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Boston, U. S. A.

January 3, 1916.

William Carlos Williams, Esq.,
Rutherford, N.J.

Dear Williams:

Thank you for your two letters. I hadn't seen a copy of "Others" until this other night. Apparently your printer or binder has failed to send any to the shop here at all. I saw Alfred, of course, on his trip, in fact saw him several times, and he reported he was going back to New York to rest after his strenuous career in Boston.

Thanks for your remarks about Fletcher's poem, which I have
relieved to him.

The next time I get to New York, I am going to arrive at
your place in Rutherford about midnight and steal all of your cor-
respondence with Amy Lowell, in order to include it in my forth-
coming History of American Poets and Poetry, which will be published
by some medical house for doctors and advance scientists only,

Yours as ever,

EB/K

July 18, 1918

Dear Brown : -

I do not mean to torment you with
letters in series - but after all this is only the second
in a week.

The matter is that I must have a book out soon or
I shall destroy nearly all I have written. I seem only
to be able to tolerate 50 to 60 of my things at a time.
As I write the new, the old dies off at the other end of
the string. And so - I must have a book.

Alfred has set me thinking of you. It seems you
publish a series, some sort of a series of books of verse,
the name escapes me. In this series perhaps there is
a place for me - I wonder if I want to appear in a series -
nevertheless write me, give me the information I want.

By the way, how can I reach Eliot ?

I wish you good fortune,

9 Ridge Road, Rutherford, N.J.

July 19, 1918

Dear Brown : -

" Fifty dollars! Fifty dollars ! Do you know
what that is, fifty dollars ? It's a weight would drag a
man to the ground . " That's a translation from a Spanish
peasant's conversation .

I'll probably take you up on your offer - provided you
don't throw out a piece simply because it mentions the word
"drawers".

Give me one more day. At the present moment I am so utterly
exhausted from battling the heat, death, in the person of
a young man and my own heaped fatigues, accumulated since
last summer that I can scarcely turn a sheet of paper into
a typewriter much less invent a good name for a volume of
verse or choose the pieces to be left out .

Print M.B. and anything else you want, you are at
liberty to choose from the MSS when it arrives. A small
group of the recent things however will have to be reserved
for "Others", I'll mark them .

Oh, and when will that fifty have to be forwarded? This
is very important .

The final decision will have to wait until after you
have seen the MSS. Ah, wonderful MSS. in which I lose
more and more confidence every day . Only this A.M. I had
decided not to publish at all. What a life !

Well, I was glad to see you. You're a silent, quaker
looking individual with sort of careful, unprogressive
view. I thought, so we'll see whether you like my MSS. after
all.

One thing is certain if the teeth of the thing must all
be drawn I shall never consent to let it go out into a
brutal world. It would be more cruel than exposing a baby
to sunburn while it slept.

Nevertheless I think I saw in you the New England love of
cruelty that will not let my mere opinions influence you
much.

November 16, 1916.

Mr. William Carlos Williams,
Rutherford, N. J.

Dear Williams:

Your recent letter received just after I had written to you.
I am still perfectly willing and glad to fill the unexpired
subscriptions without any strings of any kind, if you want me to.

And I am still willing to consider either your book or the
combination as originally planned.

Failing that, I shall be glad to see if I can sell some copies
of your pamphlet in our own book shop, but it is almost impossible
to sell pamphlets to the regular stores.

Yours as ever,

EB/K

February 23, 1917

Dear Brown : -

This is not the first of a series of
forty letters anent the book ; this is the last of a
series of five letters anent that same book ;

You make one serious objection to my child - you
do not like the title. I have come to agree with you
so that if you will do me a great favor kindly put a
line through "- or The Pleasures of Democracy.",
whether this occurs in the MSS. or in the contracts.

The title of my book now and henceforth is :

A Book of Poems :

AL QUE QUIERE !

I notice besides that you have inverted the order
of my title in the contract. Please do not do that
but leave it as it is. I want the thing to read : a
book of poems to him who wants it. Get me ?

I do not foresee anything else *that* should make
trouble for either of us. I cant imagine a single flaw
in anything I have planned nor do I doubt your perfections
for one moment.

Did you receive the check etc. which I mailed yesterday ?

May 25, 1917.

William Carlos Williams, Esq.,
Rutherford, N. J.

