THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
BY LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Baton Rouge

May 17, 1935.

Mr. Randall Jarrell,
Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee.

Dear Randall;

I should have written you earlier, but
I simply haven't had the opportunity. I hope
you had a good time while you were in Baton Rouge
and that the rush of finishing off the term
there is not too hard now.

About the essays: perhaps it would be
better to publish the one of Auden first, but
sooner or later we do want the study of Milay.
How near through are you with the Auden? We
are not counting on it for the first issue,
since we are full up on the critical side, but
we are trying to lay plans for the next three
issues in some departments. Do you think you
would have the Milay study ready for the winter
or spring issue? We want it to be almost a final
word on the subject; so make it as full as you like.

About the poems; I am still unsatisfied with
the last two stanzas of the Asphaltine poem. I
don't believe that the last stanza nearly resolves
the elements in the poem. It seems arbitrary and
a trifle histerical, particularly the "you damned
harples" and the "revelry of a grenade". I believe
that the poem is so good otherwise that you shouldn't
print it until the end is perfect. I suppose that you
have a copy, and so I am keeping this one.

Dear Red--

Here are the poems. I'd have sent them
before except they weren't fixed before. I should have
written before and said what a nice time I had and all that,
but I was sure you'd appreciate the letter more if the poems
came along with it. They haven't any titles-- just call any
A POEM like that. The more you use the better-- I'll have
plenty for the group.

If you use Biship's group of poems in the second issue,
I would like it a lot if you could put mine in the third.
By that time I'll have all the ones I'm writing now finished,
and some new ones written. I'll be able to give you thirteen
or fourteen, I imagine, some of them fairly long.

If you want the Millay or the Auden article for the
second issue I can have it all ready; I have been working
since I got home on the Auden one. I think it's probably
the more interesting of the two, since the subject is much
more interesting. I really know Auden's poetry pretty well.
Outside of your introductory essay, he hasn't been even
remotely well treated in this country.

Will you write me a note as soon as you get this
and tell me what poems you're going to use, and which article
you want and so forth?

Pardon the very Writer to Editor tone of this
letter so far-- I just put all that material in a lump.

I'm having to write all my psychology experiments and
make up the school I missed and get up the last Masquerader
and play a tennis match every other afternoon and I'm
getting to have a mild version of the harried expression
you had gotten. I've won all the matches I've had in
games with other schools.

I hope you'll have time to rest and write as well
this summer. Everybody was worried about your having so
much work you scarcely had time to sleep.

I've had to interrupt this letter for an hour to
play with a three year old boy that visited us. He was
very interesting telling about the dark man, and the rain
man, and the thunder man. They live above the clouds, in
the sky, with God; God makes them do what they do. The
dark man is all covered with dark, the thunder man with
thunder. The dark man can stay up all night because he is
a grown up. They sun man doesn't live in the sun, but
along with the rest of them. He got me to draw him a picture
of the dark man. The dark man looks exactly the same as he
does, except he is grown up. At night after he goes to
sleep he thinks about the dark man; he doesn't play in
his dreams or do anything except think about the dark man.

I had a fine time at L.S.U. and I was glad to get
to stay with you as long as I did. I hope you'll get to come
up here before you go west for the summer.

Mr. Ransom told me all about his Harvard lecture
for you; it's a long metaphor comparing poetry and a
masquerade.

Yours,

Randall

THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

Baton Rouge

July 16, 1955

Dear Jarrell:

I am returning the enclosed poem. The other two we took, and I like them very much. A copy of *The Southern Review* ought to be off the press tomorrow, and we shall get you copies and your check right away. I have been so busy with proof reading and other work incident to getting out the delayed first number that I haven't had time to catch up on correspondence. I want to ask you about the Milley and the Auden article. Whereas I am not sure that it will go in the second number--make-up has not been determined for that--it certainly ought to go into the third. If you can get it here by September, I think it would be well. In using the word "it" I am referring to the Auden article. I am inclined to agree with you that it will be a little more interesting, though I think the Milley should be most interesting also. Has Red, by the way, written you expressing a preference for either of them?

I am writing to get back in touch with you after the long interval and to let you know that we are still alive here at least. Don't hurry the Auden article, but if you can get it by September, or if you can let me know your plans with regard to it or the

August 11, 1935

The Southern Review
Baton Rouge, La.

Dear Jarrell --

I feel very bad about writing you to late to make
the request which I am going to make: it is that you will do the
long review of the fiction of the quarter for the October num-
ber. We have been delayed, however, because of several things
among them the fact that several of our communications to Red
Warren were retuned to us after being held several days instead
of being forwarded to me him.

The review would be in general the sort that Baker
did in the last number. You would review _Lucy Gayheart_ by Willa
Cather, _Vein of Iron_ by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, _Deep Dark
River_ by Rylee and as many other books as you might care to. I
have prepared a list of about twelve of what seem to be the more
important novels of this quarter -- but you would be expected
to use your own discretion in choosing and excluding and deter-
mining the limits of your article.

