II. “Would you be willing to allow us to represent you…?” (1/20/1979 – 11/16/1979)

The section begins with an invitation by letter from Joseph Amaryllis, of the Amaryllis agency, to join his stable of poets. Though I didn’t say so in my reply, it was clear that Joseph was Don’s dual identity: his agency was located in the next town over from Wilmot, and the agency’s address was in the same font Don used for his letters. As Joseph Amaryllis, Don represented several poets whose work he liked, and he sent my own poems out to magazines for many years after I signed on, relieving me of that tedious and often dispiriting process. (Note the gradual creation of Joey Amaryllis as a humorous character during the eight-year period of these letters.)

As Amaryllis succeeded with his submissions and my first collection grew, I submitted this volume, called The Faces of Americans in 1853 (its title derived from the chapbook that preceded it), to a variety of publishers, fretting over how to arrange the contents. Early in that process Don, who was a poetry consultant at Harper & Row, suggested the book to the editor Fran McCullough as a new title there. In the meantime, Don read my poems in progress one by one, combining praise with suggestions for revision I was not always willing to accept, used to going my own way.

But it was impossible not to learn from his letters, which contained advice about everything from writing poems, to the substance and submission of my book, to what should be paid to poets for readings, to encouragement, sometimes in the face of rejection.

(My own “first book was rejected 13 times before acceptance.” he tells me, and later remarks, “I tend to love everything you do, occasionally with one or two words to disagree about.”) Section II includes the happy news that I have received an NEA fellowship for poetry and can look forward to a summer and fall of free time for my writing.

[This section has 24 letters]