Charles Olson Letters for Origin 1950-1956 1988

7/28/2019 Charles Olson Letters for Origin 1950-1956 1988

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C H A R L E S O L S O NL e t t e r s f o r O r i g i n

1 9 5 0 - 1 9 5 6

Edited by Albert GloverForeword by J ohn Tytell

QPARA GON HOUSE

New York


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Published in the U ni ted States byParagon House Publishers90 F if th A venueN ew Y ork, NY 10011Copyright 1969 by Charles OlsonForeword copyright 1989 by J ohn T ytellA ll rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced, in any form, without written permission fromthe publishers, unless by a reviewer who wishesto quote brief passages.Reprinted by arrangement wi th V iking Penguin I nc.

L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-P ubli cation D ataOlson, Charles, 1910-1970.

L etters for Ori gin, 1950-1956 / C harles Olson ; edited by A lbertGlover.

p. cm.ISBN 1-55778-111-7 (pbk.)1. Olson, Charles. 1910-1970 Correspondence. 2. Cortnan, C id-

-Correspondence. 3. Origin. 4. Poetry. 5. Poets, A merican 20thcentury Correspondence. I. Gl over, A lbert. I I. T itl e.PS3529.L 655Z53 1988811'.54 dcl9[B ] 88-3775

C I P


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To Cid Corman, Editor


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ForewordCharles Olson and the Projective Imagination

A mong poets in mi d- century A merica, Charles O l son is a dominatingand infl uential fi gure. H e is best known f or The Maximus Poems, an epicsequence which Olson worked on for twenty years, from 1950 until his deathin 1970. Set in the place w here he spent summers as a chi ld, the seacoast townof G loucester, M assachusetts, the poem was wri tten in the tradition ofWil l iam Car los Wil l iams' Paterson and Ezra Pound's, The Cantos, with thesame complicatingly discursive allusiveness, mythological overlaying, andkaleidoscopic structure.

O l son is also know n for his theoreti cal pi ece, "P roj ecti ve V erse," amanifesto that appeared in the magazine Poetry New York in 1950. Olson'spoint of depar tur e in this piece is an extensi on and contempor ary reinventionof Pound's noti on of the vor tex as an ideal poetic model . T he manner of thepiece, vibrantly hortatory, refuted the bland decorousness and formalrestraints of the N ew C ri ti ci sm, the prevalent school of poetic theory af terthe Second W or l d W ar. O l son was fascinated by the ki netics of poeticmovement . H e saw the poem as an energy transfer, highly potent, veryspecial, and, if successful, as meaningful as the most profound spiritualinsights or messages. H e cl aimed that the probl em for the poet was anawareness of the process through which the energy that prompted thewri ti ng becomes the energy in whi ch the reader partici pates. H e bel ievedthat this interchange best occurred in as open a literary structure as possible,and Olson's key was transformation:

O N E P E R C E P T I O N M U S T I M M E D I A T E L Y A N D D I R E C T L YL E A D T O A F U R T H E R P E R C E P T I O N . I t means exactl y whatit says, is a matter of, at all points (even, I should say, of ourmanagement of daily reality as of the daily work) get on with it,keep moving, keep in, speed, the nerves, their speed, theperceptions, theirs, the acts, the split second acts, the wholebusiness, keep it movi ng as fast as you can ci ti zen. A nd i f you alsoset up as a poet, U S E U S E U SE the process at all points, in anygiven poem always, always one perception must must mustM O V E , I N S T A N T E R , O N A N O T H E R !


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Olson's assertions in "P ro j ecti ve V erse" contradicted an age whi chseemed to demand a controlled poetry, modulated more than inspired,embellished, ordered, domesticated, more the cooked than the raw, evokingmore of the garden than the wi lderness. I n 1950, the maj or figure inA meri can poetry was T .S. El iot, a man who had spent forty years inE ngland, an A meri can who read his poetry wi th a perfectly civi l i zed Engli shaccent. W i l l i am C arlos W i l l i ams was know n primari l y among other poets;though the first part of Paterson had appeared in 1946, the full impact of hispoetry would only be felt in the sixties. Pound was locked away for hiswartime treason; The Pisati Cantos had been published in 1948 whi ch woul deventual l y help restore his reputati on dur i ng the fifties. M ost of the otherpoets w hom we no w recogni ze as the leading voi ces of the post- war erawere invi sible, or j ust beginning to develop a reputati on. T he B eats werestill unknow n; A l len Gi nsberg, for example, was showi ng W i l l i ams hisapprenti ce poems and receivi ng encouragement. T he poets in the orbi t of theKenyon Review, R obert L owell , R andal l J arrell and J ohn B erry man, were stillimitating Eliot in various ways.

"P ro j ecti ve V erse" was a declaration of O l son's i ndependence f romwhat seemed the tyranny of E l i ot's inf l uence and the ideas of the N ewC ri tics. But w ho was C harl es O l son and how had he prepared to so chall engethe si tuation in A meri can poetry, ci rca 1950? T he son of i mmi grant parentsw ho had settled in W orcester, M assachusetts (his f ather was a postalworker) , Ol son was a scholarship student at W esleyan. H e becamefascinated by the fiction of H erman M elvi l l e a classic A meri can authorwhose reputati on had been in ecl ipse. O l son woul d later develop his M .A .thesis on M elvi l l e into his first book, Call Me Ishmael (1947), a brillant andcelebrated study of Moby Dick.

D uri ng the Second W or l d W ar, O l son worked f or the O f f i ce of W arDevelopment, an agency responsible for fostering the war effort amongA meri cans of f oreign ori gin. A n admirer of R oosevelt, O l son then w or kedfor the D emocrati c Party in an attempt to recrui t voters of f oreignextracti on. A f ter the war, when Ezra Pound was i ncarcerated in St.E l i zabeth's, a federal mental insti tution in W ashi ngton, D .C . , Ol son beganvisiting Pound. These visits proved spiritually crucial: "Olson saved myl i f e," Pound l ater asserted. T he ol der poet had suf fered a nervousbreakdown; he was being questioned by lawyers and psychiatrists w ho w ereunsure of his sanity. For his part, Olson was ambivalent about giving Poundany emotional succor because of Pound's unregenerate fasci sm. H e w rote tothe cri tic M al co l m C ow l ey that "he wi shed to be of use if there is anythi ngto do to save the scoundrel's ski n" P ound w as afraid of being executed f ortreason. The real assistance, however, was in very human terms. F rom 1947


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to 1949 Olson listened to Pound, giving him the opportunity to release hisword flow to someone who represented the poetic community and the hopethat Pound woul d not be ostracized by it for his wart i me activ ities. T he twomen talked about the war, about economics and Pound's eccentric monetarytheories, about Pound's f ormer f ri endships w i th other wr i ters l ike Y eats.Generally the men communicated and Olson was able to reassure Pound ofhis sanity. A s a poet, O l son wou l d be more i ndebted to Pound than to anyother predecessor and his visits were a f orm of homage to a master. B ut onanother level, Olson resented Pound's bigotry and intolerance; after all, theyhad represented opposite points of view during the war as Olson had workedfor F .D .R . and Pound had agitated for M ussol ini on I tal ian radio.Psychologicall y vi siti ng E zra Pound in his time of distress, a broken old manin a madhouse, signif ied for O l son the end of his ow n apprenticeship.

A t about the ti me that Ol son ceased vi si ting Pound, in the fall of 1950,he began his correspondence w i th C i d C orman a B oston poet w ho had aninfluential radio program on poetry and was beginning Origin, a new poetrymagazine. In the letters, which continue over a six-year period, Olson wouldadvise C orman on the ways to make Origin an organ for a new movement inpoetry, l ater to be cal led the B lack M ountai n mov ement w hen Ol son beganteaching at B lack M ountai n C ol l ege, an experi mental school in N or thC arol i na. T he letters to C orman col l ected in this vo l ume exi st as ani mpor tant historical register of a vi tal new force in A meri can poetry as itsprinciples were being discovered and articulated by Olson.

Olson often wrote of "pushing" or "thrusting" his ideas and heregarded these l etters to C orman as a f orm to be stretched, extended,redef i ned and reor i ented j ust as he mi ght play w i th the shape of a poem.Rejecting deductive premises, Olson projected his ideas by spontaneous,irregular, "guerrilla" paths, relying on fragments and discontinuity in apost-modernist mode. For Olson, Origin would be a forum to free poets fromthe narrowness of academic concerns, a forcefield creating taste rather thanmerel y perpetuati ng it. E ach issue, he proposed, should center on a singlenew writer of what he termed the "open" school (Olson himself, RobertC reely , Robert Duncan, Paul B l ackburn) and use l etters and statements inconj uncti on w i th poems. O l son hoped such an arrangement woul d lead to aconcentration of literary energy comparable in its way to that caused by thenineteenth century transcendentalist magazine, The Dial.

Early in the correspondence Olson is concerned with the appearance ofhis own poems in Origin as they woul d be publ i shed in its first issue. A f tersending poems of f to C or man, O l son traveled to M exi co , to the Y ucatan, inan incandescent search f or new sources for his poetry . T aki ng a perennialA meri can posi tion first announced by E merson in his "A meri can Schol ar"


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address, O l son argues against relyi ng on E uropean cul ture and hi story (asE l iot and Pound had) and instead urges poets to find new resources in themyths of the I ndian peoples who settled the A meri can conti nent. O l son is acontemporary T ranscendental i st and the prose style of his letters resemblesEmerson's intuitive, digressive, spurting and elliptical rhythms moredevoted to the explosive possibilities of the sentence than the unifiedparagraph. T remendousl y exci ted by the Y ucatan Peninsula, O l son beginsexpl or i ng M ayan ruins and in a sudden burst of exuberance tel ls C orman heis ready to give up everythi ng for the sake of his M ayan researches. A l l heneeds now is a j eep, a schooner, a supporti ng foundati on. I n a subsequentletter, Ol son speculates on the l ink betw een the M ayan stel lae (C orman call sthem totems) and the ancient G reek messenger god H ermes. T he connecti onis provoked by his purchase of a carved animal snout painted in red, whichreminds O l son of the M edi terranean worshi p of Pri apus, wherei n hugephalluses were painted red and placed in gardens and crossroads:

A t the same time you may also remember that G reek sculpture inthe round appears to have emerged f rom the hertns, the single headsof H ermes whi ch were at crossroads and such in earl iest G reece.N o w these hertns, the assumption is, were originally phalluses,which, as sophistication came on, were rounded, at the glans penis,into heads, H ermes' head predominantly.

