Poetry
A Magazine of Verse

Telephone Superior 1328

Harriet Monroe
Editor

Morton Dauwen Zabel
Associate Editor

Jessica Nelson North
George Dillon
Eunice Tietjens
Lew Sarett

Advisory Committee

Charles H. Hamill
Arthur T. Leonard
Administrative Committee

Orille B. Rhoades
Circulation Manager

232 East Erie Street Chicago, Ill. October 1, 1932

Mrs. Russell J. Matthias
Post Office Box N N
Carmel, California

My dear Mrs. Matthias:

POETRY's financial situation became so precarious during the year just past that it seemed expedient to discontinue the magazine at the end of its twentieth year; but the announcement aroused such a chorus of protests, and such emphatic promises of help, that I have felt reluctant to give up a service which so many influential writers and so many struggling poets find valuable, a service which no other agency is at present able to render.

The generosity of over one hundred citizens of Chicago enabled POETRY to begin twenty years ago. Many of these are still on our Roll of Honor; they and others have enabled us to continue our work. Ever since your name was first listed you have been sending us twenty-five dollars a year, and for this loyal liberality I cannot thank you enough. I assure you the effect of it is written in many lives, and I may say without possibility of denial that it has enriched the literary records of our time. We hope that you are still interested, and still desirous of contributing your share of our necessary subsidy, but if these desperate times make that impossible I shall nevertheless feel sure that you are ever solicitous for POETRY's welfare.

Mrs. Carl I. Henrikson, president of the Friends of American Writers, a local woman's club which has already done a great deal for the magazine, feels that it "must not stop," and she is undertaking to raise funds to make up for our recent losses. It will be a great help to her, and a favor to me, if you will let us know whether we may still expect your help. Your usual check to POETRY will be a most welcome answer; but any reply will be much appreciated. In the hope of a word from you I enclose a reply envelope.

I call your attention to the enclosed extracts from editorials in various papers, and from a few letters. These are merely samples -- I could fill many pages with such protests. I feel sure they will convince you that your interest and your money have not been wasted through all these years.

With most grateful appreciation, I am

FINANCIAL REPORT OF POETRY - Oct. 1st, 1931 to Oct. 1st, 1932

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>1931-32</th><th>1930-31</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Balance in Trust Fund Oct. 1st, 1931</td><td>$456.65</td><td>$337.99</td></tr><tr><td>Balance in Checking Account Oct. 1st, 1931</td><td>391.99</td><td>206.85</td></tr><tr><td>Total Balance Oct. 1st, 1931</td><td>$848.64</td><td>$544.84</td></tr><tr><td>Receipts from Guarantors, Oct. 1931 - Sept. 1932</td><td>3263.00</td><td>3034.15</td></tr><tr><td>(This item includes a present of $500 from a Guarantor who intended it for an Award of Honor, but permitted us to use it for maintenance to make up for withdrawals which had greatly reduced our usual Fund receipts. This gift, and another of $200, will not be repeated.)</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Receipts from a gift for a prize awarded last November</td><td>200.00</td><td>850.00</td></tr><tr><td>Receipts from investments</td><td>175.62</td><td>206.15</td></tr><tr><td>Receipts from sales, subscriptions and advertisements</td><td>6551.18</td><td>7216.28</td></tr><tr><td>Total receipts</td><td>$11038.44</td><td>$11851.42</td></tr><tr><td>Expenditures:</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>For poems and articles in the magazine</td><td>$2429.65</td><td>$2554.59</td></tr><tr><td>For prizes awarded last November</td><td>550.00</td><td>600.00</td></tr><tr><td>Printing (including paper stock, binding, etc.)</td><td>3610.67</td><td>4008.49</td></tr><tr><td>Office rent and supplies, shipping and postage</td><td>1220.38</td><td>1287.69</td></tr><tr><td>Salaries and office assistance</td><td>2394.00</td><td>2437.00</td></tr><tr><td>Miscellaneous</td><td>111.76</td><td>115.01</td></tr><tr><td>Total expenditures</td><td>$10316.46</td><td>$11002.78</td></tr><tr><td>Balance in Checking Account Oct. 1st, 1932</td><td>$226.72</td><td>$391.99</td></tr><tr><td>(when a few outstanding checks have come in)</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Balance in Trust Fund, Oct. 1st, 1932</td><td>495.26</td><td>456.65</td></tr><tr><td>Total Balance Oct. 1st, 1932</td><td>721.98</td><td>848.64</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>$11038.44</td><td>$11851.42</td></tr></tbody></table>

