December 12, 1959

Dr. William G. Williams
Paterson, New Jersey

Dear Dr. Williams:

I have no doubt that you must receive numerous letters in
this vein, i.e., those kind seeking favors of one sort or another
whether they be in the form of requests for lectures, book fore-
words, garden parties or, perhaps like this one, a plea for a
poem or so. Several other college students and myself are putting
out a literary magazine the first issue of which will appear in
April 1960. Now we realize endeavors of this sort have been
conceived and carried out before with varying amounts of literary
success and service. However, I am sure, none could be more
serious in scope, nor desirable of achieving permanence and a
purpose for being than ours. I hope this does not sound too
high-flown, or the project itself too ambitious or beyond the
ken of several college students. We are not motivated by altruistic
feelings or again visions of greatness and national critical
claim with our magazine. We do feel that there is a great need
for a quality literary magazine in this part of the country and

that, with a first rate publication of exceptional material, we
can do things here that should be done.

Independent financing has been gathered for this first
issue, and we are promised future publication by the college
here if the magazine's initial issue is successful. Already we
have received a number of manuscripts from various sources in
this part of California. We have seen two uncommonly good,
publishable short stories and scarely any poetry of consequence
at all. We do have an oversupply of critical pieces ranging
from the time and person of Stephen Crane to that of Samuel
Beckett. If, however, we run any critical work at all we are
interested more in the interpretive and current significant
aspects of the author's work, not just a thrashing out of the
critic's values and literary technique. We do have on hand one
piece slated for publication on Mr. Ezra Pound written by Mr.
E.M. Glenn and concerned with Mr. Pound's extensive literary
influence in the colleges and universities. It is an excellent
critical work and the type for which we are seeking.

At the risk of sounding my age, or perhaps just downright
silly, I should like to ask you for one or more poems for our
publication. I hope I am not sounding plain cajelery by saying
it would be a great honor to receive and print this poetry from
you. It would be an honor as well as a tremendous experience
for us.

Thank you very much. We should appreciate your answer.