O lson conj ectures that the phal lus represented "man's most i mmedi ate w ayof knowing nature's powers" and was the "handiest image of that power."B ut the entire ref l ecti on i tself stands as a measure of O lson's ow narcheological and anthropological imagination as it projected from presentto past with astonishing and fecund fluidity.

W hat O l son wi shes for Origin are pages that "lie together as if a godwalked across them. " In his l etters to C or man, ful l of such startl ing i nsightand inspirat ion, one often feels the presence of such a rousting, p r o v o c a t i v egod. E f fusive, i di omatic , occasionall y ful l of bravado, the letters twi st andturn w i th the rapid shifts of Ol son's concerns. T hey exist as the essentialstatement of his posi tion and as the raw materi al of a poet's fancy. B y thesummer of 1951, O l son returns to B lack M ountai n C ol l ege and the lettersreflect his endeavors there, as Utopian and adventurously personal as some ofthe T ranscendentali st communi ti es establi shed before the C ivi l W ar.

T hrough his letters, Ol son develops an aesthetic point of vi ew. H eexplains the peculiarities of his spacing and layout in terms of a resistancewhich "must be a part of the style if it is part of the feeling." Hisobservations are precise and practical, as when he is concerned with the kind


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of typeface C or man wi l l use f or Origin. W hen C orman says he is consideringvaritype, Olson warns that the vowels and l's can come out too thin, creatinga loose and porous look with "holes in the word." For Olson, how a thing issaid is as i mportant as what is said, and that incl udes its vi sual presentation;f orm should be organi c, that is, the w ork shoul d lead the poet, rather thanthe poet arbitrarily choosing some convenient package to contain his ideas.A nd the best subject for poetry, O l son advises C orman, who is trying towri te his ow n poems, is not what you think is proper but always the self, theautobi ographi cal perspecti ve. T hese are the l i neaments of the " open" style,i ntroduced to A meri cans by another great T ranscendentali st, W altW hi tman, and embraced in our day by O l son and his group, by G insberg,and by now a legion of followers.

J O H N T Y T E I X


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W ed Oct 18 50 217 R andol ph PI N E W ash 2 D CM y dear C id C orman: It took me a bit, but you must not mind: we hadour lad, to keep us in touch. . . .

W ell , the thing you ought to know, is, that, thatyou have the wi l l to make a M A G is a very f ine thing, and is hailed, bythis citizen, (especially, I suppose, that it is also B O S T O N : by god,how long is it, that except for harvard sheets, which is not boston, therehas been S U C H A T H I N G ! all the way back to E merson's D I A L , i dodeclare, almost, isn't i t? W e except, of course, the quali ty, even whenit was edited by W D H ow el l s!) G ood for you. A nd may it prosper. N ow tfcsounds as tho I did not also welcome yr suggestion, yr O F F E R , that Ij oin you, as C O N T R I B E D . N ot at all. O n the contrary. Smells mighgood. B ut I am an older animal. A nd smell thrice, as I go around a newbaby, just, to make sure, it's going to be, a as I was had to be shookto be mighty sure, there's breath B R E A T H in it. (T hat shake must bewhy I got to be 6'7, oi dare soy.)It comes to this: any dispersing of authority means dispersing of force.W hich, in our terms, means T A ST E , or however one puts J U D G M E N T ,on poem, story, any prose or form known to man. N ow you've had thewi l l and so, already, you give a poem of mi ne (2 poems) a bed to goto to f ind print. Y ou have taken the step. I t is a proud one, for the likesof me. I am immensely grateful , that you exist. O K . L ook : so far, inmy short experi ence (that is, as wri ter) I have found onl y one man whohas J U D G M E N T in these matters the equal of what I take to be the D E M A hof our goi ng real ity. T hat lad you know.

L et me put it, straight, andstrong. H ave you already asked any others (beside Creeley) to be suchsecondary editors? A nswer me that one, f ri end, and I 'll come up wi tha possible suggestion. O kay?L et me hear fr you, and now, that it is goi ng, you'l l not have to wait,for answers. I wanted to unload this bomb, on the xst run. . . .

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M onday Oct 21 50 [217 R andol ph PI W ashington]M y dear C C orman: T hat's okay. I think yr reasons are wrong B U Tthe piece ["T he G ate and the C enter" ] is not yet set, so please don'tsend it to anyone until , inside the family, we have put it ri ght. A nd I 'lltell you why : because, T H I S piece is a testing (T E ST I N G ) not only ofpossible fresh new form in yr M A G but also test of how free you aregoing to be, my new friend!

T ake it step by step, thus: (1) the moment I learned(fr Ferrini, then you, then the Creel) that you were prepared to push byme the I DE A of correspondence not as of a notable but as a T H I N G initself (a F O R M , U N F O R M ) , a via of person pushing, then, I sd, thisweekend, the right thing to do with G & C, is to break it back either (1)to its first f orm as solid (most of the W addel l adds out) or (2) to let itemerge as of a lot of other slugs of letters before and aft, so that, itsmoving, wi ll f ind place in larger notions, & thus, its jags can be left,with other pieces, on each side, to make elaborations or clarities offrame:

for ex., yr objections to my slugging E D U C (not E R E ) are foundedon not-yet-sufficient-knowledge of primary position )the poet is thepedagogue left( now don't kid yrself : (1) j e suis un ecolier and whynot? (C f, below , on this, as of art, now, here, U SA , and yr probl ems,as of same schol arship vs tradi tional verse or mag concepts) (2) l amlong experienced in those places where O N E IS N O T L E D O U T (3) O necannot exaggerate the dangers, given contemp.( t) mags, and generalcontrol ( C O N T R O L ) of culture by, not scholars, but academics (whichis practicing poets, I mean, & critics, not, not, not S C H O L A R S (youare sucking wind with yr arse when you take it, I use names, hollowly(names of men so selected become images of force not taken up, mybarbarous bostonian)

( C O N T R O L : and by M O N E Y , my poor confronted lad: don'tthink I don't know all those arguments (what the hell doyou thi nk I 've been doi ng trying to earn a l ivi ng all theseyears: don't preach to me, the cons: I not only know thembut have been executive several ti mes over, and know(A N D PA SS B Y , my lad) these false necessitiesJ ust this. Please don't argue

Brandeis, or 10,000 dollars olson-side. 1 have, mytriend (and we'll go to details on this, any time you say),PA SSE D U P more of such dough in short-mi d- long li fe(and f rom your ow n very sources, l ike kind, several


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planes, in this hyar economy) than you are nowtalking about.A nd here's the J O K E R you mustlearn Y E T : that, despite all appearances & advicefr others (who have not had such chance or have

given in) the T I M E H A S C O M E when they need U S,and you can play it S T R O N G , boy: can play it ST R .(A s a matter of fact, yr ow n somewhat surprised ex-pression that there is backing, is proof (w hat Ilike is, that you have proved it (M A K E S A C O U Pfor you as pioneer (but turn it yr way (don't give methat dangerous modesty, that the B randeis gang areshrewder than you nuts, you are as shrewd as theycome (and my j ob is to keep warni ng you not to betoo S H R E W D : for that's the whol e trouble

wi th such talent as yrs: that, other shrewd men who are already in,make an impression on you. L ook, C id, take it as straight & f ri endly:PL A Y I T S T R O N G , don't K N U C K L E to dough, i t'l l come your wayA N Y W A Y(T he fact that you have gone so far wi th R C R , and am nowwilling, despite nervousness, to take a 40 page plungewith Olson, is plenty proof, you are no willy

A nd we'l lsee you thru. D on't be nervous. I 'm ready to whack you

the best 40 pages of , olson Y E T . A nd sure nuf R C R , as 2nd no.,is as sure a bet as you can put that M O N E Y on, this lad, he, is

So, to get back, and on:(1) you have stomach, and say, in this letter to me this morni ng,I W I L L U SE G & C . T hat's straight, and good. A nd it wil l shakedown, the moment we have the correspondence section work ed out:(even the anglo-saxon will get into place, be cool abt that!)(2) you have two poems, now. It you will give me some notion of dateyou will appear, I will slate work in hand (verse) so that all that istop wi l l go to you. (In fact, right now, 1 could lay home to you

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poems done since spring whi ch w oul d make anthol ogy out &ahead of what has been done.) M y onl y wish is that you wi l llead the O l son section in, w i th the verse. O r maybe, to keepthe whol e I D E A as f resh as possibl e, start wi th a verse, andthen break in w i th prose, and then out, again to verse. O r somesuch ordering, as of the way the process is. (W e should be ableto organize such a thi ng together most ali vely. J ust let me k nowdate, and guarantee me such space to push wi th, and I 'll give itto you, hot.)

(3) T he possibi l i ty of a story is one whi ch I wi l l take up later.O kay? (O nl y jesus christ, don't tell me I 'll do better: don 't you yetknow a man knows more abt what he hasn't done, isn't doing,than any other man si tting out there wi th a beady eye ?)

A l l ri ght. N o w I want to go f urther w i th yr who l e idea (and i do i t, notto stick my f i nger back in yr eye, at all ( f igured to do this anyway), butin order that i may function for you as sluice of other men's work f ory ou and to y ou: R E M E M B E R T H A T

F or example. T here is one R obert B arl ow si tting do w n there in A tzca-potzalco. I want you to tell me if you ever heard of hi m. (O r, f or thatmatter, did you ever hear of Sauer?) (O r, f or that matter, right dow nyr street, one M erk F rederi ck J ackson M erk? ) Pl ease tell me. Forit wi l l make the poi nt, w i thout derogati on to you at all . J ust, clarities,en scene. (I was deeply disturbed by yr remark (2nd last letter) that youwoul d expunge f r my l etters all remark s but those on art!)

L et me try to put the who l e thi ng in one package. (Y ou won' t be able toshow this letter to B randeis, but by god if such a concepti on of a M A Gas herein drawn is not more pertinent to them than some dishwateraesthetic flag flying f rom their masthead, I have wasted my ti me trotti ngup and do w n this land l ike J ohnny A ppleseed (and precisely in thei r well -heeled gardens w i th serpentine wal ls, as M r T o m J had the percepti onto bound them by!)(I am the wandering scholar, you dope.)A nd paid, bro, and P A I D !

