Creeley a "less ambitious" poet than Olson or Blackburn and implied that Creeley's poems, while successful on a simple level, lacked broader meaning (civ/n 5; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 160-1). 211 Robert A. Currie, a young poet writing for civ/n. 212 David V. Erdman's A Concordance to the Writings of William Blake contains no listing for the word, "inspiritation," though Blake speaks of the merits of enthusiasm and inspiration on numerous occasions throughout his work. 213 Layton's "The Longest Journey" appeared in his In the Midst of My Fever, n. pag. E.M. Forster's The Longest Journey was published in 1907. 214 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599—1660). Spanish painter. 215 Perhaps poems by Robert A. Currie. 216 Layton's "Prologue to the Long Pea-Shooter," Civ/n 6; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 183-7. "Birds at Daybreak," Origin 14 (Autumn 1954), 72-3. 217 Civ/n 6 does not have an editorial. Perhaps Layton is referring to Aileen Collins' editorial, "Canadian Culture," in Civ/n 5; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 129. 218 Probably Layton's "Look, the Lambs Are All Around Us!", in his The Long Pea-Shooter, 54. 274

Notes to pages 114—21 219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

There may be a letter from Lay ton to Creeley missing here, but it looks to us as if Creeley is keeping true to his sometime habit of writing several letters in quick succession without waiting for Layton's reply. Creeley's "Like They Say" and "The Lover" appeared in Civ/n 6; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 178. Layton's "Saratoga Beach," civ/n 7; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 217—18, and in Layton's The Cold Green Element ([Toronto]: Contact 1955), n. pag. Layton's "June Weather" is in The Long Pea-Shooter, 59. "The Dancers" was published in The Cold Green Element, n. pag. While her husband was at Black Mountain, Ann Creeley was in charge of printing Layton's book. During this time, she wrote to Layton, telling him that in her opinion the cover was "horrible" and that Creeley also disliked it. Creeley's All That Is Lovely in Men (Asheville, N.C.: Jonathan Williams 1955). Dan Rice, a painter Creeley had met at Black Mountain College, contributed drawings for the book. Since Civ/n 7 was the last issue, Layton's review of Creeley's The Gold Diggers never appeared. Origin 14 [Featuring Irving Layton] came out in Autumn 1954. It contained twenty poems by Layton as well as his "A Plausible Story." Layton's "The Red and the Black" and "Saratoga Beach," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Gael Turnbull wrote to Creeley proposing such a volume, but, partly because of Creeley's feeling of its being "presumptuous" for him to pose as a man of letters, it was not published. Turnbull was, however, later instrumental in the publication of The Whip. Kenneth Rexroth objected to Martin Seymour-Smith's article, "Where is Mr. Roethke?", Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 40—7, and to his review of Dylan Thomas' Collected Poems, Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 57—8. A short note stating that "Kenneth Rexroth wishes it known that he had no responsibility for the attacks on Theodore Roethke and Dylan Thomas," followed by Creeley's defense of his own position, appeared in Black Mountain Review 3 (Fall 1954), 64. Apparently, Hart Crane was greatly distressed by Yvor Winters' review of The Bridge: "The Progress of Hart Crane," in Poetry [Chicago] 36 (1930), 153-65. In an article entitled "The Younger Generation and Its Letters," Rexroth states that Richard Wilbur and Theodore Roethke are among the best poets "who have come up since the war," New Republic, 15 Feb. 1954, 17. Rafael Alberti (1902— ). Spanish poet, dramatist, and painter. Aime Cesaire (1913— ). French poet and playwright born in the West 275

Notes to pages 122-5

231

232

233

234

235

236

Indies. Alfred Jarry (1873—1907). French playwright, poet, and essayist. Henri Michaux (1899-1984). French poet, writer, and painter. Gertrude Stein (1874—1946). American writer. Civln 6 contained Creeley's poems "Like They Say" and "The Lover," reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 178, as well as Gael Turnbull's poem "If He Sings It (for R.C.)," reprinted in ClV/n, ed. Collins, 170. Jonathan Williams contributed a poem entitled "The Rough Day" (179); Olson, a poem called "I Believe in You" (181); and Felix Stefanile, poems entitled "Bal Tabarin," "Days Which Enchant Us," and "God Being the Supreme" (167-9). Felix Stefanile (1920- ). American poet. Creeley's "For Rainer Gerhardt" appeared in his first book, Le Fou, in 1952. See also his "Rainer Gerhardt: A Note" in his A Quick Graph, 4-5. Stephen Dedalus' words in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977), 247. In 1922, Albert Durrant Watson, a Canadian poet associated with the 1860s generation of Canadian poets, and Lome Pierce, an editor at Ryerson Press, produced the anthology, Our Canadian Literature: Representative Verse. When Watson died in 1926, Bliss Carman, also a poet of the 1860s, was asked to revise the book. Although Carman died in 1929, the anthology was eventually brought out in 1935. This Carman-Pierce version was then further revised and enlarged with the help of critic and professor V.B. Rhodenizer in 1954. Thus the edition Layton criticizes, Canadian Poetry in English Chosen by Bliss Carman, Lome Pierce and V.B. Rhodenizer (Toronto: Ryerson 1954), had its roots in what was by this time an extremely conservative tradition of Canadian poetry. As Layton states, Rhodenizer's introduction comes down heavily in favour of more conservative verse. In the notes on the authors Layton is called "the Ishmael of Canadian poets, at least so far as his attitude that every man's hand is against him is concerned" (394), while Souster, who fares better at the hands of the editors, is told that in regard to his friendships with Dudek and Layton he should obey "the scriptural injunction, 'come out from among them, and be ye separate'" (440). See Robert A. Currie's article, "Don't Blame This On Bliss," in Civln 7; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 213-15. Creeley's "The Birth of Venus," civ/n 5; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 133—4. It appeared in slightly different form in Creeley's All That Is Lovely in Men, where it is entitled "The Death of Venus," n. pag. One of these is probably Layton's "Poem," Black Mountain Review 3 (Fall 1954) 39; reprinted in Layton's The Cold Green Element, n. pag. 276

Notes to pages 125-49 237 238

239 240

241

242

243

244

245

246

247

248

249 250

251

252

253

254

John Sankey, the printer of Origin and his own magazine, Window. As the original printer of Origin, Sankey resented Creeley's printing In Cold Hell, In Thicket [Origin 8] in Mallorca. Robert Cooper, editor of Artisan. Creeley is referring to Trio: First Poems by Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, E.W. Mandell [sic]. Turnbull had promised Creeley a sample copy, but a mix-up with the publisher and the printers delayed its arrival. The Laocoon Press imprint appeared on two books, both of which were also considered Contact Press Publications. They were Layton's The Long Pea-Shooter (1954) and Louis Dudek's Europe (1954). We could not find Layton's telegram, but Creeley's and Layton's other letters make its contents fairly clear. Louis Dudek's Europe was printed by Officina Poetarum et Pictorum (Poet's and Painter's Press). Creeley's All That Is Lovely in Men. Although Creeley mentions that the book will appear in January, it was not actually published until Autumn 1955. Robert A. Currie's "How Black Was My Cadillac," Civ/n, 6; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 172-3. Creeley is referring to Louis Dudek's "New York Vignettes," civ/n 6; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 180—1. Gael Turnbull's poem, "If He Sings It," dedicated to Robert Creeley, is in the same issue. Kenneth Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales (Karlsruhe: Jargon 1953). There may be a letter from Layton to Creeley missing here. Lay ton does, however, ask if his story "Mrs. Polinov" has arrived yet in his Wednesday letter prior to Creeley's of 16 September 1954. This might, therefore, be another case of Creeley writing several letters in quick succession, before Layton had a chance to reply. Layton's short story "Mrs. Polinov." Layton's "Poem [I would for your sake be gentle ...]," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. This letter is written on the back of a letter in Spanish from the Mallorcan customs office. Next to a comment concerning the book's errata sheet, Creeley has written: "Will be printed on separate sheet by the way — loose - like one sent." Origin 11 was held up for months due to printing and shipping difficulties. Given the proximity of the letters "o" and "1" on a typewriter, Layton probably refers to Creeley's "gold." Creeley had sent a copy of The Gold Diggers in a previous letter. Norman Levine (1924— ). Canadian poet and short story writer. Layton refers to Levine's work up to 1954: a novel, The Angled Road

277

Notes to pages 150-6

255 256

257

258

259 260

261

262 263

264

265

266

(1952), and two books of poetry, Myssium (1948) and The Tight-Rope Walker (1950). Layton's "Boys in October," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94). James Russell Lowell (1819-91). Both Holmes and Russell were American writers famous for their satire. Layton most likely refers to John Brown (1800-59), an American abolitionist whose death for treason made him a folk hero; and to Abraham Lincoln (1809—65), the sixteenth president of the United States. Jonathan Williams published two poems in civIn 6: "The Rough Day" and "The Wine Glass Lies in the Fireplace, Broken," reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 179. Louis Dudek's poem, "Notin Bot Kids," the third of his "New York Vignettes," ClV/n 6; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins 180-1. Layton's "Boys in October." Elga Lippmann. Creeley wrote in a letter of 2 October 1954 to Charles Olson: "She ought to knock 'em dead. Being deaf, she can't take no for an answer" (Charles Olson Papers, Special Collections Department, University of Connecticut Library, Storrs, Connecticut). In his poem, "So Long!", Walt Whitman (1819-92) wrote: "Camerado, this is no book,/Who touches this touches a man," Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, ed. James E. Miller, Jr., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1959), 349. Layton's "Literary Smoothie," in his The Long Pea-Shooter, 17. An article by Wilhelm Lunen: "Appeal for an English Edition of Diderot's 'Jack the Fatalist.'" Contemporary Issues 4, no. 15 (July-Aug. 1953), 149-201. Denis Diderot (1713-84). French writer and philisopher. Edward Dahlberg (1900—77). American novelist and poet. Dahlberg taught at Black Mountain in 1948 but stayed just under two weeks before deciding to leave. For an account of this episode see Martin Duberman's Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community (New York: Dutton 1972), 305-7. Creeley alludes to Louis Dudek's review of The Kind of Act Of in which Dudek states: "The poems might in fact be the candid wire recordings of a solitary man talking to himself in brief spurts, once per page, unaware that the machine was set," Civ/n 5; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 160. Robert Hellman's story, "The Quay," in Black Mountain Review 1 (Spring 1954), 8-17. His article on the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) is "The Marquis de Sade or Bad Conduct Well Ridiculed," a review of Justine, or Good Conduct Well Chastised (Paris: Olympia 1954), Black Mountain Review 3 (Fall 1954), 45—50. Hellman has never published a novel.

