Dear Mr. Warren,

I am glad that you liked the poems, and I am pleased
that I shall appear in the first number of The Southern
Review, as it promises to be the finest magazine ever to
emerge from the South. I am wishing for it a long and
successful career.

Thank you for inviting me to send you some more work.
Right now I have only one thing on hand, a very long poem
which I am holding to submit to Foreground in the fall.
But I shall probably do some new poetry from time to time,
and I shall certainly send you some more work; probably
more than you will care to bother with reading.

If you need biographical data for a contributors' column, it will suffice to say of me that I am a Mississippian and that I have contributed to The American Review, Poetry, Alcestis, The Sewanee Review and other magazines.

Please send my copy of the magazine, and my check,
to me at 120 Church Street, Belzoni, Mississippi, as I
shall be there after June 5th.

Thank you again for the kind things that you say
about my verses. And best wishes.

Box 43, Calhoun Building,
Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee,
14 May 1935.

Box 43, Calhoun Building,
Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee,
13 October 1935.

Dear Warren,

As I understand your letter, *The Southern Review* plans to discontinue the use of a group of single poems by various authors (as in the first issue) and to substitute in each issue a group of poems by a single author. And you would like to consider a group of my poems for a later issue-- if, of course, the poems in the group come up to standard. I am, naturally enough, quite pleased with the idea. But I am puzzled to know how large a group of poems you want.

I made up a group from the poems written during last summer (which you have not seen, except for "Soliloquy Upon Return"). Then I had Mr. Ransom to go over this group with me, and we made up a group of seven pieces. These poems I enclose, thinking that they might make up a group large enough for your consideration. The group, with titles etc. ought to fill six or eight pages of *The Southern Review*.

This batch of poems represents, I am afraid, the best work that I can do with my present equipment.... Of course, if you prefer, other titles might be substituted-- poems that you have already seen. I took the liberty of reSubmitting "Soliloquy etc." because I am sure that it is the pick of the last bunch of poems you had. The others, with the possible exception of "In the Delta, Remembering", were pretty awful I am afraid.

I am writing you in all candor about this; I shall, of course, expect a perfectly frank reply from you. I think that I don't need to say how highly I value your opinion and how much I appreciate your frankness in criticism.

It happens that Harriet Monroe has copies of two of the poems in this batch, but I am sure that they are not the kind of poems for Harriet. And if you can use them, I shall withdraw them from her at once-- without involving you in the transaction, naturally. That lady gripes me anyway: she has held two of my poems fully a year after accepting them, and I haven't even seen a proof on the things!

Thanks for the invitation to do a review for you. I'll be glad to do the piece; but you'd better let me know some time in advance, since the requirements of academic work and the requirements of writing sometimes conflict.

Nashville, Tennessee,

18 March 1936.

Dear Mr. Warren,

Any omissions you may have to make from my group
in the spring number of *The Southern Review* will be all
right with me, though I should like, naturally enough, to
be as well represented as possible. I know quite well
what difficulties of make-up you have with a magazine
like the *Review*. I leave the whole matter of the group
in your hands.

It is mighty kind of you to be so zealous in my
behalf about the fellowship. And I am delighted with
the idea of being attached to *The Southern Review*....
Before your letter came, I had decided to come back
to Nashville next winter; now, I am undecided. But I
should like to go ahead with the fellowship plans down
there, because it is quite probable that I would desert
Vanderbilt for L.S.U. if I were granted the fellowship.
I wish you would tell me more about the nature of my
connection with the magazine.

Pipkin sent me a formal application blank. Should
I fill it out and send it on in? And do you think it is
necessary that I should come down later in the spring to
see about the business?

I'll appreciate your writing me about these things
as soon as you get the new issue of the magazine off
off your mind. And thank you for looking after my
interests.

P.S. Mr. Ransom showed me the proof of his article
this morning. I think it is a mighty keen criticism, and
I'm proud of it. There is no man in America for whose
judgment I have more respect.

120 Church Street,
Belzoni, Mississippi,
13. vii. 1937.

Dear Mr. Warren:

Forgive me if I seem to shower contributions upon *The Southern Review*. But when I wrote you the other day about the essay on Horton's *Hart Crane* I didn't know that this piece would be available; and now that it is, I think it is much more important than the Crane article. I really hope that you'll see your way clear to run this piece in the autumn issue. While the point of the essay is not new, I think it is fundamental.

The piece has an interesting history. I sent it first to Collins, naturally enough, since the article which I'm answering appeared in his magazine. After two weeks, I wired Collins, and he wired a rejection. Then the manuscript came, with a letter from Dorothea Brande Collins, a copy of which I enclose. I send the letter because it substantiates perfectly the point that I make on page three (sentence beginning, "He has seen them do all of this bravely....") of my article, about the influence of this new intellectualism on writers, exerted through the intellectualist control of publication itself.... Well, after that Allen suggested that I send the piece to Lambert Davis, and I did. Davis praised the essay, but hinted that he wasn't so much again the Humanists, and concluded his letter: "I am really terribly sorry that the *Quarterly* is of such a size and so infrequent in publication that it is necessary to make many editorial decisions-- and this is one of them-- that have nothing to do with the literary merits of the thing considered." I know you-all face this same difficulty. But I still hope that you'll manage to squeeze the piece in somewhere. Won't you let me know soon?