Y ou see, the pay- of f is, that it is, actuall y, precisely, what you think is

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a way of maki ng me burn. I t is, god help me, a question of,K N O W L E D G E thi s business, of, ho w you, C i d C orman, can, 1951,construct a M A G , which will be pumpki ns.

N o w I'll try to say H O W . First, grab hold of this P R I N C I P L E , you arealready pushi ng: the correspondence as well as the f inished wor k of ,men (that finished work, of course, in the case of olson being, obviously,"finished" by same process of bearing in, on, toward, as is the so-calledun-finished.) 1 it has nothi ng to do, actuall y, wi th ol son: it has to dowith a process of fronting to the whole f r on to f r eajityas it now presents itself

-it rests (such a 40 pages, with correspondence) on apremise that no such confrontation can be doneby _(a) the old deducti ve premi se o f f o r m and thatgoes for poems as well as essays as well asstories (mark you)

(b) that art & cul ture are somehow separated f rthe other planes of energy on which a peopleexpress themselves (economics, politics,fi lms, television, or whatever "entertainment")

I(c) that l i fe (what is " human" ) is an absolute in-stead of what I think I am not at all alone intaki ng i t that is, specif icall y, "L i f e", thatdi rty capital (doric, cori nthian O R iambic)IS R E L A T I V E to condi tions of R E A L I T Y (asdistinguished from, as ahead of life "humanl i fe", at any given t i me: : : l i fe, in this sense, isa stop to consolidate gains already being pushed

beyond by the reality instant to you or to any manwho is pushing

O K . N o w w hy do you agree wi th R C R , that most of the stuff in the M A Gyou read is (I w on' t use your careless scatology) ? W hy ? (O r w hy do If i nd so many of the wri ters w hom you are impressed by, decidedly i m-pressive f or their someti mes extreme talents, wel l -made poems, stories,pieces o, say, H arvey Shapi ro, or R i chard W i l bur , or M iss H oskins,or, Stephen Spender (i ntimate) or w ho else do you thi nk of publ i shing?)W H Y ? A nd w hy should I weep to see you get out onl y another of suchM A G S as H udson, or P N Y , or N I N E ? (W hy do such make so much of the

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literary i nheri tance? W hy do you get, not onl y in the so-call ed creativework enclosed but also in the S T A T E M E N T S (Russell 's, say, announci ng,that magi c no., 9) such overt, coy, or covert woo oi ng o f by adjectives,by flaccid praisi ng exclusi vely art or literate precedecessors?Is there not a di rect connect

between the emphasis on (1) technical, skil l and (2) tradi ti on that is,cultural traditi on the assumption of a sure-human core: "hoomin", Imean (and not al clapp's clear obj ecti on) : whi ch is, was, always is,L I K E : a connect betw een this, and the " O , I am here, and O , I am human,and O, isn't it, weary-or-howlyrically lovely" (Barbara Gibbs) or "o notpretty yet but wi l l be" (R ukeyser or the lazy leftists) or " i t stinks, because,tho i don't say, I stink, which is what humans always have done, look atD i ogenes" or any of same, whi ch you may document, even on such ahi gh level (so much a source as) T .S . (GI ) E l iot?

W hi ch accompl i sheth W H A T (w here are w e at this 40 yr end of that essay"T radi tion & the I ndi vidual T alent"? O f the whole L I T T E L M A G (exception:the drive o f E P w ho never for a moment let his hand slip off the J ohnsonrod to his ow n loco., H I S energy as the thing to be put to U SE by A N Y T H I N Gof the past never let the P A S T for its ow n sake ( " human positionali sm")sli de hi m off (well , coul d say things otherwi se here, but, in context, heand W C W , only, O N L Y , mind you, excuse what is now H U D S O N P N YK E N Y O N etc. or w hy do you think it is only those tw o men w ho m theyare able to sell their sheets by? (now it is M elvi l l e, yes: but, what aM elvi l l e the same bizness, turn hi m into that same g.d. human humus,because, "we, poor things, have to have soil to grow skillfull i n"S H I T T H E P R E S E N T G O I N G R E A L I T Y IS T H E O N L Y S U C H SO I L

A ll right, wi th that last C A P ST A T E ment, let's go to yr M A G

do you, cid corman, thi nk that you can put out a P U S H , now , by notfol l owi ng up on the F I R S T P R I N C I P L E (the non-deductive, but f ormal totali tyof a man, say, in each issue) to the S E C O N D P R I N C I P L E , the same, f ro mp. 1. to page 75 (you say) A S O F T H E W H O L E R E A L I T Y N O W ?do you thi nk you can get that in by an eclectic selection of aesthetic w orkaround these States and, as you make me so nerv ous by by simi lar

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selection f r om the W O I L D ?

ok ay there is barl ow , what's he doi ng, that interests me? H is main j ob ,ri ght no w , is a li fe of M ontezuma. H e has edited f or some years a L I T T L IM A G called T l l uocan i n, watch this, N A H U A T L . T he last thing of hissaw was tw o pages in " C i rc l e" one a drawi ng by hi m of a "madonna" ofrocks and a spri ng he discovered in O axaca or somewhere. T he other pagiwas his impeccable and discriminating description of where he found it andw hat it is. (H e also wri tes verse, the qual i ty of whi ch, I cannot speak of.)

S ome years ago a wri ter named R esni kof f publ i shed a l i ttle book call edT E S T I M O N Y . H e is a l awyer. H e made his book up of selections f romcourt records, or situations, or words, or "plots" therein discovered.

D iana W oel l f er (w i fe of E merson W oel l f er, C hi cago Painter) sent meSaturday a cat. o f S IX ST A T E S P H O T O G R A P H Y (M i l waukee M useum).H er ow n pho to was of kids under swi ngi ng door of cantina (very muchCartier-Bresson :::: ifI got you notes by H C - B on trip j ust nowcompl eting self , Peki ng (M ao's entrance) ;Shang hai (the G ang's R etreat) ; I ndia,I ndonesia, and auto tri p C al cutta to Paris((the sort of thi ng he mi ght well do, yetno one is editing in such a fashion as tocall him out) short n o tes W O T W O U L DY O U D O W I T H IT (alongside T heodoreR oethke) ?

A nother photo was, titl e: " T hi ocarbami de C rystals 900 X " . F or years thebest prose I read was not tsel iot but in w ork of selig hecht, cl arence graham& other physio-psychologists working on such things as the rods and conesin a pi geon's eye. (In yr ow n backyard : mo re avai lable exampl e: the proseof one W i ener, mathemati ci an where up there? C ompare to (Brandeis)L ewi sohn. (O r your ow n prose, M I S T E R corman).

I have in my hand a poem by one R C R , cal led, "C hr i stmas C omes Early toO ne L os A ngeles Y ou th" w hi ch is cli ppings f ro m A P story out of L A , mitcomments, including "phew!"O ne Paul V alery, when he did edi t a magazine, call ed i t l ook !C O M M E R C E . . .

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W H A T SE L E C T I V E P R I N C I P L E IS T H E R E , the equal of , G E T T I N G I NT H E G O I N G E N E R G Y O F T H I S P R E S E N T - h e r e and now , U S , 1 9 51 -for A M A G?

((is yr "taste" in prose or verse or mine (on quality level) as i n-T E R E S T I N G ? as I M P O R T A N T as an attempt to do just that? T O G I V EIT , A S F A R A S Y O U R L I M I T S G O , not taste, but E N E R G Y ?is an editor N O Was recorder of such not much more i mportant than, an edi tor , as

lyric soul? as cri tic? as eclectic col lector of f ri ends, etc., asL I T E R A R Y W O R K '

I don't think, this day, or you, at this stage as correspondent, is gettingmy heat up enuf to make the poi nts whi ch shoul d be made. B U T do youk no w what started me on this track? Y ou did. W hen you w ro te abt " f orei gn"materi al , to me or C ree. I don't remember w hi ch.L ook : any F rench wri ter (say, better than M i chaux , or E luard, f or ourpurpose ri ght now , R em y de G ourmont, say)stands on SC H O L A R S H I P of his people (as well as a clear traditi onback thru the L atin to the G reek and on back)

he can be interlacktuwal as all hell because he has a body ofwork which he and his readers take for granted, base themselveson (a culture breathes, takes breath for granted, as men do)but such breath has been worked for, milleniums, my lad

D O Y O U H O N E S T L Y T H I N K - o r k now , f or that m at ter - A N Y A M E R I C A NC A N G O O N S U C H A S S U M P T I O N ? H ave you any sanctions for your acts?Even for editing a M A G ?B ut take a l ook at any li ttle mag, take a l ook at the P N Y issue starri ngA poll inaire. W hat happens? T he oldest thi ng here in these States:backtrailing, colonialism, culture scratching!

Suddenly B il l M erwi n, orwhoever is alongside, is, shown up, to be proceeding on culture concepts


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humani sms whi ch are patentl y N O T H I S A nd wi th no such C O R Eof E N E R G Y to offset same fine flowering of P A S T : W hat happens?mag coll apses, as F O R C EP N Y , that issue, was, nothing but reprint of A P O L L I N A I R E w hi ch, bygod, any alert man w oul d have gone to, at source, as part of process oflearning his trade in this hear time & day (or to some equivalent of sameas R i mbaud, say, or E dgar A l l en P oe (as W C W mi ned hi m, not Baudelaire)

Y ou see, it i sn't at all a matter of j i ngoi sm. I t is qui te another thing. I tis, this proposition : the reality contemporary to us, here, in the States(remember, you are publ i shi ng, B oston, 1951) is the thi ng we are of feredby whi ch to gauge real i ty. (T he other thi ng, human , is, (the gauge is) ofcourse, our ow n selves (w hi ch, by the way, is the reason, not any other,why, the limits I spoke of above, remain: you will, of course, set out to,pri nt, creative w or k . Y ou are not try i ng to cover the soci ol ogy. O r thepoli tics. O r the economi cs. O r the " l i terature" . Y ou are seeki ng toexpress, by a selection of work afoot by w ri ters, what is as far as youcan get it i n the goi ng real i ty cul ture-wi se. R i gh t?

