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March 1, 1982
Dear Don,
Thanks for your good, long letter.
It’s discouraging to learn about the poetry book club
that failed. But then so much one learns about poetry and its
readership is discouraging! The retreat of the trade houses
from poetry; the government’s retreat from funding small presses,
magazines and individual poets; the competition for places
in the poetry series of a few academic presses–which in
many ways strengthen the walls between the poet and a
general readership. It’s terrible.
Having just gotten word that another of the academic presses
has turned me down for the second time, I am particularly
down about all these things. Over the weekend, Princeton
sent me a form rejection (not the “finalist” letter of last
year) containing its elaborate “no.” Now that I’m in
my fourth year of submitting this manuscript of mine,
I have reason to be troubled. I don’t see how I can make
the thing much better than it is. Yet I feel the old,
annual cycle of rejections starting up once again. Harper
[Written in margin: Solotaroff finally wrote back,
saying he’d “be glad to” look at my book.]
& Row, The National Poetry Series and Pittsburgh are left.
I hope I’m wrong about just one of them, but the hope
at this point is rather thin.
[Written in margin: Forgot Assoc. Writing Programs].
I’m glad to have you as a witness with Costanzo.
I’m also glad that he wants to write about you. You have
2/
written better, larger than most poets of your generation;
you have worked as hard as anyone to establish respect
for the fathers of modern poetry–and awareness of
contemporary poets on each side of the Atlantic. Your sense
of the absolute importance of poetry and the vocation of the poet
has changed many others, I am sure, as deeply as it
has changed me. Together, your books, articles and letters
represent one of the forces keeping literature alive today.
I am glad Costanzo has seen the need for a biography,
and I hope your relationship with him works out.
You ask about The Private Life Lisel Mueller
wrote it. I liked her work in a recent issue of Poetry,
and so I bought that book, her second. Also bought, among
other things, The Situation of Poetry, which I liked very
much, in spite of the academic language. I am sending
now for Pinsky’s An Explanation of America, which I’ve
read about long since and never gotten around to buying.
And I have liked a couple of articles you have
written–the one in the current Poetry, and, especially,
the raking of Lathom (sic) in The Atlantic (the only articles
by you I’ve seen recently). I continue to be interested
in the Hobart & William Smith book, which I’d
gladly purchase if you have an extra copy. If you
don’t, I’ll send for one. (I mentioned this in an earlier
letter and am not sure if you noticed…)
3/
Because I like so much the “long and ambitious things”
of Kicking the Leaves, I look forward to your printing the
long and ambitious things you are now struggling with.
I am sure the wait will be worth it.
In the meantime, good that England went well, and
good that you are both back to re-writing!
Blessings,
Wes |