The accounts of POETRY have been examined under our direction and found correct.

Arthur T. Leonard
Charles H. Hamill
Administrative Committee

October 1st, 1932

Our paid subscriptions, not counting copies sent to the press or to Guarantors, are now 2070, the decrease of 211 being the tribute of poets and libraries to the Depression. However, nearly half our subscriptions still come from libraries, many being those of colleges and high schools. Thus the influence of the magazine is multiplied by unknown quantities of readers. As the libraries usually bind their files, the magazine remains on their shelves as a permanent record.

Contributions to POETRY are deductible from income tax returns, by a decision of the Treasury Department, dated March 26th, 1929, which lists the magazine as "a foundation not for profit but exclusively for literary or educational purposes."

For the first time in our history, POETRY is giving no prizes this year.

John H. Finley in the New York Times - Aug. 11, 1932:

Many friends of Poetry have lamented the possibility of its early disappearance, have written eloquent pleas for keeping on with it.

John Clair Minot in the Boston Herald - Sept. 15, 1932:

Miss Monroe has been doing, ever since 1912, a work which puts poets and lovers of poetry forever in her debt.... Her magazine has easily held the lead. To appear in its pages is the ambition of countless young poets and the reward of the best of them.

Llewellyn Jones in the Chicago Evening Post - April 29, 1932:

As Dr. Horace Bridges pointed out, the economic system only exists as a basis for the spiritual life of man. And when that system is out of joint we should certainly not think to get it into joint again by destroying those very fruits of civilized life for which alone it exists. Miss Monroe's magazine has made the name of America respected abroad as it had not been for decades.... It was for a time, the only, and is still the foremost, platform for the poet who does not merely dwell in the past.

## Brief quotations from poets' letters:

From poets known and unknown, young and older, we have received many eloquent protests too long to quote; also briefer phrases like "that impending calamity," "a national disaster," "nothing short of a catastrophe," "one of the great trages--dies of this depression," "it would be a disgrace," "a solar-plexus blow to the art in this country."

Allen Tate is "very much distressed." Harold Vinal writes, "It must not die."
Horace Gregory says, "Its cessation would bring to an end whatever tradition con-
temporary poetry has acquired," Josephine Pinckney asks, "What would we do without
it?" John Hall Wheelock says, "Your magazine stands for something too fine and too
real to be discontinued." Florida Watts-Smyth thinks, "We cannot carry on without
it in the clubs and schools." Padraic Colum calls our twenty years "a wonderful
feat -- you have done more to give aid and comfort to poets than anyone I ever
knew." Josephine Johnson finds Poetry "a spur, a goal, and a prize, all in one--
it is unthinkable that it should cease to be." Louis Untermeyer writes, "Poetry
has helped not only poetry itself but every poet writing today, even those who
have fought you." Ezra Pound declares: "I not only wish Poetry to continue, but
I wish it to function as actively as it did in 1912. A country that cannot main-
tain a 'trade journal' for its writers of verse, or feed its best poets, is of
the 'dull and speechless tribes.'" Philip M. Harding says: "If your splendid
magazine closes shop, the gesture will be so definitely final that I seriously
believe American poetry will close shop with it." T. C. Wilson thinks, "It will
be one of the few things that future ages will remember of our century." And Hart
Crane wrote us before he died: "The fact that I have often differed with Poetry
is incidental to my belief that it has been the greatest cause of modern poetic
enthusiasm in America, and that its end would be disastrous."