Section II

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Dear Don –

Problems : I just got a note from the
Women’s Studies Co-ordinator here, whom I
had convinced to schedule a reading for
Jenny Josephs [sic] – and the note informed me
of a call she received from the Public
Information office about a serious conflict
On the 27th, the date she chose for
the Josephs’ [sic] reading. It turns out that
the 27th is the date of an art opening
and the alternative date for Mountain Day.

Unfortunately, a reading on the 28th
would conflict with the normal social
activities of a Friday night – few
students are likely to be on campus.

Under the circumstances, I can
think of only one thing to do: schedule
Ms. Josephs earlier in the week – or
early in the next week. Tuesday
the 25th is open, as is Monday the

2/

1st.

I guess the blame for all this is mine,
since I didn’t think to advise the
co-ordinator – who is brand new –
to examine the college calendar before
choosing a date. And I am very
sorry for the mix-up. But perhaps
we can make this work after all.

Please let me know if the 25th
or the 1st will work for you.

Yours in hope,

Wes

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Dear Don –

Jenny Joseph may have a reading at Colby
if she doesn’t mind a rather skimpy honorarium
of $50. The date and time: September 27 at
7:30 PM. I assume that the place will be
Alumnae lounge, where you read. I will let you
know soon.

I enclose a copy of “The Thin Man” – hope
you like it. I hope “Hair on Television” will
be ready soon.

More about the Joseph reading right away.
Please let me know if $50 is OK. Perhaps
I could get more if I were in charge
of reading this year, but I’m not, and $50
seems to be the limit.

Hello to Jane – Love,

Wes

THE THIN MAN
–Inside every fat man is a thin man trying to get out.

Once in a mirror
as it folded hair
back from its face

he discovered his eyes
lonely, yearning.
This was the beginning

of his life
inside the body,
of standing deep in the legs

of it,
held
in its elbowless arms.

And when it walked
he walked,
and when it slept

he dreamed of drowning
under its lakes
of skin.

Oh the thin man
trying to get out
learned of its great

locked breasts
its seamless chin,
the dead ends

of its hands.
And oh the heavy body
took him

to tables
of food,
and took him down

into the groaning
carnal bed.
The pitiless body took him

to a mirror
which showed
the eyes

in a face
immense and dying,
who he was.

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Dear Don –

Thanks for your encouraging comments about
my poems.

You asked for fair copies of “The Thin Man”
and “Hair on Television.” I did send you copies –
at least I thought I did – of those two poems
in their revised form. In the event you did not
receive the copies of my later note expressing
the wish that they be sent on to The New Yorker,
here are two new copies and a new request –
to be relayed to Joey – that they be mailed
to the above magazine. Please tell Joey that in
exchange for his services (and his unshakeable
faith in my poems) I will gladly send postage and
envelopes at any time.

You will notice that the revision of my book,
a copy of which you have no doubt received by now,
is somewhat different from the revision I described
a couple of letters back. Again, I do hope you like
the new version.

Incidentally, I’ve never seen that Bly poem on hair.
Do you have a copy of it? Or where can I find it.

Wes

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Dear Don,

Needless to say, I am pleased, delighted in fact, that Fran
McCullough likes my manuscript. I will do my best to be “not too hopeful,”
as you suggest, and I send renewed thanks for your persistence in this thing.
Your confidence in my poetry gives me more strength than you realize,
as I forge ahead through revision after revision.

And of course I am glad you like the two poems—disturbed, too,
about what you feel does not work in each. How do the trees grow o’s, you
ask. I meant to refer in that image to the o’s which telephone linesmen
often cut around telephone wires. Please let me know whether my explanation
makes you feel more comfortable with the image. You have me worried…

Perhaps you are right about the verbless-ness of “Driving Poem.” I
guess I was hoping that the verbs in the which clause would carry the
poem well enough, in spite of the unusual syntax. About your suggestion,
“This is the room…”: Do you think the line would stress the car more
than the driving which the title refers?

