William Carlos Williams'
COLLECTED POEMS

1921-1931

*With a preface by Wallace Stevens*

Essentially not "a repeater of things second-hand," Doctor Williams is in his manner of contemplating with new eyes, old things, shabby things, and other things, a poet. — Marianne Moore.

There is a distinctness and color . . . but there is beyond these qualities the absolute conviction of a man with his feet on the soil, on a soil personally and peculiarly his own. He is rooted. — *Ezra Pound*.

Peut-être William Carlos Williams a-t-il composé la formule de l'art americain.
— René Taupin.

134 Pages. Price $2.00

THE OBJECTIVIST PRESS

10 WEST 36TH STREET

NEW YORK CITY

THE OBJECTIVIST PRESS

is an organization of writers who are
publishing their own work and that of
other writers whose work they think
ought to be read.

already published

William Carlos Williams' Collected Poems with a preface by Wallace Stevens . . . . $2.00

Testimony, a book of prose, by Charles Reznikoff
with an introduction by Kenneth Burke $1.00

Jerusalem the Golden, a book of verse,
by Charles Reznikoff . . . . . . $1.00

to be published

Verse and prose by Basil Bunting, George Oppen,
Tibor Serly, Carl Rakosi, René Taupin,
Louis Zukofsky and others.

---

THE OBJECTIVIST PRESS

10 WEST 36TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY

Advisory Board:

EZRA POUND, WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS,
LOUIS ZUKOFSKY, Sec'y

To

November 18, 1936

Dear Viola :

Never heard or Reginald Goode. He sounds like the
usual movie representation or the hard boiled stage manager
that flips up the girls' skirts to see their legs, casually
makes a few wise cracks and spits on the floor. Maybe that's
the way it's done . I dunno. But, as I say, he appears by
your description to be dramatizing himself in the tradition of
The Marx Brothers. Forget it. If the kid has the stuff she'll
get on without his benison. Glad she went elsewhere for a
trial. Eva le Gallienne is a rotten lesbian but she works and
trains her troupe well from all I have heard. Who cares what
brand she smokes.

I hear occasionally from the Ezra. I hope he is
happy, since happiness in an equable climate seems to mean so
much to him. 's oke with me. He ought to be here or, rather,
he should have come here after the war and remained here
working and looking around - What the hell, it wouldn't have
done him any good. He's best where he is, no doubt. But had
he been other than what he is it would have been well for him
to have come to New York several years ago.

My regards to the family. With your permission
Floss and I will drive over some Sunday, maybe, and pay you a
call. I hope the girl sticks it out. There are splendid
opportunities for summer training in acting. I once saw a gang
of kids ( 17 to 21 ) holding forth in Petersburg, New Hampshire.
Looked good.

My Bill is studying Medicine at Cornell in New York.
Paul, the younger, is at the University of Pennsylvania, a
sophomore. They're nice kids, sez I. I enjoy them when they
don't drive me nuts.

Best luck.

W. C. WILLIAMS, M. D.

9 RIDGE ROAD
RUTHERFORD, N. J.

Nov. 23, 1936

Dear Viola:

Thanks for a very nice letter. Glad to hear the news of the family. No, Ezra is not planning to come to America, not he. But it is what he needs ( if he could take it ) for all that.

We'll be over some time, perhaps a Sunday evening, as you suggest. I'd like to see the girls and to talk with them.

Perhaps you're right about doctors and nurses. It's hard to say. Unfortunately you can't endow men or women with humane reactions by graduating them from schools or whatever sort. But many are of a superior sort for all that.

Another "ior all that".

W. C. WILLIAMS, M. D.

9 Ridge Road
Rutherford, N. J.

Dec. 1, 1936

Dear Viola:

Could you make that family reunion sometime after the
first of the year? There are a hundred things pressing us just
now with hardly a moment in which to fit them all, every hour
counts and next Sunday particularly we're tied up all day. Please
don't give us up but ask us again after the next few hectic weeks
are over and we'll be delighted to come. You see, week ends are
the only times we have with the boys and next Sunday Paul is
coming down from Philadelphia for a special occasion and we do
not wish to be away when he is here - or hereabouts.

Let's hope Susan got home safely from her Bear Mountain
trip with nothing worse the matter with her than sore muscles.
It's as interesting up there in winter as in summer. Four of us
went there three Sundays ago thinking we were going to take a
line long walk. It rained like hell all day. We walked a little
but saw little other than the fat bears, almost ready to go to
sleep for the winter. The meal was good at the Inn.

You wouldn't be in Brooklyn this Friday night, would
you? Marianne Moore and I are to present a Poetry Symposium at the
Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences that evening. Something new
for me. I shouldn't go, were I you, unless your interest in
modern poetry is at white heat! I'm trying to get my notes for it
in presentable form but without great success so far.

Be good and ask us again soon, please. I'm sure you'll
understand. Somebody else wanted us to go up to Sussex, N.J. that
same day to eat Guinea hen. Impossible.

9 Ridge Rd.
Rutherford, N.J.