Sept. 30, 1941

Sept. 30, 1941

Dear Shirley,

This will be only a note to say how glad I am that things seem to be working out well at Iona, and say that a batch of books of poetry are on their way to you for review. There will be other books to come as we receive them. Some of the items which we are including are probably not worth much attention, and anything that looks like a real dud should probably be left out of the body of your review, but included in the list of books received which you will be prepare to go with the review. Because of the Yeats issue, we shall be pressed for space in spring and summer issues, and therefore ask you to hold down as much as is reasonable--say to something like thirty-five hundred words. If you find this impossible--that is, if some books seems to lure you on to special treatment-- please let us know and we can reopen the matter of length. The deadline is November 20.

We shall try to locate the thesis here and send it to you before long.

I haven't much in the way of personal news to offer about myself and Cinina or about your other friends here, certainly nothing as agreeable as your own news. But please give my very warm regards and Cinina's to Else. Let us hear from you all.

As ever,

P.S. The New Republic wrote recently to ask for nominations for its December literary supplement, which will be devoted to the work of writers under thirty-criticism, as well as fiction and poetry. Have you anything on hand? We send in your name and Fred's along with some others.

14 South Gilbert St.

Iowa City, Iowa
January 28, 1942

Dear Red:

I just wanted to let you know that the review is under way and that I will be sending it along in a week or so. It would be sooner than that, but in the meantime we will be setting out for Dallas, where I expect to finish the review, after which we will proceed by stages to Mexico City. The reasons for this change are fairly complicated, but I am convinced that, everything considered, it is a good idea, and that we can accomplish it. I don't know how long we will be in Mexico (incidentally, we plan to go from Mexico City to Acapulco after a few weeks), but I think we have made a peaceful agreement with the powers here, so that it would be possible to come back at some future time. Also, I am applying for places at several other departments, for safety's sake. There are other irons in the fire, such as the possibility of something from Archibald MacLeish's office, where by the way Wilbur has just gone to take a pretty fancy job. What will happen, exactly, in the course of the year I can't predict, but we have our hopes and prospects which we try to catch and cook. I want to write a novel while we are in Mexico if I can possibly manage. Also, one or both of us may get some sort of work in Mexico--we have some names and addresses in Mexico City which should be helpful. As a starter, we have a little money saved and a minimum income from several dependable sources.

We are not, I ought to add, the only ones who are leaving the graduate school either now or at the close of the year. Indeed, the place is definitely not going to be the same. There is, further, considerable doubt about the fellowships for next year, and NYA, which provides us with a substantial part of our salary here, is positively through by the end of the year if not sooner.

As I say, I will send the review from Dallas by, I suppose, the tenth--certainly earlier than the February 20 deadline which you set. We will leave Iowa City by the fifth of the month, maybe a little sooner. More later. Very best to you and Cinina from both of us.

The news about the Review is sad. We've added our protest to the heap. Is there any possibility of a change of decision?

★
**American**
**PREFACES**

1913 So. Blvd
Dallas, Texas

Feb. 10, 1942

Dear Red:

We reached Dallas safely and by now
have gotten ourselves rested and fed
back to life and health once more. The
trip was very long and wearing, since
the stop-overs were never, with one
exception, more than ten minutes, and
we had to ride about thirty hours in
all.

The review will be in soon. As for
the cut in the rate, it's very sad
news but not too surprising.

I have a practical purpose in writing:
could you dispatch a letter of recommen-
dation to Dean John Musser, Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences, New York
University, Washington Square, New York
City? I'm applying there for a fellow-
ship (as well as at Iowa) in order to
have several irons in the fire. The
recommendation must reach there by March
1, I believe. I'll be most sincerely
grateful to you.

We hope you'll write to us. You can always
use the above address, where we will be
for another week or so. Elsa sends her
very best to you both, and so do I.

As ever,

University Hall, Iowa City, Iowa

POSADA DE LA MISION

FOMENTO MEXICANO DE TURISMO, S. A.

OFICINAS EN MEXICO, D. F.

2a. COSTA RICA 47

APARTADO 7992

TAXCO, GRO.