120 Church Street,
Belzoni, Mississippi,
23. ix. 1937.

Dear Warren,

I'm sorry to have been so long about answering your good
letter. But I have had the managing of the business end
of a plantation wished off on me this summer, through the
death of a relative of mine; and I've been greatly rushed
all summer in consequence.

It is quite all right about the poetry article, of course.
I'm at least glad to know that someone agrees with my basic
view.... Collins' magazine irritates me more and more with
every passing issue; it is not only Fascist in policy, but
also Fascist in dealing with its contributors, I'm afraid.
And I don't like either kind of Fascism.

Thanks for wanting to see more of my things for The Southern
Review. I have been greatly handicapped in my writing this
summer, on account of business. And this winter I hope to
spend the greater part of my time working on a novel about
the settlement of the Yazoo delta. But I do have a couple
of things in hand that may interest you when they are finished.
I'm working on a fairly good-sized short story, "Flood Stage",
which may turn out decently. And I'm still planning to do an
article on William Faulkner-- entitled "Mr. Faulkner and the
Contemporary Morality" or else "Mr. Faulkner, Southern Traditionist"
which I'll certainly send you when it is finished, along in
November or December.

I'd like very much to do some reviewing for you if you have
anything that you'd think me suitable to handle. Of course
I know that you can get more good criticism than anything else;
but you mentioned my doing some reviewing about a year ago,
and I said then that I was too busy, so nowthat I have time
I'm letting you know.... Please don't ask me to do fiction,
though; I feel completely incompetent in that field.

I'll be here in Belzoni this winter, except for short trips
to Nashville, and maybe a little trip to New York in January.
Sometime during the period I hope to run down to Baton Rouge
and New Orleans, since I've never been to that part of the
world. And I'll plan to see you then, of course. Meanwhile,
let me hear from you when you have the time.

120 Church Street,
Belzoni, Mississippi,
8.xi. 1937.

Dear Warren,

Thanks for your note.... I'll be interested indeed in knowing what you think of the Faulkner piece, and I'll send it down to you as soon as it is written.... I'm sorry that I don't have any new poems to send you; I've just sold two pieces to *The Virginia Quarterly Review*, and the last two things I've written have been sold to *New Directions: 1937*, accordingly, my supply of poems is pretty well exhausted.... Frankly, I'd rather have poetry printed in *The Southern Review* than anywhere else; but your policy of printing only groups of poems works against me, as I write comparatively little, and I need the money that comes in from selling one or two poems at a time. I believe that if you could see your way clear to use in each issue, in addition to the group of poems by one author, a section of shorter pieces by various authors (as in the first issue of the magazine), then that would be a great service to the poets of the country. I've been more and more distressed by the lack of markets for poetry; now that *Poetry* is in the hands of George Dillon, only *The Southern Review* and *The Virginia Quarterly* remain as poetry markets. And if you-all continue to print only groups of poems, then there will be almost no place where a single poem of say forty or fifty lines can be printed. It's distressing to think that poetry simply can't be sold! Of course little enough of the work now being written is worth buying; but it seems that it is the incompetents (like R.P.Tristram-Coffin, Paul Engle, Ruth Lechlitner, Muriel Rukeyser, et.al.) who dominate the scene. And Mr.Ben Belitt has suddenly become an elder man of letters!

It's all right, of course, about the reviewing. I happen to need some money right now-- with farming conditions as they are--; and I was interested in doing a review to bolster my bank account. Likely enough, though, I'll need the money just as much when (and if) you find a place for me.

Please remember me to Mrs.Warren, to Bro.Brooks, and to Bro.Erskine. And my best to you, sir!

120 Church Street,
Belzoni, Mississippi,
4 December, 1937.

Dear Br'er Warren,

Harry Brown has asked me to forward a group of
his poems to you (he has been here visiting me), and I am
sending them to you under separate cover in this mail. I
am enclosing a stamped envelope for the return of the work,
too, in case you can't use it.

You may have seen some of Brown's work before, in
*Transition*, in *The Atlantic Monthly*, or in *Poetry* (where he
won the young poet's prize a few years ago). I've been follow-
ing him for some time, and I think he's mighty good; accordingly,
I encouraged him in submitting a group to you-all. Of course
you may have an opposite opinion; but I think his late Elizabethan
heritage-- mostly Webster, Ford, Tourneur-- is something new
in his hands.

Brown is now travelling in the west, and his address
will be indefinite for several months, so I wish you'd return
the poems, or address any communications, in my care; I'll see
that he gets them promptly.