I am working hard on two longish poems called “The Thin Man” and
“Hair on Television,” both of which I would like to put into the revised
book. They would go into section one, along with “For My Father” and
“The Bald Spot,” so that the section would give a sort of overview of
the personal and some of the public concerns of the book’s narrator.
Section two would begin with “Old Trees” and would move to the other
regional poems of the present section one—i.e., “Fire in Enfield,”
“Leaving the Country House” and “Memory of Kuhre.” Each of those poems
contains a certain play of present and past—especially the latter—and
so they would lead logically to section three, which would include all
of the poems in the present sections two and three except for the “dirty
poems.” “Driving Poem” would fall just before “Country People,” the other
drivin g [sic] poem of the collection, in section five. The sections woud be
called “The Thin Man”(1); “Memory of Kuhre”(2); “Going Back to Fifth Grade”(3);
“The Faces of … (4); and “Country People”(5).

I hope you find that my revision strengthens the book, and I hope to
be able to show it to you before long. Thanks, as usual, for all of
your help and advice.

Love to both you & Jane,

Wes

P.S.: Please explain to Joey that I will be sending him
poems as soon as they are ready –

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August 29, 1979

Dear Don –

No, I have not seen work by Jenny Josephs,
but if you say she’s good, we are interested in
having her in September. Since readings by women
are often co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies
program here, I should have some bio material on
Ms. Josephs to pass around – and to use later
for publicity. It would be nice to have a poem or
two by her also.

I will have to check with others before I can
say “yes” absolutely. But a reading in September
does at this point seem quite likely.

Thanks for the suggestion – and please send
bio stuff as soon as possible –

Wes

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Dear Don –

It has suddenly occurred to me that I never answered your
good letter about my book and where it might be published. This
lapse does not indicate my indifference – far from it. In fact,
I have taken your words so seriously, making them part
of a conversation with myself, that I’ve forgotten to communicate
with you about my responses.

In brief, then: While I would probably consider publishing
a second book of poetry – perhaps a second, smaller collection –
with a small press, I would rather place my first book
with a “name brand” publisher – a “GM,” to quote you.
It’s that I’ve spent years putting this collection together,
and I’d like to make the biggest splash possible with it.
In the event that I can’t find my GM, I’ll try the other
alternatives. And thanks, by the way, for putting the case
for publishing with the small press so clearly before me.

I’ve been working on a handful of poems – some of which
will appear in the revised^ as per your suggestion manuscript of my book. I
enclose two of the poems for the revised manuscript. I will
send others as they are finished. I’m pulling the two
“dirty poems” out of the book – they seem to break

2/

the tone of that section and the book as a whole – and I’m
changing certain sub-groupings and sub-headings.

You will be the first to see the final product. I write
so much and so little that I frustrate myself, and
everyone else, I fear. Still, I hope to have the new book
for you soon.

In the meantime, thanks for all of your encouragement.
I would be lost without it.

All the best to you and Jane,

Wes

DRIVING POEM

In the room
which makes trees go by
and grass run
along the edge of the slow
field and farmhouses turn
small and far away
revealing one
by one their windows

OLD TREES

By the road
in the field, they stand

lifting branches
they cannot remember,

rocking shut
in the wind.

In some other world
they grow such trunks

and hurled their leaves
across the sky.

Here, emptyhanded,
they wait

for the end which has been
happening for years.

Growing o’s
around telephone wires,

tethered to farmhouses,
the old trees.

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Dear Don –

I would be lost without you. Ever since
your generous recommendation that I be
invited to read at read at Marietta College, you
have sustained me as a writer. Your
advice, your bolstering of my confidence,
have quite literally kept me going.
These things are being written,
I’m convinced, somewhere in heaven.

Do you remember the cartoon of
the two doomed men, deep in the
dungeon, manacled to the wall by
hands and feet, a small window
far above their heads, one turning
to the other, saying, “Now here’s
my plan”? Now here’s my plan.
I have consulted my Coda Awards
List booklet and have found that

there are fully five publishers who invite
manuscripts in the fall. They are: Houghton
Mifflin, Wesleyan, U. Illinois, Princeton,
Carnegie Mellon. In addition, there is the
Walt Whitman Award Competition, ending
with the publication of the winning book
I have decided to mail my book to the five
publishers (or most of them) and to the
Walt Whitman Award Competition, and
to cover myself with telegrams in the
event of success with one of the above.
By the fall, I will have improved my
manuscript (as you suggest) in any
way possible.

What do you think? Specifically, what
do you think of the inclusion of U.
Illinois, Princeton and Carnegie Mellon
(esp. the last)? Would the book get enough
play if I were favored with acceptance
at any of these places?

Un million de gracias, as the Chileans
say, for all your help. You save my life.

Love,

Wes