MANAGER
CORRESPONDENCE

April 25, 1942

Dear Red:

A couple of days ago I wrote you a postcard which you will probably have by the time this reaches you. But after sending the card I remembered that I had forgotten to include our exact address in Taxco, and I wasn't sure you had it from any previous communications. I suppose the foregoing letterhead will leave small room for doubt regarding the matter. We are living in an extremely elegant and expensive hotel (regular rates, 720 pesos per month for two), but owing to the severe decline in the current tourist season, we are getting the elegance at only a small part of the usual expense. I have been gnawing my plans for the novel and have done a few thousand words of the actual writing, in addition to a series of what I hope will prove to be helpful notes. However, I'm a long way from daylight in regard to a great many problems, both immediate and secondary. --It is fine to hear that you have finished your book. Do you have plans for an early publication? Please let me know when it will come out, and under whose auspices, so that I can order a copy promptly. Maybe, incidentally, somebody will give me your New directions collection to review. I get quite a few of Mr. Laughlin's "poets of the month" from Poetry these days, and I wouldn't be surprised if they would give me your number.

We were deterred from going to Chapala by your letter, but Taxco, although it is a wonderful place in many ways, is not exactly what we would prefer in others. Our chief complaint is that the Americans here are too "bohemian," if you know what I mean. We hear that Chapala, despite the drawbacks you named, is inhabited by a somewhat different sort, and for that reason we may take up residence there before very long. By the way, the "emergency" I mentioned in the card has now passed, but we certainly could still use the money as soon as you can send it. I'm also anxious to have a copy of the issue; if you can spare it, send another to Mrs. J.G.Forgotson - 2403

Marye Street, Alexandria, La.

I had a letter from Leonard X dated about the 15th, that is, immediately before he left for South Bend, Indiana to go into training. The English department at Iowa seems to be losing a great many members of its graduate school for the same reason, according to what I hear from Fred Brantly. Are you going to teach at Iowa again at any time in the near future?

Please give our very best affectionate regards to Cinina, x
Also, say hello to Cleanth, to John Palmer, and to
Frances Stewart. We'll be looking forward a
great deal to having another letter from you soon.

THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

sage,” indicate most plainly Mr. Wheelwright’s penchant for creating his own fantastic myths. From this volume, “Ave Eva” may suffice to illustrate the point. The poem is too long to quote in its entirety; only the first two sections are reproduced below:

Wild strawberries, gooseberries, trampled;
sweet single roses torn; I hoofed to a ground
where a woman sat, weeping over a wounded bird.
“O silent woman, weeping without tears;
“O weeping woman, silent on this ground
“more withered than the barren; may I not help you heal
“the suffering of this wounded bird?” I said.

“But let your hand first mend the axle of this wheel,
“O scarlet-handed, azure-eyed,” she answered.
“Let your eyes find the balance of these scales
“fashioned from two of my sons’ brain-pans.”

Mr. Wheelwright is not responsible for the whole of the myth in this instance: the speaker is Satan, the woman is Eve, and the two sons mentioned in the last line are Cain and Abel. But there are other obvious additions, not to be found in the Book of Genesis: the trampled fruits and flowers, the wounded bird, the wheel and axle of the car, the scales fashioned from the brain-pans. In subsequent sections of the poem, these objects are further used and developed as agents of the theme.

But the materials of Mr. Wheelwright’s poems are not always so bizarre. He is quite willing and able to be provoked by another kind of stimulus—by a kind which, as a matter of fact, in its casual ordinariness is reminiscent of Miss Miles’s “occasions.” Thus one poem, “A Small Prig in a Big Square,” opens with these lines:

Dizzy from hot, long blasts of pulpit breath;
numb, too, from having sat too still through Sunday Meeting
numb, too, from having sat too still too long for a small boy
through Sunday meeting in the Eliot Meeting House....

THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

For hands that clutch the drifting log,
Or sea that darkly dreams afloat.

The first two stanzas, especially, are finely exact in detail and image, but the last stanza, where the poet evidently desires to push outside of the realm of mere imagism, is a little disappointing. It is calculated to heighten the qualities of the central image (the shore at low tide) by showing them through the eyes of the anonymous drifting castaway, and by hinting, in the closing line, at a mystery concealed somewhere in their folds. But the castaway may strike us as dragged in awkwardly and by main strength, and the mystery may sound cooked-up and unconvincing, an old poetic sham.

In other poems, a beginning nearly as surely executed as the above winds up with an over-simple truism:

The Attic head, the Athlete's shape,
One day shall drowse no more to wake.

Or the language loses its bite and penetration in favor of a rhetorical
"nobility":

With vast surveying fortitude
The mountains stand in lonely air.
And crags exalt the spirit's mood
That wills itself to lofty care.

Despite these flaws Mr. Fitzell can be credited with producing a good many poems founded upon pastoral and natural materials which escape sentimentality and femininity. It is no common feat under an advanced industrialization.

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