B U T ask yrself : ho w , in a people and country l ike the U S , 1951, doesreality culture-wise express itself at its top ?

D o you for a moment thinkit wi ll express itself as F R A N C E di d? O r R ussia? O r J apan, now , 1951 ?N ot to speak of A thens, 450 B C

Is the A meri can energy (I am not local : I am pl ayi ng this record againsta back ground of events already played out: the A meri cani zati on of thewor l d, now , 1950: soda pop & arms for F rance to fight, not in E urope, butin I ndo C hi na, the li e of it)

is that energy where do you fi nd i t ex-pressed ? I n the fiction of R P W ar ren ? I n the poems of B I L L merw i n?

L ook, one of the reasons w hy I stress A meri can scholarship (note bene,Brandeis) Sauer B arl ow Stefansson L attimore Porada (think she'sItalian, actually)W i ener E dgar A nderson (on mai ze in A ssam)

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IS, that the A merican P U SH is not at all all machines & engineers

T H E F A C T is, that, americans are putting out a body of research R O U N Dthe W O R L D , whi ch is the ki nd of groundi ng on which that culture of E uroperested rests is now buried in here lies the anthillwhy not pick up, see, make clear, i l luminate W H A T 'S U P (as well asdiscover another Ezra Pound or wel l , since M elv i l l e who wrote prose)

why not (what does it matter that, Sauer, say, onl y publi shes in A m Phi loSoc mags: is not yr j ob (and mine as helper) to D O C U M E N T that P U SH ?K N O W L E D G E , lad, is what art and culture B U I L D O N

well , i qui t, for now . A nother time, another time. M aybeit comes to this:

if you are already ready to put one man forwardin his (approxi mate) total i ty give a shot athis reach by way of fragments and putsches,go by spontaneous, irregular, guerilla forms;why not take this the step further it alreadyimpl ies, and make that the f orm of your M A G :make it, such a presentation, a R E E N A C T M E N T OF ,the going reality of (approximate, shot at) T H A TW H I C H IS A B R E A ST O F U S: now, here & now, notwhat was what was we do lamentT H E W H O L E F R O N T , not "culture" "art" (I noteP N Y , in announci ng next issue, says "exci ting newpoets" SH I T ) "creative w or k" (thus admitting,furthering, the whole separateness and classificationswhich logi c & positivi sm (as well as X ty & H ebraism)have fostered) the whol e dull business of C U L T U R E

look a creative man is, ist, an alive one, and, as alive, takes careof his business, including his skills, or he's not alive, not creative, andnot worth the waste of yr attentionwe are not here either topraise or to bury B U T T O E X A M I N E

l o


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what's around, that is of U SE , not that, w e admi re:A E S T H E T I C S pah bah shit (leave that to what al ready isall magsnow existent in A m A nd E ng, so far asI can see)

give us somethi ng actual ly N E W , mr cc, and the E X -C I T I N G , wi l l take care of itself (beli eve me, bro.)

A G R A P H :E N E R G Y vs human i sm

non- deducti ve vs deduc (educ, pol i tuck, cul tchuckN A T U R E T A K E S N O T H I N G B U T L EA PS worseus progress, accumulati c(de B rogl i e brothers) succession, tradition

art as the wedge of theW H O L E F R O N T (god help us) vs art as culture

see you another time

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thursnov 950 [217 R andol ph PI W ashi ngton]

my dear duckweed:each sentence you wri te breaks my heart, it isas simple as that. so let's be practi cal :

(1) can you, wi l l you, by some means (even a notary, maybe!) give meabsolute assurance you will (despite all weathers, fair or foul) give methe 40 pages of issue # 1 you have told me you plan to give me?N o w this is not at all to arrogate away f rom you any control what -soever. B ut such a deal takes composing. A nd I cannot th ro wmysel f f or ward i nto it if it is in any danger of wastage. (Y ou wi l lsee how , i t is, almost, l ike a book, such a bl ock, and yet, the beautyof it, is, it is not a book, it is a magazine, and does, therefore,al low, precisely, the sort of composi ng by di scontinui ty, non- deducti on,field, fragment, grit & vulgarity, that, at root, can make a magazine,today, fresh.If you could make me confident that this part of yr 1st issue isdefinite, and decided, I am most anxious to go ahead, to see thework done and the work ahead in some such pattern, and, at atime (I asked you, approximately when you expect to go to bed)present it to you sufficiently ahead of the lock-up for you to goover all stuff in those pages.(Y ou see, you mak e me very nervous, when you list the poets youhave for issue #1 and put dow n O l son (2), C reeley (1), etc.

T hat's the old game, 1st of all . A nd 2nd, those tw o poems don'tgo together at all : either there shld be one (M A X ) or more, eitheror. A nd if there are more 40 pages woul d seem to i ncl ude more,no? then (w i th letters, & such a piece as Gate & C enter) , thereis composing j uxtaposi ti on, correlation, interaction cal l ed f or.)

B ut no w I come to the H O T that is, I can co me to it if you are able tomake your decision stick, to give me the 40 pages, that is, stick onmy most wi l l i ng skin (they call me, Sti cky- H air , out there, in the woods,where the oak is hospi table to the mistletoe). ( (B oston is, wher e myT rueL ove. . . .))

I have this P R O P O S I T I O N , to offer, as of 50 P A G E S


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what wou l d be much better than this one man (what coul d almost beanonymous, the work issuing in its course, and, by that work alonethe men be known) is this hot:50 pages to be a movement, a composing fr

the shifting correspondence of two writers, poems and stories coming upin the progress of that correspondence, the nature of it also representingexaminations of what key poi nts on the whol e f ront of l i fe & w ork todaythat correspondence gets toit coul d be an i mmense business and not necessari ly, be you remi nded,because of the tw o men i nvol ved (i am thi nk i ng of your readership andwhat such an inti mate, movi ng, upshooti ng thi ng as this w ou l d be for them,in the pages of, a M A G , comi ng, new , to thei r hands).B ut the tw o men invol ved, thank yr stars, are i mportant, si mply, becausethey are serious characters w hom you can well , yoursel f , put your pagesin the hands of ! (I say this, of course, because you have made it possiblefor me to say it, that is, you have assured Creeley and mysel f that, thetw o of us, are central to, your conception of, the M A G .)

(W hi ch, of course, does bring up all you wr i te me, in yrtw o letters received today, about B R A N D E I S . B ut I amhere most practi cal : the test you are looking for, ofsuch censorship as L ewi sohn, H i ndus and E lder G erard,is, precisely these 50 pages, N O T , the fi rst year of yreditorshi p. For you wi l l put yrself in the positi on ofearning their approval, if you go by this 1st year test:and it will mean, inevitably, that you will woo it, thatfi rst year. W hi ch , my f ri end, is worse than outrightcensorship.N o, the thi ng to do, is, to pi tch an act at them, to measurethem. (A nd if you want to do that ri ght away, I am sure,that both C reeley and I woul d pour i t on, to prepare, asrapidly as possible, those 50 pages, for you to use, asT E S T . )Say the word, on this face of the thing, and the two ofus wi ll plunge, and present you, wi th, a M E A S U R E .

I have this feel i ng: you have to take up your conf i dence in these tw o menin their practical power as well as in their (yr own word, & title) creativenow, right now, pitched as you are between (essentially) them, and theB randeis B oard the leetle Soupr eme C urt.

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It is always that way: you call yrself the C R E A T I V E Q U A R T E R L Y . If itis to be so, then, you (or anyone) is requi red to to let it be "creative"to let it come alive, be, yrself, willing to put yr faith in, life, the bitch,the confronting one. A nd it is not ever, just, yr own notions: the pitchis no longer C orman versus B randeis. It is, the materi al of, the men of ,his magazine (like you say)(like you say, eh?W el l , that's yr probl em. A ll I care to do, is to off er you, a T H I N G : 50pages of woven stuff from the heads & hands of two men (willing, I take it,to remain anonymous, remember just so that the whole thi ng can be readas its own revelations, not, the intervention of, w ho are these men, but,what is this work)T here it is. N ow , you tell me, whether to go ahead (1) instantly or / and(2) solidly. I'll await yr answer.

Good luck

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tuesdaynovember 1450 [217 R andol ph PI W ashi ngton]

my dear C or man:So, it was that easy to smoke you out, was it?

Well, well.L ook here: I don't at all care to be addressed in such

terms as this letter of yrs. A nd I shall keep same for whoever orwhatever use, it is called for.

I n yr fi rst letter to me, you all owedyou did not think I needed you. T hat remains qui te, qui te it.

Y ou are a great fool , C or man. W hen a man or tw o men areready to pitch in, to throw all their work your way, and you make suchposings you drive them off, that is foolishness, big foolishness.

Y ou are real ly qui te stupid. Y ou do not k now the dif ference betweenany of us j ust as wri ters w ho w i l l use you and your mag to get thingspublished, and quite another will & drive, of some such writers who,recogni zing the deep use a magazine can be to all w ho read, wou l d bewilling to go along with you in a project to put a magazine out whichwoul d be of that ki nd of U SE .Y ou had nothi ng to fear, and all to gain.T hat is, i f you did no t so palpably fear you have no taste at all . B utwhere do you think taste & j ud gment come f rom? T hey are earned, andit is not the least wise way to earn taste than f rom your betters especiall y,when such are ready to give you the best of themselves.

B ut that takes al ittle modesty. I am embarrassed, by your lack of i t. Such preening,that "the issue will be as I want it or there won't be any", is simply asil ly try to plug a space whi ch is empty, empty, my boy .

O r this: " D ealis to get the best we can: of what we want. A l ong the P R O J E C T I V E trail .'I don't l ike at all such cheap use of a w ord of my ow n invention. A nd,

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secondly, why, if it is you, do you put it " w e" ? A nd if it is "we" , whois we, and what of olson's work & letters has " w e" seen, eh?It isaltogether L OSS, C orman. I have the impression you must be a mostskil lful operator. Otherwise, how could you keep a radio tent show of

verse going, as you have, and, on top of that, get such backing for amagazine as you seem to have pumped up. A nd that's fine, that's ofuse. O n top of that, you have the awareness enough, to go to Creeley totake a body of stuff already in hand, and and I can tell you I valued thatinvite olson to take over 40 pages of your first issue.Put those twoaccompl ishments together, and you can stand in the l ight, C orman, you

can stand the l ight. M atter of fact, you can, after a bit, when such actionis made evident, stand quite clear, with a coup or two, in the history ofthis business. Y ou could even look a good deal l ike a couple of such f inepredecessors as M argaret A nderson and J ane H eep, you coul d. A nd youcould, as they did, earn the patronage of J im or J i l l X and the conf idenceof 0, say, such wri ters as one Creeley and one, olson.