278

Notes to pages 157-68 267

Ann's Aunt and Uncle, Mr and Mrs Ian Pearson. Robert Finch (1900- ). Canadian poet. 268 Louis Dudek's book, Europe, published by Laocoon (Contact) Press in 1954. 269 Franz Kline (1910—62). American painter. Creeley writes "A Note on Franz Kline," Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 23-4. Lysander Kemp (1920— ) wrote an article, "Eliot and the Sense of History," Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 38-42. 270 B. de Boer was responsible for distributing Black Mountain Review. 271 Louis Dudek, "The State of Canadian Poetry: 1954," The Canadian Forum, Oct. 1954, 153-5. 272 Creeley's "A Form of Adaptation," Civ/n 7; reprinted in civ In, ed. Collins, 220. "The one about the man in the bathtub" was not printed in this issue. Layton most likely refers to Creeley's "All That Is Lovely in Men." 273 Neither Olson's poem nor the Eliot material were printed in Civ/n. Layton's "Shaw, Pound and Poetry," civ/n 7; reprinted in civ/n, ed. Collins, 207-9. 274 Layton's "The Buffaloes," Civ/n 7; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 216-17. 275 Layton's "October Boys" does not appear in Ctv/n. It was published as "Boys in October" in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Layton's "T.S. Eliot" is included in his The Long Pea-Shooter, 28. 276 "G" refers to Robert Graves. 277 Anne Wilkinson (1910-61). Canadian poet. Wilkinson's "Poem" appears in Civ/n 7; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 216. 278 Herbert Kelsey Jones (1922- ). Composer from South Norfolk, Connecticut. He came to Canada in 1939. 279 Desmond Pacey (1917—75). Canadian author and critic. He was born in New Zealand and came to Canada in 1931. He served at the University of New Brunswick in various capacities during 1944—75. Earle Birney (1904— ). Canadian poet and novelist. 280 Louis MacNeice (1907-63). Irish writer. 281 Layton's "Enemies," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. A revised version of this poem appears in Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 3—4. In spite of what he says in his letter following that of 24 October 1954, Layton used the version printed here in his The Collected Poems of Irving Layton (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1971), 168-9. 282 Charles Olson writes, "ONE PERCEPTION MUST IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY LEAD TO A FURTHER PERCEPTION," in "Projective Verse" in his Selected Writings of Charles Olson, 17. 283 Creeley's review of William Carlos Williams' The Desert Music, "A Character for Love," Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 45—8, reprinted in Creeley's A Quick Graph, 112-16. 279

Notes to pages 168-81 284

285

286 287

288 289 290

291

292

293 294 295

296

297

298

Cid Gorman's note is in Origin 13 (Summer 1954), 2. Denise Levertov (1923- ). American poet born in Essex, England. Olson's essay "Mayan Heads," Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 26-8. Layton's "Rain at La Minerve," in his The Long Pea-Shooter, 64—5. All these poems by Layton are included in The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Martin Luther (1483-1546). Leader of the German Reformation. Alastair Reid (1926- ). Scottish poet, translator, and essayist. Creeley originally wrote the name, "Pratt," here but crossed it out in favour of "Scott." Most of these articles are reprinted in A Quick Graph. "Rene Laubies: An Introduction" (339-40), "A Character for Love" (112-16), "Louis Ferdinand Celine: Guignol's Band & John Hawkes: The Goose on the Grave" (293-5), "A Dilemma" (30-1). Creeley reviews Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales in "Kenneth Patchen: Fables fcf Other Little Tales" (234—5) and Witter Bynner's/owrney with Genius (New York: Viking 1954) in "Witter Bynner: Journey with a Genius" (296-7). Creeley's review of Canadian books is his "Canadian Poetry: 1954" (229-33). Creeley also mentions his "Comment," Black Mountain Review 3 (Fall 1954), 64. Witter Bynner (1881-1968). American poet, translator, and editor. From Creeley's "A Character for Love," Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 45. German for "the Enlightenment." Alexander S. Pushkin (1799-1837). Russian poet. Robert Duncan (1919-88). American poet. He taught at Black Mountain College from 1956. Creeley's review of William Carlos Williams' Selected Essays, Black Mountain Review 4 (Winter 1954), 53—8. Williams' review of Ezra Pound's The Pisan Cantos, "The Fistula of the Law," Imagi 4, no. 4 (Spring 1949), 10—11. Williams' "Letter to an Australian Editor," Briarcliff Quarterly 3, no. 11 (Oct. 1946), 205-8. In 1948, Williams contributed an essay, "Woman as Operator," to Women: A Collaboration of Artists and Writers (New York: Samuel M. Kootz Editions). He sent Creeley a copy of his National Book Award acceptance speech circa April 1950. Williams' "The Tortuous Straightness of Chas. Henri Ford," in his Selected Essays, 236. Charles Henri Ford (1913- ). American artist, poet, editor, and filmmaker. Layton refers to New Directions in Prose &f Poetry 14 (1953). This issue contains Edward Dahlberg's "Three Poems for R'lene": "Sing in the Beginning" (142-6), "No Eye of Erebus" (147-8), and "No Image in 280

Notes to pages 181-94 Sheol" (148—52). Layton's poems are "The Trumpet Daffodil" (132), "Terrene" (133), and "To A Very Old Lady" (133^i). 299 Layton's "Harlequin and Virgin," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. aoo probably Layton's "Harlequin and Virgin" and "Poet and Dancer," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. 301 Edgar A. Guest (1881—1959). American radio announcer and popular poet. 302 Dead of Night, a 1945 film produced in Great Britain by Michael Balcon. 303 \vjiijam Goodwin was a close friend of Layton's. Layton dedicated The Blue Propeller to him. 304 The parenthetical abbreviations refer to New Directions, Atlantic Monthly, and Golden Goose Press. 305 Cid Gorman's "A Requisite Commitment," Poetry [Chicago] 82-3 (1953-4), 340-2. 306 The only write-up on the Eighth Street Bookstore we could find occurs in Publisher's Weekly, 18 Dec. 1954, 2336. 307 Elga Lippmann. sos "TIP» js Tfo immoral Proposition. 309 Michael Drayton's "The Cryer," in The Works of Michael Drayton, ed. J. William Hebel (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1932), 2, 371. 310 Ben Jonson's, "An Elegie," in The Complete Poetry ofBenJonson, ed. William B. Hunter (New York: New York University Press 1963), 183. 311 Layton's "Metaphysical," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag.; "On the Death of A. Vishinsky," in his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. 312 Layton's "The Dark Plebeian Mind," Black Mountain Review 5 (Summer 1955), 89; reprinted in Layton's The Cold Green Element, n. pag. 313 The Creeleys lived in France from May 1951 to October 1952. 314 Samuel Purchas' Hakluytus Posthumous, or Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others. First published in 1625, it was reissued in 1905—7 in twenty volumes. 315 John Burnet's book, Early Greek Philosophy, written by him at St Andrews University in Scotland and published in 1892. 316 Creeley's A Snarling Garland ofXmas Verses. [Palma de Mallorca: Divers 1954]. 317 Cyril Fox and Edward Flynn, two Oxford students from Newfoundland. 318 Layton's "Afternoon Tea," in his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. 319 Layton's wife, Betty Sutherland, drew a picture of Layton for The Long Pea-Shooter. 281

Notes to pages 197-214 Layton's "Shaw, Pound and Poetry," Civ/n 7; reprinted in Civ/n, ed. Collins, 207-9. Layton's "Canadian Skiers," in his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. Havelock Ellis' Psychology of Sex (1933). Lay ton may be echoing Creeley's "Like They Say": "And/Why not, I thought to//myself, why/not," from his All That Is Lovely in Men. Lay ton refers to Cid Gorman's review of Karl Shapiro's Poems 19401953 in Black Mountain Review 3 (Fall 1954), 52-7. Creeley's contributions to this issue include his poems "The Whip" (23), "Wait For Me" (38), and "Broken Back Blues" (51), the last under the pseudonym Mauritius Estaban. His prose writings here consist of a short note, "A Dilemma" (27—36) and a review under the initials A.M. (58—59). The short story, by Bertram Lippman, is entitled "John Ruskin Is Not Dead" (3-18). Bertram Lippman's story is entitled "A Game of Rithmomachia," Black Mountain Review 5 (Summer 1955), 5—33. Other stories are "The Truck" by Michael Rumaker (54—75) and "Sound of Talking" by James Purdy (153—64). Paul Carroll's article is "Pound's Propertius" (170-86). Creeley printed Cid Gorman's The Precisions (New York: Sparrow 1955). Creeley had originally planned to publish Elga Lippmann's The Graphic Art of Jean Cocteau in conjunction with Grove Press, but the deal fell through because of contractual difficulties. Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket [Origin 8] designed and printed by Creeley's Divers Press. Creeley refers to Layton's twenty poems in Origin 14 (Autumn 1954), 67-84, and his "A Plausible Story" (91-104). Layton's "Factory Town Mist," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Layton's "My Favourite Colour's Green" and "Not Blown Away," in his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. Tim Buck (1891-1973) was one of the first organizers of the Communist Party in Canada. He led the Labour Progressive Party during 1943—62. Layton's The Blue Propeller ([Toronto]: Contact 1955) was printed in Mallorca on Creeley's Divers Press. William Carlos Williams and Raquel Helene Williams, trans., The Dog fcf The Fever, by Pedro Espinosa (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String 1954). James Laughlin (1914— ). American publisher of New Directions books and editor of New Directions in Prose and Poetry (1936- ). Michael Lekakis, (1907— ). American artist and sculptor. Layton's "Theology," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. We can only find one of the two letters mentioned here. Layton's "The Executioner," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Layton's "self-portrait" is probably his poem "For My Detractors," in 282

Notes to pages 214—21

337

338

339

340

341

342

343

344

345

346

347

348

his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. Although Layton has no published poem entitled "Nocturnal Emission," Creeley may be referring to Layton's "Thanatos and Eros," in his Music on a Kazoo (Toronto: Contact 1956), 11. In the foreword to Pansies: Poems by D.H. Lawrence (London: Martin Seeker 1929), Lawrence writes: "So I should wish these 'PANSIES' to be taken as thoughts rather than anything else .... I should like them to be as fleeting as pansies, which wilt so soon, and are fascinating with their varied faces, while they last" (5). The review, by Fred Cogswell, appeared in The Fiddlehead 23 (Feb. 1955), 22. Reviews of In the Midst of My Fever were included in several overviews: Northrop Frye's "Letters in Canada: 1954. Poetry," University of Toronto Quarterly 24 (April 1955), 253—4; Milton Wilson's "Turning New Leaves," The Canadian Forum, Oct. 1955, 163—4; Reuel Denney's "Invitations to the Listener: Nine Young Poets and Their Audiences," Poetry [Chicago] 89 (Oct. 1956), 46, 51-2; and George Woodcock's "Recent Canadian Poetry," Queen's Quarterly 62 (Spring 1955), 111, 112. Peter Viereck, "The Younger Poets and Conformity," The New Republic, 21 Feb. 1955, 16-18. Layton's "The Improved Binoculars," in his The Cold Green Element, n. pag. Layton's "Portrait," Black Mountain Review 2 (Summer 1954), 38. Louis Dudek received his Doctorate from Columbia University in 1955. He later published his doctoral work as Literature and the Press: A History of Printing, Printed Media, and Their Relation to Literature (Toronto: Ryerson/Contact 1960). Basil Rathbone (1892—1967). British movie actor famous for playing Sherlock Holmes. C.G. Jung, "The Mass and the Individuation Process," Black Mountain Review 5 (Summer 1955), 90—147. A.J.M. Smith's A Sort of Ecstasy. Poems: New and Selected (Toronto: Ryerson 1954). Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). English mathematician and philosopher. Human Society in Ethics and Politics (London: Allen & Unwin 1954). A reference to Layton's "My Favourite Colour's Green" in his The Blue Propeller, n. pag. According to Joy Bennett and James Poison's Irving Layton: A Bibliography 1935-1977 (Montreal: Concordia University Libraries, 1979), "When I See a Giant" and "The Love Dream of Alfred Smyth, Magnate" both appear in a second version of The Blue Propeller, which includes nine additional poems. They are also 283

