567 Beech St.
Manchester, N. H.

November 26, 1936

Dear Mr. Warren,

I was glad to have your letter saying that you were sending
me a copy of the _Southern Review_. Somewhere I have seen a copy
of it before, but it has been a long time. I rather expected it
to come yesterday, but it didn't, and of course, there is no mail
today. I am interested in it and what it means to the South and
to the Southern writer. "Therefore I am writing you this letter."

I spoke of my book in the other note I wrote to you, and
though it has had a turn-down, I expected that. In fact, in the
meantime, I have decided that there is some of it that I don't
want to see published, so that it becomes the source of about
three plays, some poetry, and maybe a story or two.

The editor in N. Y. C. who recently read the scenario of the
play to be written from Part I of the book, told me that I would
write "in rhythms and moods like Cather", but I coolly let him
know that I have no intention of writing like Cather, and that
my rhythms and moods will be my own. The play is to be called
*Three Fountains*, and may be produced at M. S. C. W. in late
spring. The Michael Warren in it is one of my favorite people,
but I have been wondering if I gave a mad Celt a Saxon name, or
is there much difference?

Meantime, I am more interested in *The Southern Review* than

in any Northern magazine, and I send under this cover a bit of a
poem that came to me the other afternoon when I was browsing among
the shelves of poetry in the Library here in town, looking for
something worth reading. I rather like the effect it makes on
paper, and I couldn't decide where to put my name without marring
that effect. If you should like it and find it suitable for pub-
lication, I don't know what to tell you about the name---you
couldn't just leave it off, could you? That would be all right
with me.

I have written very little poetry in my day, just a French
quatrain now and then. Some time ago I sent a poem with much of
the magic of Mississippi in its lines to an Indiana poet who had
asked to read some of my work. But I haven't heard from him since,
and I am wondering whether he had an operation on what an air-
crash left to him of one arm, or whether the poem of mine was just
too much for him. Perhaps I'd better wait and find out which it is,
for I consider you an asset to the South and a valuable figure in
American literature, and I don't know what to send it to you if it
has already confined one real poet to his bed.

I am planning to stay in the South after I leave here shortly
before Xmas, in spite of the fact that I could get a job in Boston
or N. Y. C. Isn't there something I could do in Mississippi about
stirring up more interest in *The Southern Review*, the South's
leading magazine, for it is that, isn't it? I know people all the
way from New Orleans up to Memphis, and I notice that the Ladies'
Clubs---you know the kind---in Mississippi are going in for Art
now in a big way. What is the reason they couldn't be persuaded
to go in for *The Southern Review*? I shall probably be called in
to tell them of Art as I have seen it in N. Y., Boston, and north

of Boston, so why couldn't I tell them that the sooner they
help "culture at home" the sooner they will be as "psychologically
sensitive" as the ladies of New England? Sincerely, as a
Southern writer myself, let me know if here is anything I can do.

Paul Palmer hasn't accepted my article yet--said that it
was interesting but "not in <u>Mercury</u> form." And I am supposed to
stop off and talk to him on my way through New York, even if I
put it into <u>Mercury</u> form in the meantime. At any rate, he will
take it, if I have to sit on his desk and swing my heels and sing
"Deep South" until he just can't stand it any more. And I am going
to tell him that when he publishes an article about the South
written by someone who does not know the South as well as I do,
then he publishes trash. Is there anything I can tell him for you?
I think its time the man saw the light.

I don't want the poem, just keep it anyway with the
compliments of the lady from Mississippi. Maybe I'd better stick
to prose for the time being. Would you rather see an article on
the South, or would you like to see a piece I am working on now,
A Southerner Looks at New England ( not a reply to the Massachusetts
mugwump--you and your friend suppressed her.) But in six months
I have learned enough about New England to put a lot of people in
difficulties, but the article, of course, is not written with that in view.
I would just like to tell somebody about New England as I have seen
it, and let New England know that it has very little besides
scenery now that the South does not have or can not have. I am not
a timid soul, but I dislike to send my work around unless some one
is actually interested, so after reading all this, do you think
you would still like to see something else of mine besides the poem?
I'll try to put it into Southern Review Form. Cordially,