We are very anxious to keep up the standard of these
good reviews, and I think that to some extent it will be well to
keep them "in the family." Red puts you up about the top ten
in his list of choices for this sort of work, and that represents
my view. I hope that you will be able to undertake this for
us -- you will certainly earn my undying gratitude if you do.

We pay our regular rates for prose for reviews and as
you will have seen from Burke's and Paker's, they amount to
articles. They Auden article on which I presume that you are
working now would go into the winter issue. I am afraid that
in any case it must be held for that number because of the number
of articles of that general type which we have scheduled for the
fall.

I hope sincerely that you can help us with the long revie w.
Please let me know at one. If your reply is favorable I can beg in
gettin books to you at once.

P.S. As you know Red is away in the West. I had the pleasure
of meeting you brother, the other day, and I am glad that he is
to be in school here this fall. I shall be glad to help him
in any way that I can. Red, of course, will be glas to do the
same.

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July 27, 1936.

Dear Red, Cleanth, or whoever's in charge:

Here are the poems I'm entering
for your poetry prize; they are accompanied by a
self-addressed stamped envelope, and this is the
signed statement entering them in the contest.
There are about four hundred and eighty-five lines
in all.

I hope all of you are feeling better than
I am-- finishing the long poem has tired me out com-
pletely. How soon are you coming up here?

Dear Red--

I was under the impression that I was certain to
get a fellowship here, but Curry tells me I have a
"very good chance"-which is something so beautifully
ambiguous I think I'll send it to William Empson. So
do you think you might get me one there? If you do,
write me back about what information, recommendations,
and assorted junk I should send, and I'll be real
grateful.

This is my second year of graduate work and I'll
have an English M. A. I think I was about eighth or
tenth in my class; I can get you some admiring letters
from Curry, Ransom, Davidson, Sanborn, etc. Also,
all this year I've been grading the papers of two of
Ransom's classes, one freshman and one advanced.
Also, as a merit that will strike home more directly,
I could read stuff and proof for you and Cleanth.

Curry says that everybody is delighted with my
work, but there are five or six people for three places
so he can't tell me anything definite. The possibility
(or probability, as it naturally seems to me) of not
getting a fellowship here annoys me; I have been going
to Vanderbilt for five years and have never managed to
get a fellowship, scholarship, or anything else; after
I made a letter I was allowed to go to football games
free, except for the government tax; but they stopped
that a year ago, so I can be grateful to Vanderbilt
proper only for having been allowed to get into five
football games by paying the government tax. The person
I am grateful to is Mr. Ransom, who got me a little
N. Y. A. job grading his papers; fortunately Vanderbilt
had nothing to do with that.

I leave the imitation of Isaiah; I've written
twenty or thirty poems since summer, some of which I
send. (For you to read and comment on, saying that
they make you cry or the top of your head come off or
something similar.) Send me your long one.

I see a lot of Mr. Ransom, who is well and wise
but not writing poetry; I guess from posterity's point
of view it would be better to have him sick and silly,
but writing. At the moment I'm sick, and I feel silly
enough, but I do write poetry constantly-- so posterity
should appreciate me.

I gave your wine safe and sound to the Cabeens
and they said they were grateful and drank it. I am
working some on my thesis about Auden; I play football
a lot and broke my finger. I hope you and Cenina and
Cleanth and Tinkum are well and happy; write soon
about the fellowship, won't you?

Yours,

Randall

Because of me, because of you,
More things happened than I know:
The star's distention, the detonation
Of the instant and endless collocation
Of the wicked unlikely spinsters-- and Mother;

The singular protein, the abstract cell,
Elaborated, industrial,
Grew feet and fat to keep from falling
In inland air or ever feeling
The limiting ice of the glacial sea;

The gangling and abortive fathers
Worked out their odds-on lives before us
And laughed at the actuaries' end--
Despised, evaded, or endured
The novel virus, the unique star;

Grew witty, mutant, and courageous,
And never faltered, because they knew
Their blood meant more than us and now:
The unstable and haggard intimation
Of a wiser speech and a stranger's face.

Jan. 12, 1938

Mr. Randall Jarrell
Kenyon College
Gambier, Ohio

Dear Randall:

It was fine to hear from you. And it would be even nicer to see you. I don't know when we will be able to get to Nashville, and the prospect of coming to Ohio seems more and more remote all the time. I am hoping to get to Nashville and Kentucky during the Easter vacation. I don't see how I could get to Ohio and back in my car during the time I have at my disposal Easter. I am terribly anxious to see John and Robb, and I suppose now that the most immediate hope for that is on the occasion of John's lecture here.

You ask about the poems. As far as the book is concerned, I can't give you any definite news now, but I hope to be able to in the not too distant future. That whole matter is hanging fire for the present. But the REVIEW is another thing again. We should certainly like to plan for an exhibit about a year from now. We are committed for the next several issues, John Berryman, Mark Van Doren, etc. How about letting us see things as you write them? Anyway, I should be anxious to have a look.

Everything seems to be going as well here as usual. There is plenty of work, certainly. My novel is moving toward the last lap, though I don't see how I can get it ready in time for spring publication. The thing has grown inordinately in length. The book which Brooks and I are doing for Holt is the