Notes to pages 223-32

349

350

351

352

353

354

355

356

357 358

359

360

published in the second printing of A Laughter in the Mind (Montreal: Orph£e 1959), 53, 74. The second poem is entitled "Love Dream of W.P. Turner" in this edition. Layton has written two poems called "Eros," one in Love the Conqueror Worm (19—20) and the other in Nail Polish (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971), 80. Joe Fiore taught drawing and painting at Black Mountain College. His wife Mary was a writer and student at the College. Robert Duncan lived in Banalbufar, Mallorca, during 1955-56. Jess Collins (1923— ). American painter and collagist. Collins and Duncan had set up a household together in 1951. Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, "The Bigger Heart of D.H. Lawrence," The New Republic, 28 Feb. 1955, 16-17. Layton edited Origin 18 (Winter - Spring 1956) [Featuring New Canadian Poetry]. "R.D." refers to Robert Duncan. Jaime de Angulo. American linguist and anthropologist. Louis Zukovsky (1904—78). American poet best known for his long poem A. Aaron Siskind (1903— ). American photographer and teacher. He taught at Black Mountain College during the summer of 1951. Lititz is a pseudonym for Jacob (Robert) Leed. Ramon Jose Sender (190282). Poet and prose writer. Born in Spain, he became a naturalized American citizen in 1946. Joel Oppenheimer (1930- ). American poet. Michael Rumaker (1932— ). American poet and short story writer. He graduated from Black Mountain College in 1955. Herodotus (c. 484 - c. 420 B.C.). Greek Historian of the GrecoPersian wars. Thucydides (c. 455/460 — c. 399 B.C.) was a Greek historian who lived during the second half of the fifth century B.C. Jonathan Williams wrote a review of Charles Ives and His Music by Henry and Sidney Cowell (207-9). The Quarterly Review of Literature 8, no. 1 (1955—6) is devoted to Giacomo Leopardi. Cid Gorman translates Leopardi's "The Single Bird" (19-20) and "To Himself (23). Giacomo Leopardi (17981837). Italian poet, scholar, and philosopher famous for his lyric poetry. His prose work, Pensieri, was published posthumously in 1845. As far as we can discern Robert Duncan's and Jess Collins' "dada newspaper" was never published. John Altoon (1925—69). American painter. Lome Pierce (1890-1961). Canadian editor of the Ryerson Press, Toronto, from 1920-60. Poems from Giacomo Leopardi, translated and introduced by John Heath-Stubbs (London: J. Lehmann, 1946). Layton published a selection of poems and short stories, Now Is The Place, in 1948. He was not to publish such a collection again until his The Swinging Flesh appeared in 1961. 284

Notes to pages 233—46 361

362 363

364

365

366

367

368

369

370

371 372

373

Paul Goodman's story, "Noah's Vineyard," Black Mountain Review 6 (Spring 1956), 26—35. Other items in the issue include "A Selection" of Christian Morgenstern (49-66), translated by Jess Collins, Layton's poems "Letter from a Straw Man" and "Enigma" (110-12), and Fielding Dawson's "Drawing" and "A Tragic Story" (195-200). The Pierre Boulez and John Cage correspondence does not appear in this issue. Jonathan Williams designed Dawson's Krazy Kat and One More (San Francisco, 1955). Christian Morgenstern (1871—1914). German poet. John Cage (1912— ). American composer. Fielding Dawson (1930— ). American novelist and short-story writer. He was a student at Black Mountain College. Connie Olson was Charles Olson's wife. In 1955, Richard Aldington published an unfavourable biography of T.E. Lawrence. Graves responded with a review entitled "The Lawrence I Knew," News Chronicle, 31 Jan. 1955, 4. The Canadian Writer's Conference was held at Queen's University from 28 to 31 July 1955. The theme of the conference was "The Writer, His Media, and the Public." Layton's "Rose Lemay," in his The Bull Calf and Other Poems ([Toronto]: Contact 1956), 19. Layton's "Fiat Lux," "Firecrackers," "Intersections," and "Maurer: Twin Heads," in his The Bull Calf ([Toronto]: Contact 1956), 24, 23, 27, 29. Northrop Frye, review of In the Midst of My Fever, in "Letters in Canada: 1954. Poetry," University of Toronto Quarterly 24 (April 1955), 253-4. Layton's The Improved Binoculars: Selected Poems by Irving Layton (Highlands, N.C.: Jonathan Williams 1956). The book includes "A Note on Layton," by William Carlos Williams. Creeley's poem entitled "Eros" is in his All That is Lovely in Men, n. pag. If the poem is Layton's he may be referring to "Eros Where the Rents Aren't High," in his The Long Pea-Shooter, 53, or "Eros," in his Love the Conqueror Worm, 19—20. According to Mary Novik in Robert Creeley: An Inventory, 1945-1970 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1973), 138, "The Dress," compiled by Creeley in 1955, was to have been published in 1957 by the Windhover Press, Summit, New Jersey. It contained twelve to fifteen poems and three stories: "The Musicians," "The Suitor," and "The Dress." Philip Guston contributed a drawing to the edition. "TIBBY" is Layton's The Improved Binoculars. Creeley included his poem, "For Irving," in his All That Is Lovely in Men (Asheville, N.C.: Jonathan Williams 1955), n. pag. A.J.M. Smith's "The Recent Poetry of Irving Layton," Queen's Quarterly 62 (Winter 1955-6), 587-91. 285

Notes to pages 247—54 374

Creeley refers to an exhibition Guston gave at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, in 1956. 375 Saul Steinberg (1914— ). American cartoonist and graphic artist. Mark Rothko (1903—70). American abstract painter. Jackson Pollock (1912—56). American painter in the Abstract Expressionist style. 376 Cynthia Metcalf, a student at Black Mountain who took Creeley's class in 1954 and who later had an affair with him. When Creeley first met her she was living with the painter, Dan Rice. 377 William Carlos Williams wrote "A Note on Layton" to serve as an introduction to Layton's The Improved Binoculars. 378 Creeley's poems in Origin 18 are "The Prejudice," "You've Tried the World, Try Jesus," "The Business," "All That is Lovely in Men," and "Oral Poetry (iv)" (113-15). 379 Creeley's If You (San Francisco: Porpoise Bookshop 1956). The other book, "The Dress," was never published. Creeley was teaching at a boy's school in Albuquerque. sso Mitchell Goodman (1923— ). American poet and novelist. 381 Frederick Philip Grove's Settlers of the Marsh (Toronto: Ryerson 1925) was well reviewed critically, but many of the public criticized it as an immoral work. Frederick Philip Grove (1871—1948). Canadian novelist. 382 Creeley began his common-law marriage to Bobbie Louise Hoeck in January 1957, two weeks after he first met her. She had two daughters from a previous marriage, Kirsten and Leslie. sss probably Paul Metcalf (1917— ). American writer and teacher. 384 Harry T. Moore's The Intelligent Heart: The Story ofD.H. Lawrence (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young 1954). 385 Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910). American writer. 386 Layton's replies to Creeley's letters from here on are lost. Layton's trip to Vancouver in the fall of 1962 marked the first time Layton had met Creeley in person. In April 1962, Earle Birney suggested that Layton be given a position at the University of British Columbia teaching creative writing. University politics, however, led to Layton's not getting the job. Layton expressed considerable bitterness over the rejection. 387 Roy Daniells (1902-79). Born in England, he travelled to Canada with his family in 1910. He was appointed head of the Department of English at the University of British Columbia in 1948. He has published books of poetry and a critical work on Milton. We were unable to determine what Creeley means by "the paper's story." George Bowering's comments appear in "Placebo," University of British Columbia Ubyssey, 1 Nov. 1962. 388 Louis Dudek, "Canada's Literature of Revolt," The Nation, July-Dec. 1962, 269-72.

286

Notes to pages 255-6 389

Roy Kenzie Kiyooka (1926- ). A Japanese-Canadian painter and poet. During the years 1960-64 he was teaching at the Vancouver School of Art. 390 Earle Birney taught at the University of British Columbia during 1946-63. 391 Creeley's novel, The Island, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1963. 392 Warren Tallman (1921- ). A professor at the University of British Columbia English Department. He co-edited The Poetics of the New American Poetry with Donald Allen. 393 perhaps a reference to "Love Is Layton's Answer to Canada's Long, Cold, Winter Nights." The Vancouver Sun, 7 Dec. 1962, 5. 394 John Calder. British publisher.

287

This page intentionally left blank

Index

This index contains all names of persons and titles of works cited in the introduction, the letters, and the endnotes. Also included are the names of presses, small magazines, and literary journals, as well as references to Black Mountain College, insofar as any of these appear in the text and in explanatory endnotes. Titles of works by Creeley, Layton, and others appear under the authors' respective names. Articles by authors unknown will be indexed by title. Accent, 185 Alberti, Rafael, 121, 275n.230 Alcover, Mossen, 60-1, 95-6,98-9, 102, 117, 124, 126, 132, 143, 145, 148, 186, 205 Aldington, Richard, 14, 65, 67-8, 190, 262n.37 All Men are Enemies, 14, 65,68 Death of a Hero, 14, 65, 67 Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry, 235, 285n.363 Portrait of a Genius, But..., 65 Allen, Donald M., 185 (with Warren Tallman) The Poetics of the New American Poetry, 287n.392 Altoon.John, 230-1, 233, 284n.357 Anchor Books, 82 Angulo, Jaime de, 228, 284n.353

Aristophanes, 100 Artaud, Antonin, 105-7, 121,273n.203 Artisan, 202, 262n.42, 263n.49, 277n.239 Atlantic Monthly, The, 16, 19, 185, 281n.304 Auden, W.H., 5-6, 37, 39,41, 260n.l4, 269 n. 144 Austen, Jane, 94, 273 n. 190 Bailey, Anthony, "Carol for My Lady," 228 Baker, Betty ("Able"), 127, 130, 138, 140-1, 149, 155, 158, 162, 167, 170, 173, 183, 189, 192, 194, 196 Balcon, Michael, 281n.302 Barnes, Djuna, Nightwood, 149 Barrett, William, 269 n. 144

289

Index Beckett, Samuel, Watt, 146 Bell, Millicent, "The Jargon Idea," 265n.94 Bellow, Saul, Adventures of Augie March, The, 105 Beloit Poetry Journal, 185 Bennett, Joy, (with James Poison) Irving Layton: A Bibliography 1935-1977, 283n.348 Berard, Victor, Did Homer Live?, 76, 270 n. 155 Navigations d'Ulysse, Les, 76, 270 n. 155 Beyle, Henri. See Stendhal Birney, Earle, 163, 255, 279n.279, 286n.386, 287n.390 Blackburn, Paul, x, xv, xviii, xxvii, xxviiin.5, 7, 30, 47, 57, 63, 71, 74, 84, 86-8, 90-2, 95-6, 101, 113-14, 117, 121, 124-5, 132-3, 135, 138, 149, 153, 156, 185, 259 n.4, 261n.23, 266 n. 108, 268 n. 133, 271n.l72, 274n.210 "The Continuity," 105, 108 "The Dissolving Fabric," 105, 107-8, 274n.205 Dissolving Fabric, The, 47, 108, 118, 137, 157, 186, 204, 266 n. 106 Proensa, x, 3, 16-17, 29, 33, 40, 47, 51, 55, 57, 92, 259n.4, 272n.l85 "The Search," 87, 89, 119 Blackburn, Winifred, xviii, 118, 132-3 Black Mountain College, xi, xii, xxv, xxxi, 44,