B ut there it is. Y ou thi nk in a f lash to have somethi ng else, thatwhich is not so easily earned, that which you do not have and whichcannot be so easily arrogated to yrself.

N o, C orman. Y ou have yr limits,too, quite recognizable limits.N ote the shri nkage, and ask yrself as Icould ask anyone how come? W hat, other than your ow n fear of yourown lacks, accounts for

B A N G : "am offering you 40 pages 1st no."B A N G #2 "won't you be contributing editor"

1st D E M E R "well , no 4 letter words, & , er, ah, o, not,let us not, we can't afford, it is unnecessary,er, to attack, a.a.a., education. A nd you dothrow names around. . . ."1st N E W S of H O W T H E W I N D B L O W S :

"olson (2 poems)"& N O W , when his hand is called, L O O K :

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"F uck (4 letter word, exact) everything said by me to date: to you : remag.F I N E idea of duet (article): let's see it. (Oh, yeah? "arti cl e"?)N O assurances.

I repeat: " N O assurances".

L ook, lad, get off the pot.Y ou want to do a job? T hen,stop fucking yrself.

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217 R andol ph PI N EW ashi ngton 2 D CN ovember 20, 1950M y dear C id C or man:

N o w this letter (just read) f rom you makessense, and I thank you for it, thank you for the pressure of feelingwhich has made yr words behave. Fact is, such a letter does whatyou think two hours of conversation might (welcome that, tho I may).For i am a wri ter. W hi ch makes me a hearer (or vi ce-versa) and,all I have been compl aini ng abt, is, not what you are but what you don'tmake yr words say. O r somethi ng. D o, C i d, stay so nice & simple,straight: most of the thi ngs that w e need to say to each other can bejust that. I have certain things to of fer. Y ou can choose or not to takethem. A l l the necessary saying goes in betw een those tw o facts. T hedoubl e fact is, you come through, in such a letter as this, are aroused.Such a sentence as, " N o w you are hur ti ng yrself mor e than me" , isgood to hear, sticks, adds somethi ng to my day. A nd that's somethi ngto be thankful for.

I think my crankiness (and it was no more, at any time) was,wi th j ust one thi ng: that what you have been saying, takes more sayi ngthan you were gi ving it. T hat is, I put myself into that l ong letter toyou on a mag-today, spent hours making it, hours I might put into verseor into, say, an article li ke the P R O - V E R S E thing. N o w I have no reasonto think both the letter, and the PV piece, did not change you, or give youideas. B ut yr letters back were so scattered, unthought, lumpi sh, I wasleft dry & unhappy.T ake no w , e.g., yr reaction to my ki ck at yr phrase"along the P R O J E C T I V E trail ." M y lord, man, it deli ghts me that youplanned to make that concept the peg of yr editorial or statement. Y ouover-act, in taking it out: all I sd was, such a phrase as trail , was cheap.A nd l ord, boy , it sure is: a man doesn't put his seriousness out there inpubl i c to be handled j ocul arl y. B ut I dare say, in the editorial , you w ou l dnot be so careless. So w hy be less careful wi th me? Fact is, we haveto, one to one, be more precise, in a real sense, than in such moregeneralized places.

B ut I thi nk we are squared away at last, and I am glad. I shallhope so, for, as I have told you & others, the very existence of such amagazine as you project, is a happy thing (especially, I keep saying over

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to myself, fr B O S T O N ! (I had occasion to read I, M A X here last week,and it still moves me to the bottom of mv feet that, such, is, to be, there,on yr pages, # i , for example: it is l ike an epistle of an apostle tr R ometo the Ephesians when it takes its place in yr pages!) . . .

W ell , that for today. A nd best luck, as you go along.

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[217 R andol ph PI W ashington] Sat nov 25 50

M y dear C C : T hank you for yr letters, the 2nd of whi ch camethis a.m.(1) opening, and then not closing a parenthesis, is merelyto acknowledge that just that way is the way one does parenthesize,actual ly: true to feel ing (don't let the other convention troubl e you,for it's only conventional)

(2) l ike such titles much more, as T heSpri ng & T he Source. (In fact, if you cared for T he Gate & T heC enter, I have no obj ection to yr using that.) B ut I l ike S& S, verymuch.(3) spoke to Payne long distance ni ght before last. B utof course any stuff wi l l have to come slow, (theirs, I mean). A lsowrote K itasono & H irai (SH I G A K U ).

K eep me posted

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friday 50december 8 [217 R andol ph PI W ashi ngton]

my dear cid corman:black mt character Walked in j ust as i wassettin to wr i te you this morni ng , so, onl y now , 5 -.30, have i readyr second letter in mails today

and most grati f yi ng: you are on the f rontburner, lad, and it is most heartening, comes, in fact, at one of thoseneeded moments i thank you, deeplyin fact, i am very excited at your plan, to

" f i l ter" , as you say, such quotes as you now have f rom V incepoint was, i was going to write you today, tolet you know how all additional material now shaped up, that is, whatother poems I f i gured you shoul d see, f or selection, and what otherprose (i ncluding some decision on a recasting of G A T E & C E N T E R

for i understood, f rom yr earli er letter this week, that, the ti mehad comewhat i think is immediately important, is, that, you havemuch more of the verse for what i hav e to say to anyone, in a letter,arises, actuall y, f rom verse done, doing, or abt to be, done (i shoul dmyself want the proportion to be good, in this respect, of, the verse,in the issue, to the prose, and i am most happy that you put it, that"there should be, as I see it now, about 5 or 6 more poems of yours".

T he hi tch is, that some of it, a coupl e i thi nk belong, are stil l under hand.L ikewi se, some letters, selections f rom whi ch you mi ght be interestedin (for other areas there covered), I have asked back , to send you.

now that we are squared away, can you spare me one moreweek, or, say ten days? to make up a soli d package for you to sit d ow nwi th, and, in the l i ght of what you no w have, see, f rom your sitting,what you would like to have?the other thing is, to tell you, how mov i ngit is, to hear, for the 1st time, a man, mak i ng a magazi ne, say, he istry ing " to organi ze the issue on the pri ncipl e that the mag ought to beread f rom cover to cover as a single eff ect" B O Y , does that sound

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good, to ears, to, ears!nor shld you wor ry, abt f i cti on: fact is, i 'djust guess, that it is more accurate that way, simply because, today,now, it is not f i cti on that, any longer, leads out, the dance (narrative,is another matter, and, that quali ty, in N o. I , is, clearly, already i nhand, in yr composi ti on of i t l ike you say, "l i ke, a novel " !

(1 have, by the way,tried to set this di stincti on betw eenthe fictive and the narrative of re-(in fact, C reeley's enactment, in some notes cal ledwo rk is extremel y O U T S I D E , I N SI D E , wri tten as ani mportant exactly i ntroducti on to C reeley's stories,as the push beyond f i ve of them, whi ch may be somethi ngthe fictive) you wi l l be interested in, for issue #2;

yes, and another idea, for #2, wld be, to prepare for you, as final copy,a piece on H omer and M elvi l l e whi ch I once blocked out or , for thatmatter, the third of the tryptich, a thing on M elvi l l e & T he K i ng J amesV ersion of the B ible (the other of the three being, of course, the Shake-speare section, in ISH)i really wouldn't, if i were you, be concernedabt this fiction question now at all: i think you will come to see that itis a very beautiful fact, that yr mag starts as it is V E R Y B E A U T I F U L .A nd T E L L I N G . "

one other thi ng: i don 't k no w w hether 1told you i think yr namefor the mag is def ini tely on the ri ght track anyho w , i sat here by thefire last night trying to put my finger on what did not seem quite right,why, 1 was not qui te satisfied. A nd suddenl y I f i gured it out, and 1passit on, for what it is worth to you. M y concl usion was, that the troubl elay, wi th the / that the / was artif icial or made the thi ng look sel f -conscious.A nd then i saw it pri nted, and, fi gured, mavbe, C i d hadn't visual izedhow, the/becomes unnecessary, thus: l o o k - re S O U R C Eor better re S O U R C E

in other words, that, merely, in the choice of the type, and of thespacing both horizontally (lead) and vertically (the lower case, uppercase of the font) you can get not onl y all you w ant by that separation

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of the / but also, by removing i t, add to the doubl e entendreanyhow, there it is, for your pleasure

well, you know i am at work, have been, on the rest of the material,and shall have it ready any day soon. but if you are pushed, andwant me to start it coming at you, let me know, and i'll not wait to makeit all a single packagelet me hear and again, my very fullestthanks

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cidfriday [23 December 50 217 R andol ph PI

l ook: a series of the damndest things, just abt since i wroteyou (1) was setting off for Y ucatan today(2) had seven guests fr B lack M t(3) and then, 48 hrs ago, learned my mother wasseriously illso, maki ng now , for M ass., and hope, somehow , if things arenot too bad, to see you

In any case, I have not forgotten, and will carry along all msswhich are pertinent.Stand by to hear f rom me.

Cordially

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[217 R andol ph PI W ashington]M y dear C id C orman:H ere it is, entire, the package, I promised you.(J anuary 12, 1951)

I tell you what: my impression is, this time,(& the material sitting as it is, as of, now : plus your moxt exci tingplan to weave the letter-passages, as skein) that, the thing to do, is,to maintain one tone. (I should imagine that, the work of the others,will, relieve it!)So I have selected the package, both the verse,and the prose. A nd, wi th one exception, I thi nk it does all go together.

Thus, you can select or order or re-order with no anthologicalprobl ems! T hi s is all , all, one face of the character, ol son!(T he excep-tion what you already have, I SSU E , M O O D . W hi ch, it is my impression,let's hold over for some further issue, when, along with it, we can getin, if you choose, more variety.)

