6853 Pacific View Drive
Hollywood, California

September 23, 1940

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
The Southern Review
University, Louisiana

Dear Mr. Warren:

Thank you for your letter of the 18th. I shall be very pleased to have IT BEGINS IN THE MAN appear in THE SOUTHERN REVIEW.

As to the line arrangement. My intention was to have every line broken as in the manuscript. This has no relation to the meaning but is simply a matter of symmetrical typography. Many of my poems have been printed in this form and they turn out fairly well. If some of the lines are printed in this way and some as one line, the appearance is clumsy. If, however, your space requirements compel two lines to be run as one, no great harm will be done. But if the choice is left to me, I would prefer that it be run as indicated in the manuscript.

I might add that you have chosen the poem which I consider best in the group I sent you.