48-9, 52-3, 56-7, 61, 63-4, 66, 72, 81-2, 95, 103, 109-11, 114-16, 118, 127, 129, 138, 140-2, 145, 152, 155-7, 161-2, 169, 172, 187, 189, 193, 196, 201, 203, 210-11, 213-14, 219, 222-3, 226, 230, 237-8, 240-4, 246-9, 259 n.5, 284n.354, 285n.361 Black Mountain Review, x, xviii, xix, ix, xx, xxv, xxvii, 66-7, 71-4, 81-4, 86-93, 95, 97, 101-14, 116-27, 129-30, 134, 136-9, 141-5, 149, 153, 156-8, 161-2, 166-7, 170, 172-4, 179, 185-7, 189-90, 192-5, 197, 199, 201, 203, 226, 228-35, 237-8, 240, 243, 249-50, 27In. 171, 279n.270 Blake, William, 113, 274n.212 Blake, William H., 52, 267 n. 116 Brown Waters, and Other Sketches, 52, 267 n. 116 Blunden, Godfrey, xv, 56, 61,267n.l25 Room on the Route, A, 56 Boer, B. de, 158, 203, 226, 279n.270 Books Abroad, 185 Boulez, Pierre, 87, 233, 27ln.l74, 285n.361 Bowering, George, "Placebo," 253, 286n.387 Bridge, Ursula, (ed.) William Butler Yeats and Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence, 90 Brinnin,John M., 19, 40, 168, 263n.48 Bronfman, Larry, 87-8, 90, 116, 136, 141, 27ln.l72

290

Index Bronk, William, x, 242, 271n.l69, 272n.l81 "The Changes," 229 "For an Early Italian Musician," 229 "Round the Year Jazz," 87,90, 119 Brooks, Cleanth, (with Robert Penn Warren) Understanding Poetry, xvi, 9, 261n.26 Brown, John, 150, 278n.256 Buck, Tim, 207, 267 n. 119, 282n.329 Burnet, John, Early Greek Philosophy, 191, 281n.315 Butterick, George F., Charles Olson and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, xxxi "Editing Post-Modern Texts," xxxi Byron, Lord George Gordon, 177, 231 Caedmon Publishers, 114, 118, 186 Cage, John, 233, 285n.361 Calder, John, 256, 287n.394 California Quarterly, 185 Cameron, Elspeth, Irving Layton: A Portrait, 268 n. 130 Canadian Forum, The, 254 Carman, Bliss, 276n.234 (with Lome Pierce and V.B. Rhodenizer, eds.) Canadian Poetry in English, 123, 276n.234 Carroll, Paul, "Pound's Propertius," 204, 229, 282n.325 Celine, Louis-Ferdinand, Guignol's Band, 174, 280n.291

Cesaire, Aime, 121, 275n.230 Chambers, Jessie (E.T.), D.H. Lawrence: A Personal Record, 65, 268 n. 136 Chekhov, Anton, 265 n.97 Cherry Orchard, The, 41 Churchill, Winston, 42 Ciardi,John, 19,40, 168, 263n.48 CIV/n, x, xii-xv, 4-6, 8, 14, 16, 18-19, 23, 38, 40, 44-5, 48, 50, 54, 66, 68-9, 71-3, 75, 82, 85, 88, 92, 98, 101, 110-11, 113, 116, 119, 121-2, 124-31, 134, 136-7, 139, 143-5, 147-51, 153, 158-62, 169, 180, 185, 197, 199, 203, 212, 214, 216, 218-19, 232, 260nn.lO, 11, 270n.l52, 275n.224 Clemens, Samuel L. See Twain, Mark Cocteau, Jean, 205, 210 Cogswell, Fred, Rev. of The Long PeaShooter, 214-15, 283n.338 Cole, Desmond, 162-3, 199 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, "The Aeolian Harp," 76, 270 n. 154 Collins, Aileen, xiv, 19, 73, 130, 139, 147, 151, 159, 199, 213, 260n.lO "Canadian Culture," 274n.217 (with Simon Dardick, eds.) CIV/n: A Literary Magazine of the 50's, xxviiin.4, 260 n. 10 Collins, Jess, 223, 230, 233, 284nn.350, 356 "A Selection of Christian Morgenstern," 233, 285n.361

291

Index Compton, Neil, xiii, 212, 220 Conrad, Joseph, 64, 67, 268 n. 135 Mirror of the Sea, The, 64, 76 Victory, 64 Contact: An International Magazine of Poetry, x, xv, xx, 4, 44, 54, 72, 85, 90, 98, 100-2, 109, 147, 259nn.l, 8, 260n.lO, 261n.ll, 270n.l52, 272n.l82 Contact Press, ix, xiii, xx, 73, 90, 93, 99, 146, 174, 216, 233, 236, 259n.l, 260nn.9, 11, 272n.l82, 277n.241 Contemporary Authors, 272n.l80 Contemporary Issues, 58, 154, 193, 199 Cooper, James Fenimore, 52, 266 n. 115 Cooper, Robert, 17, 128, 185, 200, 202, 237, 262n.42, 277n.239 (ed.) Nine American Poets, 19, 263n.49 Gorman, Cid, ix, x, xv, xvi, xx, xxvii, xxviiin.5, 8, 15-16, 19, 22-3, 312, 37, 40, 45, 47, 51, 54, 64, 72, 84, 87-8, 106, 109, 115, 119, 121, 126, 148, 153, 157, 159-61, 168, 1738, 185, 196-7, 199-200, 210, 224, 229, 236, 242, 261 n.24, 266n.l08, 267n.l21, 271n.l75, 273n.203, 280n.284, 284n.355 "First Farm North," 45, 236, 266 n. 103 Precisions, The, 45, 93, 95-6, 99, 205, 213, 218, 224, 228, 231, 282n.326 "A Requisite Commitment" (rev. of Creeley's Kind Of Act Of),

185-6, 196, 281n.305 Rev. of Karl Shapiro's Poems 1940-1953, 199, 282n.324 Rev. of William Butler Yeats &? Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence, ed. Ursula Bridge, 90, 119 Cowell, Henry & Sidney, Charles Ives and His Music, 229, 284n.354 Crane, Hart, 87, 120, 262n.34 "Bees of Paradise," 12 Bridge, The, 275n.228 "Island Quarry," 12 "The Mermen," 12 Creeley, Ann, xi, xviii, xviiin.5, xxxi, 18, 20, 23-4, 29, 33, 38, 45, 49, 54, 56, 59, 64, 95, 99, 104, 109, 111, 11315, 118-19, 122, 124, 131-2, 135, 138, 143-4, 150, 155, 159, 161, 163, 167, 182, 189-90, 192, 200, 206, 210, 215, 222, 225, 229, 238, 240-1, 243-4, 246-7, 250, 275n.222 Creeley, Charlotte, 18, 24, 38, 49, 102, 104, 114, 131-2, 155, 159, 161,200, 215,219, 240, 244, 246-7, 250, 263 n. 132 Creeley, Dave, 18, 24, 38, 49, 102, 104, 114, 1312, 155, 159, 161, 200, 215, 229, 240, 244, 246-7,250, 263 n. 132 Creeley, Robert (see also Estaban, Mauritius; White, Thomas), "After Lorca," 41 "All That is Lovely in Men," 158, 161, 2489, 279n.272, 286n.378 All That is Lovely in Men, 139, 232, 234,

292

Index 242-5, 247, 275n.223, 276n.235, 277n.244 "Ballad of the Despairing Husband," 244—5 "The Birth of Venus" (see also "The Death of Venus"), 85, 101, 124, 128, 131, 270n.166.273n.198, 276n.235 "Black Mountain Review," 268 n. 138 "The Boat," 47, 51, 266 n. 107 "The Business," 248-9, 286n.378 "By God, Pomeroy, You Here! A Note on Francis Parkman," 267n.l23 "Canadian Poetry 1954." See Rev. of Contact and Contact Press Books "The Changes," 85, 271n.l67 "A Character For Love" (rev. of W.C. Williams' The Desert Music), xx, xxvi, 168, 174-7, 280nn.291, 292 "The Charm," 41, 85, 27ln.l67 "Chasing the Bird," 88, 271n.l77 "Comment," 174, 195, 280n.291 "The Crisis," 19, 263n.49 "A Death," 56-7, 61, 267n.l25 "The Death of Venus" (see also "The Birth of Venus"), 276n.235 "A Dilemma," 174, 195, 199, 280n.291, 282n.324 "The Disappointment," 85, 101, 104-5, 110, 270n.l66, 273n.l98, 274n.209

"The Dress," 285 n.370 Dress, The, 249-51, 285 n.370, 286 n.379 "Eros," 285 n.369 "For an Anniversary," 41 "For Irving," xxii, 43— 4,48, 62, 73, 101, 245, 266 n. 101, 273n.l98, 285n.372 "A Form of Adaptation," 88, 158-9, 161, 27ln.l78.279n.272 "For Rainer Gerhardt," 123, 276n.232 "Le Fou," 36-7 Fou, Le, 22-3, 29, 33, 36, 38, 263n.56 "The Gold Diggers," 90, 27In. 168 Gold Diggers and Other Stones, The, 87, 90, 116, 118-19, 123, 125-30, 134-8, 149, 152-3, 158, 167, 173, 181, 183-4, 186, 189, 192, 199-201, 205, 275n.224, 277n.253 "Hart Crane (1)," 36-7 "I Am Held by My Fear of Death," 41 // You, 249-50, 286n.279 "I Know a Man," 161 "The Immoral Proposition," 32, 35, 183 Immoral Proposition, The, 40,49, 54-6, 141, 147, 187, 199, 202, 264n.75, 266n.Ill, 281n.308 "In an Act of Pity," 41 "The Innocence," 19, 263n.49 "In the Summer," 31, 264n.7l Island, The, 65, 67, 145, 156, 247, 249, 256, 261 n. 18, 262n.42, 268n.l37, 287n.391 "The Kind Of Act Of," 19, 263n.49

293

Index Rev. of Kenneth Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales, 174, 280n.291 Rev. of LouisFerdinand Celine's Guignol's Band and John Hawkes's The Goose on the Grave, 174, 195, 280n.291 Rev. of William Carlos Williams' Selected Essays, 179, 280n.296 Rev. of Witter Bynner's Journey with Genius, 174, 280n.291 "The Riddle," 19, 263 n.49 "The Seance," 31, 264n.71 Snarling Garland of Xmas Verses, A, 192, 281n.316 "A Song," 36-7 "Still Life Or," 36-8 "The Suitor," 285n.370 "Three Fate Tales," 31, 264 n. 71 "Tight in the Halyards or The Canvas Belly," ix, 83 "Wait for Me," 199, 282n.324 Was That A Real Poem and Other Essays, 268 n. 138 "The Whip," 199, 282n.324 Whip, The, 275 n.227 "A Wicker Basket," 229 "Written For Offb Basw Oabh Ofwa ...," 187-8 "You've Tried the World, Try Jesus," 248-9, 286n.378 (as Mauritius Estaban) "Broken Back Blues," 199, 282n.324 (as T. White) "Alba," 87, 89, 92, 272 n. 183 (as T. White) "Song," 87, 89, 91-2,

Kind Of Act Of, The, x, 17, 22, 29-30, 33, 40-1,49-50, 54, 57, 146, 185, 194, 196, 199, 202, 264n.75, 265n.95, 266 n. 112, 267n.l22, 272n.l85, 273n.l98, 274n.210 "Like They Say," 11416, 122, 275n.220, 276n.231,282n.323 "The Lover," 31, 11516, 122, 264n.7l, 275n.220, 276n.231 "Mr. Blue," 31, 264n.71 "The Musicians," 285n.370 "A Note Followed by a Selection of Letters from Ezra Pound," 270 n. 162 "A Note of Poetry," x "A Note on Franz Kline," 279n.269 "The Operation," 31, 35 "Oral Poetry (iv)," 2489, 286n.378 "Philip Guston: A Note," 229 "The Prejudice," 2489, 286n.378 Quick Graph: Collected Notes &f Essays, A, 259n.5, 280n.l82 "Rainer Gerhardt: A Note," 276 n.232 "Ramon Sender: Two Novels" (rev. of Sender's The Sphere and The Affable Hangman), 229 "Rene Laubies: An Introduction," 87, 90, 174, 280n.291 Rev. of Contact and Contact Press Books, xx, 90, 119, 174, 272n.l82, 280n.291 Rev. of John Hawkes's The Beetle Leg, 265n.83

