Many thanks for your letter, and I am
glad to hear what you say of “To a Waterfowl.”
It does have this social content… I have
always thought a little the less of it, because
its content was more outward than inward, and
so subject to performance… But really, it
is simply another idea of poetry – a more Horatian
idea.
I like the first version of the father/
brother poem. I guess I like it a little better
with the change of pronoun and fa for bro…
Just because it seems a little directer, more
into-the-eyes. But the poem was essentially
there the first time.
I have been going back to the new father
poem and returning “Forgive Me,” but I am not
sure. The guilt is real, but I am not sure
that the request for forgiveness is.