SO : for yr taking: it woul d be (I summarize, only to be clear, myself ):L ES L E T T R E S (as you have them, and as you want anythingmore f rom me, yes?)I , M A X I M U S OF G L OU C E S T E R , T O Y O U (my proud baby)T H E GA T E & C E N T E R (wi th what rewri te you shall ask of me)

plus the enclosed:T H E E SC A P E D C O C K (which seems to me a pair wi th, T H EG & C and L ES L E T T R E S & whichcould, as could T H E G & C , be brokenback to f orm a part of, L ES L E T T R E S ?)

& a verse-prose:T H E S T O R Y O F A N O L S O N , A N D B A D T H I N G

& the songs:A D A M O M ET H E M O O N IS T H E N U M B E R 18


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and A PO -SY , A PO -S Y

It excites me very much, this, this hammer i ng, this, actual ly, thisaxe-head! O , C orman, that, if it happens, if you li ke it as a whol e,that, out of B oston, as O R I G I N , this, this should, come! O , lad, you,shall have, you, my, such, thanks, such, thank you that you had theenergy, the wi l l , the push to D O I T !

W hi ch squares us away, I think & hope, yes? A bt the ti me you get thiswe will be picking our way southward, for my first vacation in sevencount 'em years. T here wi l l be no new address until I get there. So,please, do not let that delay you, or i mpede you, one bi t: wri te to mehere, and it wi l l f ol l ow me as I di rect, until I k now what our addresswi l l be in Y ucatan, whi ch I wi l l send you, almost on arrival . (I do nothave money enough to stay long, so, for that short time, let's uscommuni cate by air mail , yes? counti ng the cost against sun, yes?(O nl y a coupl e of cents more, actual ly. A nd very fast.D epend upon it. For your wor k ,& the future o f O R I G I N ,is important

. . . W hi ch does it, yes, as of the mo ment, except that, to answer yrletter yesterday to thank you for i t, and to al l ow , I'll answer otherthings, l ike space, as I go, please?For we are j umpy w i th, the getting away, shots, how to leave thehouse, what clothes (to press) ((instead of , what ought, to buy)) whatshoes (to have tapped) , etc. so, please, excuse, this latter hal fof this letter: I put all my mi nd i nto, the ist, hal f .A nd thanks to you, f or the action of , f rom your heart, yr hand: &to yr angel (who sounds so close) best health and, the strength,of yr affection

all love, as I leave

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L E R M A C A M P E C H E M E X I C O (do not put Y ucatan: it was my ow nerror slows mail one full day)Friday Feb 9

M y dear C id:Y r letter of last Sat just in, and I make haste to tellyou I have it, and that I am now here, and, for the moment, based &a little squared away. I am sorry I have been so slow to catch up againour mutual doings, but as I may have warned you travel upheavesme no end. I am still thin f rom it, up in the air (though this ti me Iimagine it is the language problems whi ch have me on the hook: I haveyet to have two hours to find out what are the simplest laws of Spanishconstruction! things have been happeni ng so steadily)

T he tw o letters you speak of, should be in my handstomorrow , I 'd guess (we did not get here until this week, and eventhen had a hell of a mess on our hands, this huge house covered wi thplaster, every tile. A nd we had to take it in that condi ti on or gowi thout. So we have had to spend more time here wi th pails and scrubbrushes, than wi th head or sun! ((W hat kept us, l onger than just theboat fr N ew Orl eans to Progreso, was, that, because I was up thereto the northeast, 1 decided to go to C hi chen first. T he whi ch wassomething, & right to do, though the almost total loss of the color thatthe place wore when it was alive, makes it, so inaccurate that, to adocumentarian like myself, I am as teased out of depth as I am by thisl iving where the speech is (for me) pri mi ti ve rudimentary, rather.(((But what is alive, and, is the very most exciting thing of all for me,is M ayan, the language! A nd I have already started to learn as much ofit as I can; so much more important to me than Spanish. In fact, if Iwere of dreams, instead of the usual amount of human stupidity, in fiveweeks I would constitute mysel f what they call around here a "M ayi sta"(in distinction fr "archeol ogi sta") . For already I smell things in theseliving M aya which are gates to now & then more solid than stones. In thisconnection, wi thin two hours of arrival in M erida, I had learned of twopowerf ul things of B arl ow (whom you wil l recall I promi sed to enlistf or OR I G I N ) : (1) a yr ago, unknown to me, he had done preciselywhat I have now done (and, of course, wi th supremeequi pment, he) had settled at T elchac (anotherfishing village like this one, on the north coast ofthe peninsula, near Progreso) to master this speech,in order, I should imagine from my own temper, togo in by way of it to those passages of man thatarcheologists do not get to ((it is wild, the way all


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the big guns of Carnegie &Peabody etc., actually resttheir careers on a people whosewhole value, recovered, is aesthetic,and yet, with the possible exceptionof T ozzer (& among the young Barlow)they themselves are without aestheticcomprehension!))

In other words, B arl ow was taki ng the step whi ch the present demands ofany worker any where: S O U N D S .(2). T he second fact of B arl ow is astragic a thing as I have known now for sometime: one month ago, in hishouse in the suburb of M exi co C i ty call ed A tzcapotzalco, he dismissed

his boys (he lived alone, was, c 35) wrote them a letter in M ayan, andki l led himself wi th an overdose of sleeping pills. Y ou wi l l gather, f romthe way I used hi m as a poi nt d'appui to you, how very much of a loss Ithink this is to all contemporary A meri ca. ((H is reasons, so far as Ihave been able to talk to those who knew hi m in T elchac and in M erida,are wholly obscure.It is unbearable, that he is lost, right now, forthe work that needs to be done. I am heart-broken I shall not have thechance I so deeply looked forward to, to meet hi m, here, or in M exi co

C i ty this year. . . . I cannot think of a man who was so clearly thatcombination I would see as just as much pri me to creative work nowas the androgyne is to poli tics (M ao, say), the former combi nationthat of documentarian & the selectivity of the creative taste & mind.

. . . D o say hel lo to V ine & Peg for me, and tell them I shall be wri ti ng tothem as soon as I can f ind out such thi ngs as where one gets mi lk, howto say basin in the market, and to manage to make our I ndian l andlordget a pl umber to flush the toi let! (W e are that close to beginning l i f e-even on the skirts of such a civi l ization as the M aya!)

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tuesday feb 20 (51) lermamy dear C i d:

A note, quickly, to thank you for your letter, which justcame, and to tell you that the rewrite of G & C is under hand (yr otherletter, about it, to W ashi ngton, arrived here yesterday; on my ow n partI wi sh to l ighten some of the emphasis on W addel l 's book, to keep thewhole piece f rom being squeezed into too narrow a reference. For it isnot W addel l , but the refreshment of values so far as history goes, thatI am after. A s the final version came out, it bore do wn a l i ttle toospecif ically on arguable historical event (such as the K ing-L ists). B utit is minor change. A nd should free the whol e into a l ighter air. Ishall also try to avoid lambasting those ex-confreres, the modernacademics, like you say.

O ne thing, though: it means very much to me that youshould lead me off, in issue #1, w i th a poem, not wi th G & C . M y impressionis, that yr original intention, was to use I, M A X , as the fi rst of my things,yes? I should be very much obl iged if you wil l still do that, in fact,precisely because it is an epistle, and a sort of opener of the can, aswell as a poem, it does do what I think you yrself are af ter: no matterwhat prose is, it is not, if it is not a story, a created thi ng as is apoem.((It is even, is it not, a sort of bowsprit, with figurehead, no?that thing I am so sof t abt, I , M A X I M U S O F G L O U C E ST E R , T O Y O U

. . . I 'm afraid I don't know enough to visualize photo-of fset, but, so far assmoking out further funds, I think the handsomer and solider you makeissue # 1 the more you are l ikely to harvest (A mericans being so easilyimpressed by appearance). Y ou wi l l , of course, know best. Tell me,what is the type-face such offset allows?Y ou know , there is one help you coul d give me on this M aya thing. Icannot buy or even borrow , here in Y ucatan or M exico, a copy of A l fredT ozzer's A M A Y A G R A M M A R W I T H B I B L I O G R A P H Y A N D A P PR A I S E-M E N T O F T H E W O R K S N O T E D , Papers, Peabody M useum of A mericanA rcheology and E thnol ogy, H arvard U niversity, V ol. 9, 1921. I wld writeto Peabody direct, but the trouble is, for the book to be of any use to me,I ought to have it long before I am told it would reach me, parcel post.Obviously air mail would be the answer, but I have no way of knowinghow heavy V ol 9 of such studies is, and dasn't commi t myself to the cost,wi thout knowing. (T he book itself , I am told, is onl y $3-So). Could you,wi thout spending too much time, determine how best to handle this? Itwoul d be a great help. A nd if it works out that it can be solved w i thoutmuch trouble & w i thout too much in additi on to the cost of the book (maybe


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air parcel post?), and you could manage the dough, I can reimburseyou by check (the advantage, to me, if you could do it, without furtherconsultation, is, of course, time). . .It was damn nice of you to think of offering to aid me on any such stuff.A nd curi ous, that, this very day, I had been aski ng myself , how can Iget the T ozzer! So you musn't feel j umped. It was, stars! Echoes!!In any case, Peabody M useum ought to know all the answers on mai l ing,they being in such touch precisely wi th Y ucatan: i t just might happenthey are flying down a man, or something, this week, who might carrysame to M erida, and mai l to me, say, if he were traveling l ight.W ell , I toss it to you, and shall be mucho gratias, for whatever, youfind possible.

. . . W ri te as much and as soon as you can. W i l l see that G& C gets of fto you, despite the terrible temptations: to swim, to go into the hillsand hunt ruins, or just to loll!