294

Index 272n.l83 Creeley, Tom, 18, 24, 38, 49,62, 102, 104, 114, 131-2, 155, 159, 161, 200, 215, 229, 240, 244, 246-7, 250, 268 n. 132 Crews, Judson (see also, Mason, Mason Jordan), 89-90,92, 272 n. 180 (ed.) Blue Green Whale, The, 272 n. 184 (ed.) Dream in Heliotrope, 272 n. 184 (ed.) Mussolini Has Met His End in the Mad House, 272 n. 184 (ed.) Notebook # 23, 272 n. 184 Crocker, Lester G., Embattled Philosopher: Diderot, The, 154, 159-61, 163, 168, 193, 199, 217, 220 Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 69, 71 cummings, e.e., 179 Currie, Robert A., I l l , 113, 149, 162, 184, 274nn.211, 215 "Don't Blame This on Bliss," 276n.234 "How Black Was My Cadillac," 139, 277n.245 Curtius, Ernst R., European Literature, 105 Dahlberg, Edward, xv, xvii, xviii, 155, 181-3, 189-91, 195, 201, 278n.264 "No Eye of Erebus," 280n.298 "No Image in Sheol," 280n.298 "Sing in the Beginning," 280n.298 "Three Poems for R'lene," 280n.298 Daniells, Roy, 253, 255, 286n.387

Dante Alighieri, 33 Dardick, Simon, (with Aileen Collins) Civ/n: A Literary Magazine of the 50's, xxviiin.4, 260 n. 10 Davies, W.H., 39, 265n.92 Davis, Miles, 114 Davis, Robert G., 269 n. 144 Dawson, Fielding, 233, 285n.361 "Drawing," 233, 285n.361 Krazy Kat and One More, 233, 285n.361 "A Tragic Story," 233, 285n.361 Dead of Night (British movie), 184, 281n.302 Denney, Reuel, "Invitation to the Listener: Nine Young Poets and Their Audiences," 215, 283n.339 Diderot, Denis, 154, 193, 278n.263 Jacques le Fatalists, 154 Dionysus, 170 Divers Press, ix, xiii, 35, 119, 130, 134, 136, 138-41, 146, 202-3, 205, 210, 216, 230, 232, 236, 259 n.4, 261n.l8, 271n.l72, 282nn.327, 330 Divus, Andreas, 78 Donne, John, 7 Dorn, Edward, 248 Drayton, Michael, "The Cryer," 188, 281n.309 Dreiser, Theodore, 84, 270n.l63 Droguet, Robert, 226 Duberman, Martin, Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community, 278 n.264

295

Index Dudek, Louis, xiv, xviii— xx, xxv, xxvii, 4, 15, 18, 20, 37,41,45,51, 54, 66, 68, 70-85, 152-3, 156-7, 159, 162-3, 174, 179, 184-5, 194, 198, 216, 219-20, 259 nn.l, 8, 260 nn. 10, 11, 268 n. 130, 269 n. 146, 270 n. 157, 276n.234, 283n.342 "An Air by Sammartini,"29, 81,90, 270 n. 160 "The Bird," 24, 29 "Canada's Literature of Revolt," 254, 286n.388 (ed.) DK I Some Letters of Ezra Pound, 269 n. 146 Europe, 45, 61, 136, 157, 242, 266 n. 105, 277n.241,279n.268 "Foresight," 270 n. 151 "For I.P.L.," ix, 72-4, 76-80, 86, 270nn.l50, 153, 156 Literature and the Press, 216, 283n.342 "New York Vignettes," 139, 277n.246, 278n.258 "Notin Bot Kids," 151, 278n.258 "Out of My Sleep Rise Dreams," 29, 264n.70 "Phainetai Moi ...," ix, 72-4, 76-7, 80, 86, 269 n. 147 Rev. of Ezra Pound's The Translations of Ezra Pound, 68-9, 268n.l41 Rev. of Paul Blackburn's Proensa, Charles Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket and Maximus Poems 1-10, and Robert Creeley's The Kind Of Act Of, x, 92, 101,

111-12, 272 n.185, 273n.l98, 274n.210, 278n.265 "The State of Canadian Poetry: 1954," 158, 279n.271 Transparent Sea, The, 270 n. 150 Twenty-Four Poems, 29, 263n.60, 264n.70, 266n.ll3, 272n.l82 "Why is Ezra Pound Being Held in St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C.?" 68-9, 268-9 n. 141 (with Irving Layton and Raymond Souster) Cerberus, 4, 51, 260 n.9, 266 n. 113, 272 n. 182 (with Irving Layton, eds.) Canadian Poems 1850-1952, xxi, xxii, 3-4, 30, 51, 146, 162, 259 n.2, 260 n.9, 266 n. 113, 272 n. 182 (with Irving Layton, eds.) Canadian Poems 1850-1952, rev. 2nd ed., 16, 162, 219, 262n.38 Duncan, Robert, xv, xxviii, 178, 202, 223, 225-8, 230, 233, 280n.295, 284nn.350, 356 "Several Poems. In Prose," 228 "Shells," 228 Rev. of Robert Graves's Greek Myths, 229 Eckman, Frederick, xv, 185, 203-05 Rev. of The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. T.S. Eliot, 203 Eigner, Larry, 87, 90, 185, 262n.40 "A Fete," 87, 90

296

Index From the Sustaining Air, 17, 35, 55, 57, 69, 71, 146, 187, 262n.40, 265n.85 "Likely Passage," 157 Rev. of Kenneth Rexroth's The Dragon and The Unicorn, 105, 108 Eliot, T.S., xv, xvi, 5—6, 15, 37, 70, 145, 15960, 173, 179, 198, 261n.l7, 269n.l43, 279n.273 Ara Vos Free, 26In. 17 Poems by T.S. Eliot (1919), 261n.l7 Sweeney Agonistes, 261n.l7 "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," 6, 261n.l7 "Sweeney Erect," 6, 261n.l7 Ellis, Fred, 256 Ellis, Havelock, Psychology of Sex, The, 198, 282n.322 Emerson, Richard W., 22-3, 29, 185-6, 263n.56 Empson, William, 7, 235, 261n.l9 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 225 Erdman, David, Concordance to the Writings of William Blake, A, 274n.212 Espinosa, Pedro, 282n.331 Estaban, Mauritius (see also Robert Creeley), 282n.324 E.T. See Jessie Chambers Evett, Robert, 185 Experiment, 185 Faas, Ekbert, Towards a New American Poetics, xxviiin.7 "The Fate of American

Civil Liberties" [author unknown], 58 Ferrini, Vincent, x, 273n.l93 Fiddlehead, The, 214, 283n.338 Finch, Robert, 157, 279n.267 Fiore, Joe, 223, 284n.349 Fiore, Mary, 223, 284n.349 Fletcher, Ian, 6-7 Flynn, Edward, 193, 197, 281n.317 Ford, Charles H., 179, 280n.297 Ford, Ford M., 65 Forster, E.M., Longest Journey, The, 113, 274n.213 Four Winds, 98-9, 273 n. 193 Fowlie, Wallace, 47, 266 n. 109 Fox, Cyril, 193, 197, 281n.3l7 Fragmente, xv, 267 n. 124 "Frances Steloff. A Heroine of Gotham" [author unknown], 27In. 176 Franck, Cesar, 67 Franco, Francisco, 18, 63, 161 Franz, Dr. Marie-Louise von, 87, 27ln.l74 Freud, Sigmund, 35, 65, 178, 264n.77 Civilization and Its Discontents, 33 Friar, Kimon, "Barking in Hades" (rev. of works by Layton, Dudek, and Souster), 51, 55, 578, 73, 266n.ll3, 267 n. 125 Frost, Robert, "The Fear," 25-6, 263n.62 Frye, Northrop, ix, xxviiin.3

297

Index "Letters in Canada: 1954. Poetry," 215, 242, 283n.339, 285n.367 Gautier, Theophile, "The Hippopotamus," 228 Gerhardt, Rainer, xv, 56, 71, 86, 121, 123, 193, 267 n. 124 Gerhardt, Renate, 121, 185, 193 Ginsberg, Allen, x Gnarowski, Michael, Contact Press 19521967, 260 n.8 Golden Goose, 29, 185, 203, 263n.56 Golden Goose Press, 22, 29, 185, 263n.56, 281n.304 Goodman, Mitchell, 250, 286n.380 Goodman, Paul, 35, 71, 86,228, 264n.82 Break-Up of Our Camp, The, 35 Dead of Spring, 35,

264n.82

Empire City, The, 35 Grand Piano, The, 35, 264n.82 "Noah's Vineyard," 233, 285n.361 Parents' Day, A Novel, 35, 265n.82 State of Nature, 35, 264n.82 Goodwin, William ("Bill"), 184, 198, 214, 281n.303 Graves, Robert, xv—xvii, 9-12, 14, 18, 35, 37-9, 41,61, 161, 182, 185, 189, 202, 235, 261nn.l8, 25, 262n.30, 271n.l73, 279n.278 Collected Poems 19141947, xvi, 9 "The Devil at Berry Pomeroy," 11, 262n.31

"From the Embassy," 11, 262n.31 Greek Myths, 229 "Hippopotamus's Address to the Freudians," 11, 262n.31 /, Claudius, 14 "In Dedication," xvi, 10, 262n.28 "The Lawrence I Knew," 235, 285n.363 "Leaving the Rest Unsaid," 11, 262n.31 Poems, 1953, 11, 262n.32 "The Portrait," 11, 262n.31 "Rocky Acres," xvi, 9 "Twin to Twin," 11, 262n.31 White Goddess, The, 10, 262n.28 Wife of Mr. Milton, The, 14 Greenberg, Clement, 269 n. 144 Grove, Frederick P., 286n.381 Settlers of the Marsh, 251, 286n.381 Grove Press, 209, 282n.326 Guest, Edgar A., 183, 281n.301 Guston, Philip, 229, 247, 285n.370, 286n.374 Hadrian, 184, 187-8 Harcourt (press), 17 Hards, Terence, 18 (with Martin SeymourSmith and Rex Taylor) Poems, 18, 263n.46 Hawkes, John ("Jack"), 35, 174, 185, 265n.83 Beetle Leg, The, 35, 265n.83 Cannibal, The, 35, 265n.83

298

Index "The Courtier," 35, 265n.84 Goose on the Grave, The, 174, 280n.291 Heath-Stubbs, John, (trans.) Poems from Giacomo Leopardi, 231, 284n.359 Hegel, Georg W.F., 85, 270 n. 165 Heine, Heinrich, 271n.l7l Hellman, Red, 59 Hellman, Robert, 59, 87, 90, 156, 185, 27In. 172 "The Marquis de Sade, or Bad Conduct Well Ridiculed" (rev. of de Sade's Justine), 105, 156, 278n.266 "The Quay," 87, 271n.l72, 278n.266 Hemon, Louis, Maria Chapdelaine, 52, 267 n. 116 Henry Regnery Co., 193 Herodotus, 229, 244, 284n.354 Hershorn, Clara, 213-14 Hillyer, Robert, xv, 70 "Poetry's New Priesthood," 70, 269 n. 144 "Treason's Strange Fruit: The Case of Ezra Pound and the Bollingen Award," 70, 269 n. 144 Hobbes, Thomas, 94, 273n.l88 Hoeck, Bobbie L., 252, 255, 286n.382 Hoeck, Kirsten, 252, 255, 286n.382 Hoeck, Leslie, 252, 255, 286n.382 Hoggart, Richard, Auden: An Introductory Essay, 5, 260 n. 14 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 150, 278n.256 Holmes, Sherlock, 283n.343

