Clark C. Abt
52 Garden Street,
Cambridge 38, Mass.

10 March, 1958/

Dr. William Carlos Williams
9 Ridge Road,
Rutherford, N.J.

Dear Dr. Williams;

Enclosed is the new spring issue of *Audience*, for your
amusement and, I hope, pleasure.

I have an axe to grind. With so many others, I have
for several years enjoyed your poetry and your prose
(particularly *In The American Grain*). You have
always written of the immediate and active moments
of men in a voice that an unacademic fellow who loves
literature (I am an engineer) could enjoy.

In *Audience* magazine, in our amateur but serious way,
we hope to publish the works of writers who have more
than an academic appeal but are more daring and
exciting than those you might read in, say, *Harpers*.
I suppose it could be argued that this has all been
tried before, but I'm not so sure of that. In any
case we hope to do something to reverse the trend
toward the academic disengagement. Very little
criticism, but critical selection of new work.
Work that has something to do with working people
(not necessarily "workers"), and less about I had
a girl once but she died tra la.

I hope you will contribute a poem, a story, an essay,
whatever you would like to give us. Your work would
really be appreciated by our readers, and honor us.
It is humiliating to have to state that we cannot
afford to pay our contributors. It is unfair to the
writer, not so much because he must eat (there are
always ways of managing that in this country), but
because of the implied disrespect - as if this all
were a mere trifling amusement, this writing, and
one should be grateful for being published. Perhaps
with your help our magazine will grow good enough to
attract more readers, hence more advertisers, and hence
make enough money to pay its own way.

We would be very pleased to hear your comments on the
magazine, and if it is not too presumptuous I want to
say that I would feel it an honor to further correspond
with you.

AUDIENCE

60 Kirkland Street,
Cambridge 38, Mass.

10 April, 1958

Dear Doctor Williams;

Thank you for sending us the poem *Tapiola*.
Not all of our editors are presently in town,
hence we would like to defer any editorial
decisions until they are. In the meantime we
would like to hold the poem for further
consideration.

We would very much like to see more of your
new poems, but even more, we would really be
grateful for some prose - be it fiction or
satire or essay. We have had relatively few
fiction manuscripts submitted so far this spring,
perhaps because people are under the mistaken
impression that we are still a poetry journal.
On the contrary, we are attempting to produce
a well-balanced magazine compounded of fiction,
poetry, essays, and art work. (The next issue
will have some fine pen-and-ink caricatures
and charcoal drawings.) These drawings were
generously provided by the Boris Mirski Gallery
here in Boston. Incidentally, Mr. Mirski has
the friendliest memories of meeting you in
Ben Shahn's home, and sends his regards.

For the sake of our self-respect, etc., etc.,
we are going to start paying for manuscripts
with cash rather than merely thanks. Our
payments will not be munificent at first,
but at least we will for the first time be
on a serious (what is more serious, like the plague?)
working basis.