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[24 Feb 51 L erma]

cid: yr letter just in, and i have an idea1st, i think (though I certainly grant the necessities of cost any manprinting today faces) that you ought to take further steps to exhaustthe possibility ot type before you go into that modern monster, varitype.For this battle too is a part of the battle of culture now (in fact, thatugly thing, modern economy, is precisely squeezing you when it pushesyou away f rom type to a machi ne whi ch, was invented is advertized andexists onl y by the inexcusable uses it offers to B U SI N E SS)on top of that, as i sd to you earlier this week, ) am very much afraid(going by my ow n taste as somewhat a measure of the kind of peopleto whom you must look f or support once the magazine is started) thatyou will, with varitype, be penny wisebut i want to offer you more than merely the objections of my taste,as well as predictions. 1 want to offer you help in cutting through thisdamnable barrier modern economy has put us all in:(1) my thinking went this way, that, somewhere in the envi rons of

Boston, there must be a printer with some of the old feel plusan economic situation which does not involve big city costsmy mind went to C ummi ngton, of course, thinki ng that it justmi ght be that that gang up there (who are, of course, li ke allliterary printers, somewhat too fancy for my taste) anyhow, thatthat gang up there might just be looking for a chance to put 111to a magazine like yrs (now you may well not want any such extraengagement of persons, but, at least, I don't imagine such wouldinterfere with you as Brandeis proposed)in any case, I rather thmk you woul d be happier wi th a j ob printer:have you asked, and asked, abt such, in any small town near you?any man who is good and yet who hungers for a chance to do morethan letter-heads?

B U T (2), then, on the pot, I got hot: look L O O K sitting right out therein H yde Park, suddenly I real ized, are tw o of the best birds I knewat B lack M ountai n (where almost all such are trained to presswork),Paul W i l l iams and D an R ice, plus a lad named, I think, J ohnD ickinson, who wri tes wi th considerable distinction (1 noticed himfirst, along with Perchik, in "Resistance")

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N O W I am wri ti ng after this note to you, to W i l l i ams and R i ce, askingthem if they are there, and to get in touch with you if they have anyideas to of fer (W i l l i ams is as hi ghl y trained a man in moder nprocesses and machi nes as I know , and you can depend absolutelyon hi m: as wel l , he is sweet to the core, tough worker, and gi f ted

on top of that, both W i l l i ams and R i ce are close to me, and w ou l dif there is any chink in the wall, put their hearts in to gettingout a handsome issue # i of O R I G I N

PLEASE do not C ommi t yrsel f to vari type unti l thesefriends have had a chance, at least, to help!

L ove & quick

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lerma march 1,51campeche

my dear cid:i hope you'll agree, it came out wonnerful! 1 am verypleased it shrank (as you thot it might, too), for it now carries its weight(Waddell) much more lightly, much less by argument, much more bytale & assertion. A nd I am extremely pleased Part 1 is back to the sortof clog & shuffle it was in the 1st place, a sort of turkey trot, before,the laying of , the egg! (Part I I , the E GG!) In any case, it is what Iwas after, and I send it off to you, air mail, complete copy, with acertain sense of immense satisfaction (I never, as you knew, liked theversion you had: it got too much W addel l and thus obscured, the real

point, of, where we are, and how we go ahead.)at the same time, i have, i hope, obviated all the difficult-ies of profanity as off-beat anger which you wrote to me about: 1 think theonly suggestion you made which i have not followed exactly, is, to removeSoc f rom the opening para. B ut, as you see, I have removed the nasty word.((Please go along wi th me, in leaving hi m there, r ight at the start, eventho I can see yr point, that, he may seem to make a stumble for the rea-der. (But if the style is going to be entered on anyway, by any alive

reader, he can't say I di dn't forewarn him!) N o. B ut seriously, I wantto assure you, that, in hangi ng one on Soc, I am being accurate: he isas much a Sacred C ow to be slaughtered, cut up, di sposed of , as ishis T wi n, C H R I S T . A nd he stands, and should stand, right there, offthe bat, as T H E E N E M Y . For he is (I have not, for so many years,been engaged in dialectic, for nothi ng: if you watch, you wi l l discoverthat, in conversation after c., you are shadow-boxing that old bastard,that old divi nely gif ted but false man he is much more the B I G G U Ythan Plato, much more the significant force (Plato was just a tremendouslygifted re-write man, of same Soc) ((it would be a telling thing, ifsomeone woul d do a book, entitled S O C R A T E S A N D C H R I S T , anddoi ng exactly opposi te of D ahlberg see them not as heroes but as devils))But my big pleasure is, that the piece is now in a compass exactly rightfor its tone. T he whi ch is the j ob I ow ed you. T ake it, wi th my thanks,that you are giving it print. . . .I hope by now Paul W i l l iams and you have got together, that, between youyou may have, somehow, obviated vari -type. In any case, please wri te meback about everythi ng, how all goes, and what's the schedule ahead: youwi l l imagine that, as the D A Y comes closer, I am beginning to heat up,from anticipation! A ll best, all ways


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[on front of envelope]

"o my sone, rise f rom thy bed. . .work what is wise"

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[6 M a r c h 5 1 L e r m a ]

C I D :m o n d a y m o r n , m a r c h 6 , a r r iv e d ( i ) T O Z Z E R , g r a m m a r & (2) M A P ,a r e a, f r T u l a n e , s o , a m s q u a r e d a w a y , a n d , m o s t i m p o r t a n t l y , 0 1 1l e n g u a , t h a n ks t o y o u : I e n c lo s e c h e ck f o r D O L L A R S 4 . 3 9 , b u t w i t hth is i n ju n c t i o n : i t is th e ve r y l a st m o n e y 1 h av e in bank ( th at i s, m yu n c e r ta i n b o o k k e e p i n g s h o w s , 6 b u c k s , e v e n , m e a n i n g , th e 4 . 3 9o u g h t n o t t o b o u n c e , a n d i f y o u a r e s e v e r l y p r e s s e d , y o u m i g h t t a k ea c h a n c e . H o w e v e r , i f y o u c an w a i t u n t il m y b a n k b a l a n c e c o m e st h r u f r W a s h i n g t o n (it u s u a l l y c o m e s t h e r e t h e 2 5 t h o f t h e m o n t h ) ,1 c a n m a k e y o u a b s o l u t e l y c e r t a i n (a n d s a v e m y s e l f a b u c k c h a r g e ,t o r t h e i r l o u s y s e r v i c e s o n a b o u n c e d c h e c k : y o u s e e , t h e o n l yr e a s o n 1 a m s l i g h t l y n e r v o u s , is , t h a t , I n e v e r k n o w w h a t c h a r g e st h e y a r e a d d i n g a n y h o w , f o r t h e i r m i s e r a b l e l i t t l e c h e c k c h a r g e s , e t c . ,e v e n w h e n t h e m o n e y t h e y a r e u s i n g f o r t h e i r u s u r y is m i n e , s o l id ,g o o d e a r n ed m o n e y , f o r g o o d s e x c h a n g e d m y g o o d s , o b v i o u s l y ,b e i n g , w h e n a n y m o n e y is e a r n e d , n o t t h e p r o d u c t o f m y l a b o r b u t ,t h e n a t u r a l r e s o u r c e s h e r e i n c o n t a i n e d .

T h e m o r e 1 t h i n k o f i t , t h em o r e s t r o n g l y I h o p e y o u c a n h o l d it f o r a f e w d a y s , u n t i l I c a n le ty o u k n o w i t's g o o d d o u g h o , w a i t a m i n u t e , I k n o w h o w t o s o l v et h i s : l et m e s e n d y o u t h e s t a m p v a l u e 111 s t a m p s ! A n d t h e b o o k v a l u eb y c h e c k . T h e n y o u w i l l h a v e w h a t y o u p u t o u t , a n d a l s o , t h e r e s h l db e l e f t, in m y a c c o u n t , e n o u g h t o c o v e r a n y o f t h o s e d a m n a b l e c h a r g e so f th e i r s f o r us i ng m y m o n e y : ( ( 1 f i n d m y s e l f s o o t t e n a g r e e i n g w i t hE Z ' s e c o n o m i c s , w h e n i t is t his e l e -m e n t a r y , t h a t i s , t h a t , w h a t w a s l o s t( b y t h e i n c r e a s e o f p o p u l a t i o n t h i s i sno t EZ ' s i ns i gh t , a l a s , and th us , h i sw h o l e a r g u m e n t is d e e p l y i n v a l i d a t e d H O N E S T Y , as a p r im e o f b e h a v io u r ina to w n o r a c i t y ) ( (a ro u nd th e se p ar t s ,e . g . , a w h i l e b a c k , i t a m a n w a s at h i e f , h e w a s , d i s c o v e r e d , f r o m t h e n o n ,t h e s l a v e o f t h e m a n h e s t o l e f r o m , f o rl i f e ! ) )

w i t h h o n e s t y g o n e , i t w a s n o l o n g e rp o s s i b l e f o r m o n e y t o s t a y w h e r e i tb e l o n g s , i n a m a n ' s j e a n sO r , o t h e r w i s e , a b a n k sh l d p a y m e t o rk e e p i n g ( u s i n g ) t h e m o n e y , i n s t e a d o ft h e r e v e r s e . ) )

1 s


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A nd del ighted, that you got together wi th B M C three: two, rather, plusDickinson, whom I hoped, out of it, you wl d like the prose of : he is asort of antique A meri can thing, the blueberry time, simpliccimus,T horeau-time, the posi tionali sm (& nerves) B E F O R E quantity theabove, plus natural resource, due to machi ne became the contradictory,but leading principle of modern life:I am getting so sick of the inabilityof our freres to come to grips with the change that the tripling of worldpopulation (& the what-ing of world resources) in the past 100 years(or 150?) has done to values, that I am tempted ri ght this day to sit downand wri te out for you (f or a later OR I G I N ) exactly how this change haseffected A L L (equals everythi ng) B ut it stil l seems to me so obvious &so pri me, that, the dopes, they should not need to be dri l led (Ortegaput it out on the table for them some certain years ago) ((tho with a

twist which is pedantic of him, existenz, even tho Spani sh U namunowas a truer man))So please wri te again soon. A nd I wi ll . T his, to thank you M U C H OM U C H O

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[L erma] M onday M arch 1 2 , 1 9 5 1M y dear C i d:

. . . I arn spent, today : gave a lot of ti me, last week, tothe f ield. I t is a pleasure, as you'd guess, but damned diff icul t onthe system, and yesterday and today, I have had to lie l ow . T he dust,when you are pulling out the face of a ruin, for fragments, isterribly fine, and clogs my chest rapidly, giving me almost a formof pneumoni a. Y et I can't stay away ! A nd walki ng, now , in thesun, any ti me after 10, at the latest, in the morni ng , is murder :it is not possible to move again until 4 in the afternoon. But I madeprogress, by that ki l l , last week. H ave the prob l em now in shape.A nd i t is b ig: i t comes out thus T H E SEA , in M A Y A N E C O N O M Y ,and I T S E F F E C T S on T H E I R C U L T U R E A N D A R T . W hat I need,is (1) moneys, f r some f oundati on, to keep me in the f ield, here

(2) a j eep(3) a schooner, or l aunch, to survey the sites of the who l ecoast, the East side as well as, now that I have sketchedit, this W est nor th and south of me here (f or exampl e, the

greatest sea site of all , yet know n, is the Isla de J aina,j ust no rth of us about 20 mil es. A nd cannot be got toexcept f r sea.)(4) books, or, in l ieu of that, airplane money to shoot toM erida & back

So you see how impossible it all is!