Homer, 78 Odyssey, The, 76 Howe, Irving, 269 n. 144 Hudson Review, 11 Imagi, 185 Interim, 185 Intro, 185 James, Henry, 157 Jargon Society (press), 40, 49, 140-1, 146, 265 n.94 Jarrell, Randall, 33, 264n.79 Jarry, Alfred, 121, 276n.230 Jeffers, (John) Robinson, 109 J.M. aV., "Poesia en el Canada," 269 n. 142 Job, 23 John, Augustus, 41, 265n.99 Jones, D.G., 110, 163, 274n.207 Jones, Ernest, Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, The, vol. I, 229 Jones, Herbert K., 162, 279n.278 Jonson, Ben, "An Elegie," 188, 281n.310 Joyce, James, 31, 123 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A, 123, 276n.233 Jung, Carl G., 87, 227, 235, 27ln.l74 "The Mass and the Individuation Process," 218, 229, 2334, 283n.344 Kafka, Franz, 31, 264n.74 Kemp, Lysander, "Eliot and the Sense of History," 157, 279n.269

299

Index Kenyan Review, xv, 16, 47, 51, 66, 154, 185, 207 Kerouac, Jack, x Kitasono, Katue, xv, 22— 3, 35, 86, 105, 185, 228, 262n.41 Black Rain, 17, 19,47, 55,60, 118, 146, 201, 205 212-14, 232, 262n.41,265n.86, 266 n. 106, 268 n. 131 "A Solitary Decoration," 17, 19, 22, 30, 58, 106, 267 n. 128 Kiyooka, Roy K., 255, 287n.389 Kline, Franz, 157, 187, 247, 279n.269 Laforgue, Jules, 15 Laocoon Press, 129-30, 134, 136, 138-9, 142, 146, 205, 277n.241, 279n.268 Lapp, Lucy, "Cold Morning Sketches," 105, 107-8 Lash, Kenneth, 22, 49, 263n.57 Latch, Larry, 53, 205, 213-14, 216, 222,2256, 229, 235, 238 Laubies, Rene, 40, 49-50, 55-6, 62, 86-7, 90, 129, 174, 185, 187, 264n.75, 265n.94, 266n.lll "C'est beau comme Plick et Plock," 87, 27ln.l68 Laughlin, James, 185, 209, 228, 282n.332 Lawrence, D.H., 65, 678, 145, 177, 214, 252, 264n.72 Fantasia of the Unconscious, 65 Kangaroo, 65 Pansies: Poems by D.H. Lawrence, 214, 283n.337 Studies in Classic American Literature, 31,82

Lawrence, Seymour, 185 Lawrence, T.E., xvii, 39, 235, 264n.73 Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The, 31 Layton, Irving, "Address to the Undernourished," 193 "Admonition and Reply," 208 "Afternoon Tea," 1923, 195-9, 201, 204, 217,229,231,233-4, 281n.318 "Against this Death," 50,96 "Ah Rats! (A Political Extravaganza of the 30s)," 261n.20 "All-Too-Human," 99, 102, 193, 273n.l95 "Allzumenschliches." See "All-Too-Human" "The Ants," 99-100, 102, 273 n. 195 "Author with a Pipe in his Mouth," 193 "Bacchanal," 33, 36, 40, 46, 96, 264n.80, 265n.89 "Birds at Daybreak," xxvii, 113, 116-17, 169, 274n.216 "The Birth of Tragedy," xxv, 20-1, 23, 46, 97, 135, 263nn.51, 59 "The Black Huntsmen," 7, 39, 261n.21 Black Huntsmen, The, xxi—xxii, 3—4, 259n.2, 260n.l3, 272n.l82 Blue Propeller, The, xiii, 208, 211-22, 224-6, 228-33, 235-8, 2423, 246, 248, 281n.303, 282n.330, 283n.348 "Boys in October," 150-4, 160, 278nn.255, 259, 279n.275

300

Index "Brief Encounter," 193 "The Buffaloes," xxvi, 159-60, 162, 166, 169-70, 172, 175, 197, 279n.274 Bull Calf and Other Poems, The, 242, 249 "Canadiana," 228 "Canadian Skiers," 197-201, 203, 282n.321 "Canadian Spring," 193, 197 "The Cold Green Element," 119 Cold Green Element, The, xiii, 119, 130, 134, 136, 138, 142, 184, 187, 197, 200, 202-7, 209, 211,216,224-5, 227, 231-3,238 Collected Poems (1971), xxixn.9, 279n.281 "Composition in Late Spring," xxiv, 9, 13— 14, 16, 44, 46, 97, 101, 114, 262nn.27, 36 "Cyril Tishpish," 193 "The Dancers," 116-17, 275n.221 "The Dark Plebeian Mind," 190, 193, 195, 204, 217, 229, 231, 233-4, 281n.312 "Death of a Construction Worker," 110, 274n.208 "Early Morning in Cote St. Luc," 40, 42, 46, 97 "End of the Affair," 73, 269 n. 148 "Enemies," 163-7, 1701, 179, 181, 183, 279n.281 "Enigma," 237-8, 240, 385n.361 "Eros," 221, 236, 238, 243, 284n.348, 285n.369 "Eros Where the Rents

Aren't High," 33-1, 193, 243, 264n.81, 285n.369 "Esto Perpetua," 261n.20 "Excursion to Ottawa" (see also "Weekend Journey"), 260 n. 13 "The Execution," 7-8, 39, 261n.20 "The Executioner," 213-14, 282n.336 "Factorytown Mist," 207,211-13, 282n.329 "Fiat Lux," xxv, 237-9, 285n.366 "Firecrackers," 237, 239, 285n.366 "First Snow: Lake Achigan," 73, 85, 87, 89, 97, 99, 102-1, 109, 111, 136, 154, 269 n. 148 "First Snowfall at Lake Achigan." See "First Snow: Lake Achigan" "For Governor Stevenson," xxiv, 7, 261n.22 "For My Detractors," 214, 216, 282n.36 "For Priscilla," xxv, 334, 36, 40, 42, 45, 50, 96, 264n.81,265n.89 "For the More Devotional," 237 "Had I the Talent," 261 n.20 "Harlequin and Virgin," 181, 183, 189, 281nn.299, 300 "How Poems Get Written," 40, 42, 46, 96, 114 "Human Being," 214, 263n.58 "The Improved Binoculars," 214, 216, 283n.341 Improved Binoculars: Selected Poems, The,

301

Index 243-5, 247-52, 285nn.368, 371 "Intersections," 237, 239, 285n.366 (interview) "Love Is Layton's Answer to Canada's Long, Cold, Winter Nights," 256, 387n.393 "In the Midst of My Fever," 46, 50, 55, 57, 97, 102, 136 In the Midst of My Fever, ix, xiii, xx—xxi, xxvxxvi, 3, 5, 37, 39, 40, 42-3, 45, 47, 50-1, 54-5, 57, 59-60, 623, 65, 71, 75, 94-104, 108-9, 111-13, 115, 117-18, 120-2, 1245, 127, 131-6, 138, 142-3, 146-51, 162, 173, 178, 180-1, 183-4, 190, 192-4, 197-8, 200-1, 203, 209-10, 212, 214-15, 220, 224, 229, 231-2, 234, 238, 242-3, 245, 249-50, 275n.222, 277n.251, 283n.339 "It's All in the Manner," 50, 55, 57, 60, 96, 101 "June Weather," 11617, 193, 275n.221 "Keewaydin Poetry Festival," 274 n.207 "Lachine, Que.," 33-4, 46, 97, 101, 133, 264n.81 "Lacquered Westmount Doll," 85, 93, 97-9, 102-4 Laughter in the Mind, A, 284n.348 "The Law," 193 "Letter from a Straw Man," 240, 242, 285n.361 "The Literary Life," 261n.20

"Literary Smoothie," 150, 154, 193, 278n.262 "The Longest Journey," 113-17, 133, 136, 224, 274n.213 Long Pea-Shooter, The, xiii, xxi-xxii, 50, 60, 101, 119, 130, 134, 136, 142, 148, 150, 153, 156, 160, 163, 166, 178, 180, 183-4, 190-1, 193-5, 197-8, 200-1, 203, 207-8, 220-1, 229, 238, 277n.241, 281n.319 "Look, the Lambs Are All Around Us!," 114, 274n.218 "Love Dream of Alfred Smythe, Magnate," 220-2, 236-8, 283n.348 "Love Dream of W.P. Turner." See "Love Dream of Alfred Smythe, Magnate" "Love's Diffidence," xxiv, 211, 213, 228 "Love the Conqueror Worm," xxiv, 6—7, 20-1, 39-40, 260n.l5, 261n.21 Love the Conqueror Worm, 4-6, 51, 266n.ll3, 272n.l82, 284n.348 "The Madonna of the Magnificat," 16, 19, 22-3, 40, 43, 46, 48, 97, 136, 262n.39, 263n.55 "The Masked Marvel," 193 "Maurer: Twin Heads," 237, 285n.366 "Maxie," xxv, 24, 29, 42,46, 97, 109, 111, 133, 136, 263n.61, 264n.69 "Metaphysical," 189-90, 193, 195, 204, 217,

302

Index 229,231,233-4, 281n.311 "Me, the P.M., and the Stars," 100, 102, 273nn.l97, 201 "Metropolis," 193 "Metzinger: Girl with a Bird," 38, 42-3, 46, 48, 58, 97, 136 "Mildred," 50, 96 "Misunderstanding," 193 "Motet," 103, 105, 108, 127, 167, 273n.201 "Mount Royal," 214 "Mrs. Fornheim, Refugee," 7, 40, 90, 261n.21, 272n.l82 "Mrs. Polinov," 92-3, 103, 136, 142-3, 149, 272 n. 186, 277nn.248, 249 "Mr. Ther-Apis," 38, 42-3, 46, 48, 97, 102, 133 Music on a Kazoo, 283n.336 "Mute in the Wind," 214 "My Favourite Colour's Green," 207, 282n.329, 283n.347 Nail Polish, 284n.348 "New Tables," 193 "Not Blown Away," 207, 282n.329 Now Is the Place. Stories and Poems, 19, 260n. 13, 263n.50, 284n.360 "Now That I'm Older," 193 "On First Looking into Stalin's Coffin," 193 "On Mr. and Mrs. Y's Reaction to Z's Misfortune," 193 "On the Death of A. Vishinsky," 190, 197, 281n.311 "The Paraclete," 50, 55, 57, 97, 136

"Park Avenue Psychiatrist." See "Pine Avenue Analyst" "Pine Avenue Analyst," 53, 267n.ll8 "A Plausible Story," 119, 206, 212, 275n.225, 282n.328 "Poem," 125, 127, 130, 145, 276n.236, 277n.250 "Poet and Dancer," 183, 189, 281n.300 "Poetess," 193 "Portrait," 98, 110, 127, 216, 273n.l92, 274n.208, 283n.341 "Portrait of Aileen," 33-4, 36, 40, 46, 97, 127, 264n.80, 265n.89 "Prologue to The Long Pea-Shooter," 113, 153, 156, 193, 274n.216 "Rain at La Minerve," 169, 193, 197, 280n.286 "The Ravens," 193, 197 "The Red and the Black," xxvii, 119, 121, 124-5, 169, 275n.226 "Rose Lemay," 232, 234-7, 285n.365 "Sancta Simplicitas," xxv, 21-3, 46, 97, 101, 134, 263n.59 "Saratoga Beach," xxvii, 116-17, 119, 124, 169, 197, 275n.226 "Satires of Circumstance," 7-8, 13, 261n.20 "Seven O'clock Lecture," 5, 8, 14, 50, 55, 57, 69, 97, 133, 260n.l2 "Shaw, Pound,and Poetry," 159, 197, 279n.273, 282n.320