December 1, 1936

Dear Mr. Warren,

The *Southern Review* came to me yesterday and it is a
grand magazine. I thought that I had seen a copy of it, but
I was wrong. I think the cover is lovely, and I had a hard
time trying to decide what to read first--I finally turned
to *The Light Gets Green*, and I liked it very much. Naturally,
I wondered if you were writing of your real grandfather, for
I read somewhere that you had written *Kentucky Mountain Farm*.
One of my grandfathers lived on a Tennessee farm, just outside
of Murfreesboro, Tate's town, and I remember one visit there.
We three girls set out at a fast pace down the long drive in
a two-wheel cart, and I held the reins on a half-blind horse.
We missed the gate-opening, but we hit the fence, and I sometime
wondered whether it was my fault or the horse's. But then I
have "missed the gate and hit the fence" several times in my
life, so I suppose that it was not entirely the horse's fault.

What I should like to know is how much it would cost me to
buy the Volume 1 of The Southern Review. I want to read every-
thing that has been published in it since it first came out,
because I want to write for it, and I would be unsure of myself
with the material and ideas in only one issue. I should love to
have it, and one of my family can give it to me for Xmas, if

one can buy back like that. Then just as soon as I can, I will
subscribe to the coming issues for myself, but right now I am
saving my dollars for the long trip down South for Xmas. How I
would like to see *Othello* in Boston this week---I remember
seeing a fragment of the set for *Othello* when I was at L. S. U.
in 1934, and I wanted to stay long enough to see the play, but
the gods dragged me on. Now I may never see it.

The article for *Mercury* has come to a sad end, and I may as
well tell the truth about it. I made another attempt to put into
*Mercury* form some of the things I wanted to say about Mississippi
but I suppose I am just not the *Mercury* type. Paul Palmer sent
it back with a letter that was as cold-blooded as anything I
have ever read--- the snow that fell on my cheeks and lips as
I walked along Hanover Street was warm compared to what was in
my heart. But there was no use being angry about it. He is not
a poet, and there must have been too much poetry in it for the
man whose idea of noble service is to lash the New Deal and
everything connected with it. I suppose I could still drop in at
his office on my way South, but I have no desire to. I might be
tempted to say that more than his Southern articles are trash.
Look again at the table of contents for the first issue and you
will know what I mean. No, I shall pass through Connecticut
as aloofly as I know how, and N. Y., too, for that matter. There
isn't anybody there I care to see. Sometime I am going to write
some verse about N. Y. There is little poetry there, except
that I remember once playing a Brahms duet on an organ on Fifth
Avenue with one of the city's leading organists. Why do those
chances always come to me? Do you think that the gods knew that
I would play by the hour if I were near an organ or a piano and
so left me up here, where I am near neither, and have to write?

I start on a third page and still I have not said all I want to say. I doubt if the one poem I sent will be acceptable after reading the poetry in this issue you sent me. But I know that I can do as well in time--I want to write about Mississippi--the plantation that is my home--widespreading acres bending to the knee, the river, the pines, and so many other things. Surely I can write about them for your magazine. I sent the one poem not knowing exactly what it meant myself, but I seem to be wandering around in a vast cathedral--its hard to explain--arches and naves and music somewhere and I know where it is that I want to go, but yet I look at all the stained glass windows as I walk along. Do you know what I mean?

I should like to send you something, but there are so many things I want to write about that I hardly know where to start--there is my book with its 340 pages and a poem on almost every page, and then there are the pages and notebooks full of my thoughts of New England--I don't mean I keep a journal--I don't have to do that. I have just written as if I were going to make something of it later. Now I need some help. For *The Southern Review*, had I better begin by writing of the South? I am so tired that I think that I shall stay in the South after Christmas, and work on *Three Fountains*, though that means no rest. Perhaps I could get something into the shape of poetry (damn this typewriter--the letters bob up in the funniest places) before Christmas. As one poet to another, would you write of your own land or the land that could not hold you? I should like to hear from you once more, if it is only a paragraph. Best wishes to you and your work.