Hill House, Taplow,
Buckinghamshire.

October 4, 1933.

Dear Prof. Purdy,

Thank you very much indeed for
your letter. I was afraid when I wrote to
Mrs. Hardy in July that there was very little
chance of our being fortunate enough to find
you free to come and see us, but when you
come to England again I hope you will be
sure to let us know, so that we can arrange
for a meeting and a talk. So I shall look
forward to that.

Hill House. Taplow.
Buckinghamshire.

November 22, 1933.

Dear Mr. Purdy,

Many thanks for your letter. I have written to Prof. Hemingway telling him how much I appreciate his invitation to me to serve as a judge on the Cook Poetry Prize Committee. Until your letter reached me I had not read any announcement of this particular prize, though it may perhaps have been given for some years past.

I have explained to Prof. Hemingway that my difficulty may be the amount of reading that will be involved - which in other respects is even now almost beyond keeping up with. I feel sure you will understand this difficulty.

Hill House, Taplow.
Buckinghamshire.

April 11, 1934.

Dear Professor Purdy,

Many thanks for your letter.
The five poems had already reached me
when it came this morning; and I
will read them as soon as I get an
opportunity. It is nothing but a
pleasure to do this, and I hope to be
writing again and returning the entries
in a few days' time.

AWARD OF THE ALBERT STANBURROUGH
COOK PRIZE IN POETRY

THE ALBERT STANBURROUGH COOK PRIZE IN POETRY was established in 1925 by gift from Professor Albert S. Cook and is awarded for the best unpublished poem. The prize for this year has been awarded to MAYNARD MACK (B.A. 1932), a member of the Graduate School, of Oberlin, Ohio, for his poem "Mister Scoggins' Saturday Night." The judges were WALTER DE LA MARE, of Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England; Professor ELIZABETH W. MANWARING, of Wellesley College; and Professor PURDY.

May 4, 1934.

Dear Professor Purdy,

Your letter with the poems reached
me some little time ago; I do hope this
delay in writing about them has not entailed
any inconvenience. I have been atrociously
busy.

In spite of two close readings of
the five entries I find it difficult to
come to a definite and detailed conclusion
about them, and wonder if you have had a
similar experience?

(A) **Traveller:** I should assume, being only a fragment of what promises to be a very long poem, is strictly ineligible, but in any case though there is an appearance of profundity and it certainly aims high, there is little more than a superficial sequence of theme, and it is based on rather inadequate knowledge. The whole thing oscillates between the poetical and the prosaic. But there seems to be promise in it, if of a rather odd kind.

(B) **Selections from a Sonnet Sequence** may have suffered to some extent from the fact that they are *selections*, though this seems unlikely. They have a pleasant verbal music, but it is mainly derivative. The imagery is attractive, but apart from an appearance of its being superimposed, as it were, it frequently leads the meaning astray, with the result that the sonnets occasionally are little more than phials, so to speak, haunted with a borrowed fragrance.

(C) Hymns at Heaven's Gate seem to me
also largely derivative. Melody, rhythm,
cadence are attractive, but the author doesn't
always mean what he says, and occasionally,
failing that, says what he does not mean.
The rhymes too of his scheme, not all "Sonnets"
of course, are frequently the cause of this.
A close reading of I and II discloses this
weakness in the 'fundamental brainwork'.

(D) Abdel Crim has a better beginning
and end than middle. But on the whole it is
well-knot, creates a definite character,
shows knowledge of its subject, is full of
dramatic zest, and tells its story. The
blank verse is rather monotonous in effect,
and is weakened with feminine endings.

(E) This leaves Mister Scoggins' Saturday
Night. This narrative, though it is not of a
kind that greatly appeals to me personally, and
I suppose owes a good deal to E.A.R. (though
not quite enough, in a sense!) seems to me the
most original of the five entries. The whole
story has been seen and felt and is lively
with poetical observation.

All things considered I should put this
first, Abdel Crim second, Traveller (apart from
its being a fragment) perhaps third, and leave
the other two to share the fourth place. I
wonder if you and the other adjudicators on
the whole agree with me? Do let me know if we
differ on any capital point.

With all best wishes,

The poems submitted to Mr. de la Mare (March 29, 1934) were:

Traveller by Hyam Plutzik

Selections from a Sonnet Sequence by Brendan M. Gill

Hymns at Heaven's Gate by Harold Hutcheson

Abdel Krim by R. Balfour Daniels

Mister Scoggins' Saturday Night by Maynard Mack