303

Index "Smoke Rings," 261n.20 "Snivellization," 228 "Social Worker," 236, 238 "Songs of a HalfCrazed Nihilist," 7, 261n.20 "Street Funeral," 6, 260 n. 15 Swinging Flesh, The, 5, 263n.50, 284n.360 "T.S. Eliot," 160, 279n.275 "Terrene," 7, 39, 261n.21,281n.298 "Thanatos and Eros," 283n.336 "Theology," 210, 214, 216-17, 229, 231, 233-i, 282n.334 "To a Very Old Lady," 281n.298 "The Trumpet Daffodil," 28 ln.298 "Two Poets in Toronto," 109, 111 "University Buildings," 193 "Vexata Quaestio," xxiixxiv, 3, 6-9, 13-15, 20-1, 39, 259 n.3, 261nn.21,23 "Weekend Journey" (see also "Excursion to Ottawa" and "Weekend Special"), 5, 260 n. 13 "Weekend Special" (see also "Weekend Journey"), 260 n. 13 "Westmount Doll." See "Lacquered Westmount Doll" "When I See a Giant," 221, 228, 237, 283n.348 (with Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster) Cerberus, 4, 51, 260 n.9, 266 n. 113, 272n.l82

(with Louis Dudek, eds.) Canadian Poems 1850-1952, xxi-xxii, 3-4, 30, 51, 146, 163, 259 n.2, 260 n.9, 266 n. 113, 272 n. 182 (with Louis Dudek, eds.) Canadian Poems 1850-1952, rev. 2nd ed., 16, 163, 219, 262n.38 Layton, Max ("Maxie"), 67, 101-2, 112, 131, 149, 181-2, 197, 215, 249 Layton, Naomi ("Sissyboo"), 14, 18, 23, 67, 112-13, 182, 197,215, 249 Leed, Jacob R. (see also Lititz, Jacob), 27ln.l70, 284n.354 "Filling It In," 87, 105, 185, 271nn.l68, 170 Rev. of Saul Bellow's Augie March, 105 "Robert Creeley and the Lititz Review," 271n.l70 Lekakis, Michael, 210, 282n.333 Leopardi, Giacomo, 229, 231, 234, 284n.355 Pensieri, 229, 234, 284n.355 "A Single Bird," 229, 284n.355 "To Himself," 229, 284n.355 Levertov, Denise, 168, 174, 185, 228, 250, 280n.284 Levine, Norman, 149, 277n.254 Angled Road, The, 149, 277n.254 Myssium, 149, 278n.254 Tight-Rope Walker, The, 149, 278n.254 Lincoln, Abraham, 150, 278n.256

304

Index Lippman, Bertram, "A Game of Rithmomachia," 204, 228, 282n.325 "John Ruskin Is Not Dead," 199, 282n.324 Lippmann, Elga, 152, 186, 278n.260, 281n.307 Graphic Art of Jean Cocteau, The, 205, 210, 282n.326 Lititz, Jacob [Jacob R. Leed], 284n.354 "Freud's Biography" (rev. of Ernest Jones' biography of Freud, vol. 1), 229 "Notes on Some Works of Paul Goodman," 228 "Some ThirteenthCentury English Verse," 229 Litz, Katherine, 185 Lowell, James Russell, 150, 278n.256 Lowell, Robert, 179, 264n.66 "The Mills of the Kavanaughs," 28, 264n.66 Mills of the Kavanaughs, The, 264n.66 Lunen, Wilhelm, "Appeal for an English Edition of Diderot's Jack the Fatalist," 154, 193, 278n.263 Luther, Martin, 170, 280n.288 McCarthy, Joseph, 68, 252 Macklin, H.P., 37 Handbook of Fancy Pigeons, A, 35, 60, 108, 205, 265n.87, 268n.l31 MacLeish, Archibald, 269 n. 143

MacNeice, Louis, 163, 279n.280 Madge, Charles, 6-7 Mandel, Eli, 163, 260 n. 15 "Leda and the Swan," 6, 260 n. 15 (with Gael Turnbull and Phyllis Webb) Trio, 99, 129, 260n.l5, 273n.l94, 277n.240 Mann, Thomas, 37, 252, 265n.90 Mason, Mason Jordan (see also Judson Crews), 89, 92, 272nn.l80, 184 "The Place of the Skull," 89-90, 272 n. 180 Mason, Ronald, 274n.206 "Implacable Sea: A Study of Melville's Poetry," 105, 107-8 Spirit Above the Dust, 107, 274n.206 Matthews, Jackson, 47, 266 n. 109 May, James B., 128 Mayne, Seymour, (ed.) Irving Layton: The Poet and His Critics, xxviii n. 1 Melville, Herman, 17, 55, 107, 220 Merlin, xv, 58, 61, 98, 154, 185, 267n.l28, 273 n. 193 Merlin Press, 146 Merwin, W.S., 87, 90, 271n.l73 Metcalf, Cynthia, 247, 286n.376 Metcalf, Paul, 252, 286n.383 Michaux, Henri, 121, 276n.230 Michigan State College Press, 193 Miller, Henry, 69, 121 Milton, John, 286n.387 Paradise Lost, 94 Moliere [Jean-Baptiste Poquelin],

305

Index 48, 52-4, 59-64, 66, 68, 71-4, 84, 86, 88, 91, 99, 101, 107, 10913, 116-18, 121, 123, 125, 127, 155, 157-60, 162, 168-9, 172-4, 176, 178, 182, 191, 193, 198, 201-3, 215-18, 222, 228, 230, 232, 240, 242, 252, 259nn.5, 7, 261n.24, 267 n. 120, 271n.l74, 274n.210, 278n.260, 279n.273, 285n.362 "Against Wisdom as Such," 87, 90, 93 Call Me hhmael, 17, 263n.45 "La Chute," 17, 262n.43 "I Believe in You," 122, 276n.231 "In Cold Hell, In Thicket," 17, 262n.43 In Cold Hell, In Thicket, x, 8, 15-16, 92, 128, 205, 262n.43, 272n.l85, 277n.238, 282n.327 "It Was. But It Ain't" (rev. of Herodotus and Thucydides), 229 "The Kingfishers," 17, 262n.43 Maximus Poems I—10, The, x, 40, 102, 136, 141, 146, 169, 265n.94, 272 n. 185 Maximus Poems 11—22, The, 89 "Mayan Heads," 169, 175, 280n.285 Mayan Letters, 3, 17, 35, 42, 47, 55, 57, 60, 62, 97, 99, 108, 118, 123, 125, 127-8, 137, 146, 173, 183-4, 186, 189, 192, 205, 259n.5, 262n.40, 265n.85, 273n.l91 "Move Over," 17, 262n.43

Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Le, 32,264n.76 Monroe, Marilyn, 152 Moore, Harry T., Intelligent Heart: The Story ofD.H. Lawrence, The, 252, 286n.384 Moore, Marianne, 179 Morgenstern, Christian, 233, 285n.361 Mozart, Wolfgang A., 113 Nation, The, 254 New Directions in Prose and Poetry, 23, 31, 35, 181, 280n.298, 282n.332 New Directions Press, 33, 35, 185-6, 242, 281n.304, 282n.332 New Mexico Quarterly, 16, 18-19, 49, 154, 185, 263n.57 New Republic, 51, 54—5, 57-8, 60, 185, 203, 215, 223, 267n.l27 New Statesman &f Nation, 58, 267n.l27 New Yorker, The, xv, 18, 70 Nietzsche, Friedrich W., 20, 85, 100, 169, 263n.51 Nimbus, 182 Nims,John ¥., 19, 168, 263n.48 Norris, Ken, "The Significance of Contact and av/n," xxviii n.4 Northern Review, 185 Novik, Mary, Robert Creeley. An Inventory 1945-1970, 285n.370 Officina Poetarum et Pictorum (Poet's and Painter's Press), 277n.243 Olson, Charles, ix-xi, xvi, xx, xxiii, 19, 30, 43-4,

306

Index "An Ode on Nativity," 17, 262n.43 "On First Looking out of La Cosa's Eyes," 87, 89, 272n.l79 "O'Ryan (2)," 229 "La Preface," 17, 262n.43 "Projective Verse," xxiv, 23, 25, 27-8, 32, 166, 172, 263n.64, 264n.67, 279n.282 Rev. of Bradford Smith's Captain John Smith, 87,90, 119 Rev. of Ernst R. Curtius' European Literature, 105, 108, 158 "A Round and a Canon," 17, 262n.43 Selected Writings, xxviiin.8 "These Days," x Olson, Constance ("Connie"), 127, 210, 234, 242, 285n.362 Oppenheimer, Joel, 284n.354 "The Rain," 228 Origin, ix-x, 8, 19, 22, 37, 51, 54, 72, 88, 91, 95, 97, 119, 121, 125-6, 128, 148, 159, 161, 168, 185, 197, 205-6, 212, 214, 226, 242, 248-9, 261n.24, 266n.l03, 267n.l21, 271n.l75, 273n.203, 275n.225, 277nn.237, 252, 282nn.327, 328, 284n.352 Orwell, George, 269 n. 144 Owen, Wilfred, 10, 38, 262n.29 Pacey, Desmond, 163, 215, 279n.279 Paige, D.D., 70 (ed.) Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941, 269 n. 145

Parkman, Francis, 55, 122, 145, 267n.l23 Complete Works, 120 Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, The, 55, 267n.l23 Old Regime in Canada, The, 120 Oregon Trail, The, 122 Pioneers of France in the New World, The, 55, 267 n. 123 Partisan Review, 70, 207 Patchen, Kenneth, 155, 265n.94 Fables and Other Little Tales, 40, 55, 141, 174, 265n.94, 277n.247, 280n.291 Peale, Norman V., The Power of Positive Thinking, 172-3 Pearson, Ian, 157, 279n.267 Pellizzi, Camillo, "Ezra Pound: A Difficult Man," 68-9, 268n.l41 Perkoff, Stuart Z., "The Blind Girl," 37, 39, 265n.91 Perspectives USA, 185 Philosophy, 223 Pierce, Lome, 231, 251, 276n.234, 284n.358 (with Albert D. Watson, eds.) Our Canadian Literature, 276n.234 (with Bliss Carman and V.B. Rhodenizer, eds.), Canadian Poetry in English, 123, 276n.234 Poetry [Chicago], 11, 126, 185-6, 196 Politics, 59, 268 n. 129 Pollock, Jackson, 187, 247, 286n.375 Poison, James, (with Joy Bennett) Irving Layton: A Bibliography 1935-1977,

307

Index 283n.348 Poquelin, Jean-Baptiste. See Moliere Pound, Dorothy, 70-1 Pound, Ezra, xv—xvii, 17, 28,30, 39,41,65,6871, 77-8, 80-1, 121, 145, 169, 179, 185, 191, 194-5, 204, 260nn.lO, ll,262n.44, 268nn.l38, 141, 269 nn. 143, 144, 146, 270n.l62 "Canto I," 77-8, 270n.l57 "Canto xxxix," 78-9, 270n.l59 Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, The, 203 Make It New, 78, 270n.l58 P isan Cantos, The, 269 n. 144, 280n.296 Translations of Ezra Pound, The, 68-9 Pratt, E.J., 280n.290 Prince, F.T., 6-7 Proust, Marcel, 36, 265n.88 Remembrance of Things Past, 265n.88 Publisher's Weekly, 161, 186 Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus Posthumous, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, 191, 281n.314 Purdy, Al, xxviii Purdy, James, "Sound of Talking," 204, 229, 282n.325 Pushkin, Alexander S., 177, 280n.293 Pythagoras, 191 Quarterly Review of Literature, 185, 229, 284n.355 Quarto, 219 Queen's Quarterly, 246 Ransom, J.C., 185