In a sense, it doesn't matter. T here is much I canturn my hand to, I suppose this disappointment (for I don't see howyet to make a push for such a stake, even, for the smal lest part ofit, j ust the small moneys to go on l i vi ng here, and travel ing, thehard way) is of l i ttle moment. F or example, yesterday, lyi ng l ow ,if I di dn't start a piece on D ahlberg's last book! M aybe, if I keepinterested, it mi ght be somethi ng you w ou l d be interested in, f or afuture numb er : it wou l d have to be a study of demoni sm in the presentsociety. A nd, perhaps, by it, I coul d take the step f ur ther that yousuggest, on S O C & C H R I S T O S : for D ahlberg is profoundl y wro ng(which is a great way to be, if you can't be prof oundl y ri ght a pro-posi tion, by the way, that w ou l d need prov i ng to our lazy time, despitethei r secret ack nowl edgements of such demons as H i tler, say). A ndboth Soc and Christ are figures he works his wrongs out by way of:(if you have the R odi ti pi ece you menti oned on D ahl berg handy, shoot


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it to me, i f you can: I 'd be curious, to see his argument against D )W ell , this is j ust to thank you, and to tell you I am al ive and atit. D o wr i te.

O , yes: is it going to be possibl efor you to send me proofs? I hateboth to ask it and to do it, but,my experience is, printers neverbel ieve the spaces 1 leave areserious. A nd fuck up any no. ofeffects, thereby. D o let me have yr best thought, on this.

A nother idea, for future no.: thruGus Stromsvik, the Carnegie's tough field boss,I have come to kno w and enjoy one H i ppol i to Sanchez, inthe C ampeche M useum (he comes for dinner toni ght).W hat's important, are his drawings of the glyphs atC opan : they are the f inest things since Catherwood's,my impression is, f iner. N o w I don't kno w how you aregoi ng to be set up for repros, ahead. B ut keep in mi ndthat, if any such thi ng becomes possible, no morebeautiful and interesting presentation of the force ofthis language-design w hi ch is cal led M aya can be gottenthan Sanchez's unpublished drawings.

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l e r m a , c a m p e c h e , i n e xm a r c h 2 2 5 a n y w a y B a df r i d a y

c i d :m u c h o t r a b a j o ( w h i c h g e t s s d , a g a i n & a g a i n , h e r e a b o u t s ) :3 h r s & 1 1 2 y e s t e r d a y t e a r i n g d o w n t h e s i d e o f a c u t in a c u y o ( m a nr u i n ) n e a r h e r e m u c h d u s t , b u t m a n y t h i n g s , e x c e l l e n t p o t f r a g s , &a f i n e s t u c c o e a r t a b r e t , as w e l l as c u r i o u s r o u n d p i e c e s w i t h h o l e s in

t h e m , u s e d , I f i g u r e , a s d e c o r a t i v e r a is e s o n h e a d d r e s s ( th i s p a r t i c u l a rr u in is a l it t le j e w e l . A n d t o d a y th e o w n e r c o m e s , to s ee w h a t a r r a n g e -m e n t w e c a n m a k e t o r t a k i n g i t a p a r t o n e t r o u b l e i s, a m e r i c a n s , p r e -v i o u s l y , h a v e w a n t e d w h o l e f i g u r e s , & j a d e p i ec e s , w h i c h I d o n ' t g i v ea d a m n a b t . B u t , t h a t t h e y d i d , m a k e s n a t i v e s t h i n k , I a m d i g g i n gf o r s a m e . W h i c h h a m p e r s . )

m u c h o g r a c i a s , f o r y r l e tt e r , a ll a b t , b u s in e s s o f , O R I G I N ( by t h e b y , y o u w i l l i m a g i n e h o w d e l i g h t f u l t h e n a m e c o m e s a c r o ss ,d o w n h e r e , w i t h o n e ' s h a n d s i n , j u s t s u c h , as o f , t h e p e o p l i n g o t ,t his c o n t i n e n t : i f i c a n e s t a b l i s h i t , i m a y h a v e f o r y o u a p i e c e , o n e d a y ,c o n n e c t i n g u p , t h is d e m o n s t r a t i o n t o , p r o p o s a l s o f , G & C ! )

. . . i w a s d e l i g h t e d w i t h y r A l b a n i a n , a n d it y o u k e e p i n t o u c hw i t h h i m , le t m e k n o w , f o r , w h e n e v e r i h a v e in h a n d p ro o f o n P R A I S E S ,& ca n r ele as e a c o p y o f I N C O L D H E L L , I N T H I C K E T , I s h o u ld l ik e t os en d it t o h i m , f o r a p r e s e n t , j u s t t o s h o w h i m ( p r o b a b l y l o v e r of H a f i z ) ,h o w m u c h c e r e m o n y th e r e is , n o w ! f o r h e d e s e r v e s i t, f o r u s i n g t h ew o r d , c e r e m o n y , b e a u t i f u l c o n c e p t t h at it i s ! ( H e s o u n d s l i k e o n e o ft h o se w o n d e r f u l r e si s ta n t m e n t h a t m i g r a t i o n st il l l e a v e s g a p i n g , l i k el o v e l y f i s h , o n t h a t u g l y s h o r e , t h e u n i t e d st a te s o f a m e r i c a ) . . . .

y o u h a v e n ' t sd a n y t h i n g a b t p r o o f s a n d it b e g i n s t o g e t c lo s et o A p n l 1 5 . Is it h o p e l e s s ? I f s o , p l e a s e , g o o v e r a l l o l s o n w i t h s o m e o n e ,w i l l y o u ? t h a t i s, w a t c h c a r e f u l l y f o r ( 1 ) t h e s p a c i n g , t h a t , it k e e p t h es a m e p r o p o r t i o n s I g e t f r t h is m a c h i n e ( p r i n t o r v a r i t y p e s p a c e is d i f f e r e n t ,a n d it is t h e f e e l i n g o f t h e e q u i v a l e n t p r o p o r t i o n t h a t i a m a f t e r )& ( 2) w h a t i s a l w a y s a t r o u b l e t h a t , m y l i n e is o f t e n s o l o n g , i to v e r h a n g s , in t y p e , a n d s o , I h a v e a l w a y s t h e h e a d a c h e t h a t , t r a d i t i o nc a ll s f o r t h e o v e r h u n g l i n e t o g o a ll t h e w a y b a c k t o t h e l e f t m a r g i n ,w h e n , f o r m y e f f e c t s s u c h is d i s a s t r o u s : it s h o u l d , a n y o v e r h u n g l in e ,be p l ac e d a t th e right m a r g i n , th e e n d o f th e w o r d o r p h r a s e c o i n c i d i n gw i t h t h e e n d o f t h e l i n e w h i c h i t is o r g a n i c a l l y a p a r t ( (I t h i n k y o u h a v ea c o p y o f M o n t e v a l l o R , w i t h K i n g f i s h e r s : it is n o t st ill a ll r i g h t , b u t ,I d i d t h e p r o o f i n g a s b e s t 1 c a n , a n d y o u w i l l s e e, t h e r e , h o w 1 w a n t a no v e r h u n g l in e t o w o r k ) )O , ye s , ( 3 ) i n d e n ta t i o n s , th a t i s , th e other s p a c i n g p r o b l e m , t h e s p a c e1 i n t e n d f r l e f t t o r i g h t : t h is is a l w a y s b e i n g t a m p e r e d w i t h ,b y p r i n t e r s p l e a s e , h e r e , t o o , s e e , t h a t t h e r e l a t i v ep r o p o r t i o n s a r e a c c o m p l i s h e d , y e s ?


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I shall be most grateful to you, if you can't send proofs, if you will bethis kind, and take the time I know it, hopingly, takes, to do this for me.For as you yrsel f 1 k no w I have a damn i rri tating style of punctuati on& pl acements (1 do it gravel y, as a part of, my method, bel ieving that,resistance must be a part of style if, it is a part of the f eel ing) andif errors creep in, palpable errors, then, the who l e careful structurecomes down. F or then any fresh or new placement or punctuati on,instead of creating eventual confidence in the reader, seems, instead,to be a cause for uneasinesses A nd it is the more necessary in vari type,simply because (i) varitype is relatively new, and the reader not yetaccustomed to its face,

&(2), the major problem of it, for my money, that, varitype,for some reason of the engineering of its machine, allows altogethertoo much space to the thi n letters, conspi cuously " i " and "1", thus creating,where there are combinations of same, a tremendous hole in the word,and, generally, gives a loose & porous look to the page (this difficulty isobviated, by the way, in italic varitype, due to the slanting & hooks-like-handwr i ti ng, j oi ni ng the letters together & gi vi ng a muc h more continuous,& f l owing, eff ect: I 'd call yr attenti on to this f ont, f or future issues, ifyou haven't already used it)I am f rank ly scared to death of this " i " , "1" probl em. T ho I don't seehow you can avoi d it except by using the ital ic f ont. In any case, thatopenness, looseness, does, for me, make it imperative that all otherspaces be exact.I menti on this all to you, not to carp, C i d, not to admi t yr probl ems,but to ask you to give me this extra attention, simply because I fearyou wi l l not be able to send me proof s. A nd I think you woul d want mytext to be as exact, i n its effects, as I woul d.((I also, by the way, just to register it with you, for what it is worth,think that the smaller point type faces in varitype are preferablefor one thi ng they cl e

Charles Olson Letters for Origin 1950-1956 1988

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Transcript of Charles Olson Letters for Origin 1950-1956 1988