Rathbone, Basil, 217, 283n.343 Rathbun, Ann, 59 Ravagli, Frieda Lawrence, "The Bigger Heart of D.H. Lawrence," 223, 284n.351 Reid, Alastair, 173, 185, 202, 280n.289 Resnitsky, J.L., "An Interview with Irving Layton," xxviii n.2 Rexroth, Kenneth, xviii, 71, 73-4, 84, 86, 101, 119-20, 122, 185-6, 248, 270 n. 149, 275n.228 Dragon and the Unicorn, The, 105 "Lament for Dylan Thomas," 86 "The Younger Generation and Its Letters," 275n.229 (trans.) "Artaud," 105— 6, 108, 273n.203, 274n.204 Reynal Hitchcock (press), 17 Rhodenizer, V.B., 276n.234 (with Bliss Carman and Lome Pierce, eds.) Canadian Poetry in English, 123, 276n.234 Rice, Dan, 117, 129, 157, 202, 234, 275n.223, 286n.376 Riding, Laura, 10, 39, 262n.30 "The Tiger," 11, 262n.30 Roberts, Michael, Faber Book of Modern Verse, The, 10-11, 262n.30 Roche, Mazo de la, 52, 266n.ll5 Jalna, 266 n. 115 Roebuck Press, 49, 261n.l8

308

Index Roethke, Theodore, xviii, 33, 74, 87, 90, 120, 264n.79, 275n.229 Rothko, Mark, 247, 286n.375 Rumaker, Michael, 284n.354 "The Truck," 204, 228, 282n.325 Russell, Bertrand, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 220, 283n.346 Russell, Peter, 45, 87, 266 n. 104 Ryerson Press, xiii—xiv, 123, 231, 245, 251-2, 276n.234, 284n.258 Sade, Donatien A., Comte (Marquis de), 156 Justine, 105, 278n.266 Sandburg, Carl, 179 Sankey,John, 125-6, 128, 130, 136, 144, 148, 150, 153-4, 159, 161, 267n.l21, 277n.237 Sappho, ix, 72, 74, 200 Sauer, Carl O., 87, 27ln.l74 Schwartz, Delmore, 47, 87 Scott, Duncan Campbell, 273n.l89 "The Forsaken," 94, 273 n. 189 Scott, F.R., 68, 174, 235, 268nn.l30, 139, 280n.290 Collected Poems (1981), 268n.l39 Scott, Marian, 43, 48 Scott, Walter, 52, 266 n. 115 Sender, Ramon J., 284n.354 Affable Hangman, The, 229 Sphere, The, 229 Sergeant, Howard, 45, 266 n. 104 Sewanee Review, 185

Seymour-Smith, Janet, 11-12 Seymour-Smith, Martin, 6, 11-12, 16, 18, 20, 22, 30, 38, 43, 54, 60, 62-4, 87, 93, 95, 98, 107, 148, 202-3, 227, 261n.l8, 267n.l21, 268n.l34, 273n.l93 "All Devils Fading," 11-12, 15-16, 18, 22, 262n.33 All Devils Fading, 47, 95, 98, 135, 205, 213-14, 266n.ll6 "Birds in His Head. Poems," 18, 49, 263n.47 "Elegy," 18, 49, 263n.47 "Entrance to Hell," 18, 263n.47 Rev. of Dylan Thomas' Collected Poems, 11920, 122, 275n.228 "A Trial in Dream," 58, 267 n. 128 "Where Is Mr. Roethke?" 87, 90, 119-20, 122, 275n.228 (with Terence Hards and Rex Taylor) Poems, 18, 263n.46 Shakespeare, William, 145, 220, 228 Merchant of Venice, The, 76, 270n.l54 Shapiro, Karl, 87, 179, 199, 269 n. 144 Shaw, George Bernard, 41,94, 265n.97 Back to Methuselah, 41 Heartbreak House, 41 Misalliance, 41 Shelley, Percy B., 177 Siskind, Aaron, 229, 284n.354 Slocum, Joshua, Sailing Alone Around the World, 52, 55, 267 n. 117

309

Index Smith, A.J.M., ix, xxviiin.3, 136, 220, 224, 229 "The Recent Poetry of Irving Layton," 220, 283n.345 Sort of Ecstasy, A, 220, 283n.345 Smith, Bradford, Captain John Smith, 87, 90

Smith, Mortimer B., Diminished Mind, The, 154, 159-61, 163, 168, 193, 199, 217, 220 Sophocles, 85 Souster, Raymond, ix, xiv—xv, xxi, 3—4, 6, 8, 18, 47, 50, 57, 75, 845, 92-3, 101, 124-5, 147, 216-19, 259nn.l, 8, 266n.l08, 270n.l52, 273n.l87, 276n.234 "A Note On Origin," x (with Louis Dudek and Irving Layton) Cerberus, 4, 51, 260 n.9, 266 n. 113, 272n.l82 Sparrow Press, 205 Spender, Stephen, 6, 41, 261n.l6 Stefanile, Felix, 210, 276n.231 "Bal Tabarin," 122, 276n.231 "Days Which Enchant Us," 122, 276n.231 "God Being the Supreme," 122, 276n.231 Stein, Gertrude, 121, 276n.230 Steinberg, Saul, 247, 286n.375 Steloff, Frances, 88, 196, 271n.l26 Stendhal [Henri Beyle], 31, 145, 264n.74 Stevens, Wallace, 90, 272n.l81 Sutherland (Layton),

Betty, xi—xii, xiv, xxi, 14, 18-19, 23, 32, 44, 49, 51-2, 54, 56, 64-7, 69, 71-3, 104, 108, 110, 112, 129, 131, 148-9, 152, 160, 163, 167, 176, 181-2, 190-2, 194-5, 197-8, 200, 206, 210-11, 215, 220,224, 230, 235, 237, 245-6, 249, 251-2, 281n.319 Swart, E.V., 58 Tallman, Warren, 256, 287n.392 (with Donald M. Allen) Poetics of the New American Poetry, The, 287n.392 Tate, Allen, xv, 70, 269 n. 144 "Further Remarks on the Pound Award," 269 n. 144 Taylor, Rex, 18 (with Terence Hards and Martin SeymourSmith) Poems, 18, 263n.46 Thackeray, William M., 94, 273 n. 190 Thomas, Dylan, xviii, 39, 41-2, 71, 87, 90, 179, 235, 265nn.93, 98, 99, 271n.l73 Collected Poems, 119-20, 275n.228 Thucydides, 229, 284n.354 Tolstoy, Lev N., 245 Tomoya, Toda, "Devil's House," 105-6, 108 Toyotaro, Kizu, "A Poor Meal," 105-6, 108 Trocchi, Alexander, xv, 58, 61-2, 146, 154, 185, 268n.l28, 273n.l93 Trotsky, Leon, 207 Turnbull, Gael, x, xvii— xviii, xxviiin.5, 119,

310

Index 129, 139, 185, 250, 275n.227, 276n.231 "If He Sings It," 122, 277n.246 (with Phyllis Webb and EH Mandel) Trio, 99, 129, 260n.l5, 273 n. 194, 277n.240 Twain, Mark [Samuel L. Clemens], 253, 286n.395

(with Gael Turnbull and Eli Mandel) Trio, 99, 129, 260n.l5, 273 n. 194, 277n.240 Weinstein, Nathan Wallanstein. See West, Nathanael West, Nathanael [Nathan Wallanstein Weinstein], 33, 49, 264n.74 Day of the Locust, 31,

University of Toronto Quarterly, 242

Miss Lonelyhearts, 33 Western Review, 185 White, Thomas (see also Robert Creeley), 87, 89, 271n.l71,272n.l83 Whitehead, A.N., 36, 265n.88 Whitman, Walt, 253 "So Long!", 153, 278n.261 Wilbur, Richard P., 33, 120, 264n.79, 275n.229 Wilenski, R.H., Modern Movement in Art, The, 42, 266 n. 100 Wilkinson, Anne, 162, 279n.277 "Poem," 162, 279n.277 Willey, Basil, Seventeenth-Century Background, The, 94, 273n.l88 Williams, Jonathan, 40, 49, 55-6, 60, 62-5, 69, 71, 75, 86, 88, 95, 97, 101-2, 109, 111-18, 124-5, 127, 139, 141, 146-7, 150-3, 155, 158, 161, 167, 172, 185-7, 228, 232-4, 242-6, 248-52, 256-7, 265n.94, 285n.361 "Aaron Siskind/8 Signs," 229 "If Nature Is Not Enthusiastic About Explanation ..." (rev. of Henry & Sidney Cowell's Charles Ives and His Music), 229,

Valery, Paul, Monsieur Teste, 266 n. 109 Velazquez, Diego, 113, 274n.214 Vico, Giambattista, 100 Viereck, Peter, xv, 40, 70, 74, 265n.96, "My Kind of Poetry," 70, 269n.l44 "Pure Poetry, Impure Politics, and Ezra Pound: The Bollingen Prize Controversy Revisited," 70, 269 n. 144 "The Younger Poets and Conformity," 215, 283n.340 Vigo, Fiamma, 185 Viking Press, 35 You, xv, 22, 262n.41 Warren, Robert Penn, (with Cleanth Brooks) Understanding Poetry, xvi, 9, 261n.26 Watson, Albert D., 276n.234 (with Lome Pierce) Our Canadian Literature, 276n.234 Watts, Alan W., Myth and Ritual in Christianity, 178-9 Webb, Phyllis, x, 68, 268 n. 140

33-5

311

Index 284n.354 "The Rough Day," 122, 151, 276n.231, 278n.257 "The Wine Glass Lies in the Fireplace, Broken," 122, 151, 278n.257 Williams, Raquel H., (with William C. Williams, trans.) Dog and the Fever, The, 208, 282n.331 Williams, William C., ix, xxvi, xxviiin.l, 39, 51, 81, 121, 145, 168-9, 174, 176-7, 179, 185, 208, 210, 240 "Author's Introduction to The Wedge," 27, 263n.65 Autobiography, 28, 264n.68 Collected Later Poems, 262n.35 Desert Music, The, xx, xxvi, 174-5, 177, 279n.283 "The Fistula of the Law" (rev. of Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos), 179, 280n.296 In the American Grain, 31 "Letter to an Australian Editor," 179, 280n.296 "The Lion (1)," 26-7, 263n.63 National Book Award Address, 179, 280n.296 "A Note on Layton," 247, 250, 285n.368, 286n.377 Paterson, 270 n. 161 Selected Essays, xxvi, 179, 280n.296 "Sometimes It Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They are

Beautiful," 12-13 "The Tortuous Straightness of Chas. Henri Ford," 179, 280n.297 "Woman as Operator," 179, 280n.296 (with Raquel H. Williams, trans.) Dog and the Fever, The, 208, 282n.331 Wilson, Milton, "Turning New Leaves," 215, 283n.339 Windhover Press, 285n.370 Window, 125, 128, 153, 277n.237 Winters, Yvor, "The Progress of Hart Crane" (rev. of Crane's The Bridge), 120, 275n.228 Wolf Run Books, 266 n. 110 Women: A Collaboration of Artists and Writers [author unknown], 280n.296 Woodcock, George, "Recent Canadian Poetry," 215, 283n.339 Woolf, Douglas, 49, 87, 90, 266 n. 110, 27ln.l72 Hypocritic Days, The, 49, 54, 56, 137, 144, 201, 266n.llO "The Kind of Life We've Planned," 105, 107-8 Yale Review, 207, 223 Zola, Emile, 84, 270 n. 163 Zukovsky, Louis, 228, 240, 284n.353 A, 284n.353 "A- 12," 228

312