Dear Mr. Williams:

I have sent you, under separate cover, the
page proofs of your book. I haven't included
the Table of Contents, as I was afraid you would
shift a page or two, and this would necessitate
my resetting the contents.

Will you kindly look the proofs over carefully, O.K., the arrangement, and send them back to me as soon as possible? The book makes a nice working little page.

I am rather sorry now that I did not put
more than one poem on a page where the space
would stand it, as is done in the "Songs from
Vagabondia." If you think that will be better,
you can so indicate, and I will make the pages
up again.

I enclose also our new price list, in which
you will find your book listed. It may be that
we will have to put the price up to $1.85. We
could probably avoid that if the pages were re-
duced by running more than one poem on a page
where this is possible.

However, you can think it over and let me
know what you prefer.

Yours as ever,

ERB/DD

May 28, 1917

Dear Brown : -

I think you have made a splendid job of it. I quite agree with you however that it would be better to let the poems follow each other in continuous sequence as in "Songs from Vagabondia". Arrange them that way.

Of course you will acknowledge - at the end perhaps - that the
poems have in many cases been taken from, "Poetry", "Others"
"The Egoist" and "The Poetry Journal".

The proof of the cover if perhaps the only thing that is really unsatisfactory. Take another stab at it. You don't like my pencil sketch of my own phiz do you? Look it up, if you have it there. I like it. Put it in center of cover.

Page 93 of the proof was missing on arrival. Send it on specially or not as you think best.

It's a strange book to me. Doesn't seem as if I had written it at all. There are several unpleasant things in it I really would like to see cut out of it but - I can't bring myself to do it. One thing I would like you to do: delete "Gloriamini Versae etc." and put in its place "Ballet" the MSS of which I sent you in a recent letter. PLEASE DO NOT FAIL ME IN THIS!

And now God bless you and make you prompt in your correspondence

When will the book be out ?

Sept. 14, 1917

Dear Brown : -

I wouldn't change the inflection of a word in
what you have written - except the praise . But of course
one must bear that . Really you have written an extra-ordinary
summary of a whole attitude toward poetry in that little
spiel, it will go well with the book . God bless you .

With best wishes for the success of your venture -- I'll do all
I can to boom the book -- I am

Your friend

October 10, 1917

Dear Brown : -

I hope I like my book when I see it. You don't give me much of a chance to know what's going on. If you accept my next book I'm going to insist on a time clause and an author's rights clause.

Send me an advance copy of my book.

The names of the periodicals are (not in order though) : Contemporary Poetry (Phila.) The Poetry Review, The Poetry Journal, Poetry, Others, The Masses, The Blind Man, The Seven Arts, The Boil, The Bookman, The Yale Review, Ready's Mirror, The Little Review.

Since many of these periodicals have ceased to exist since 1965, the article was written it might be well to call attention to that fact.

After twelve interruptions : trips to the furnace, to the phone, to the door, to the breakfast table, to the bath room, to the baby's cribside - this letter is finished. May God have mercy on my soul!

Yours

Willeain

Nov. 16, 1917

Dear Brown : -

Your letter was welcome, that's about all I
can say for it - apart from its charming style.

You come about as near to guessing my attitude
of mind as I have in regard to your delay in getting out the book
as I have of what the devil you've been about all this time.

I don't even want to see the damned thing. All I ever wanted was two lines: your book will be out on such and such a date and on that date to be informed: your book is out. I shall certainly be glad when I get that latter piece of news.

Believe me I appreciate the work you have done in
my behalf and I do also appreciate the undoubted expenses
to which you have been put but - I'm sick of telling
everyone I meet that the thing will soon appear then on the
following month to have them come and ask me, "Is the book out
yet?" That's all.

Yes, that story of the second edition sounds
attractive. Will that interfere with my next volume?
You confounded philanderer, you simply have an aversion to
writing anything on paper - especially letters to me -
the poet! Come again with some real news next time.

Aiken and Sandburg! I don't know which to trust
least. I wonder if they'll really say anything that I can
read and be interested in. I'll get hell from Aiken, I
can smell that.

May you make a lot of money !

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

February 12, 1918

Dear Brown : -

Send me ten copies of my book together with bill .
I presume I get some sort of discount, at least give me the
ten percent I would get anyway - or perhaps I get nothing .

It's a damned well gotten up little book . I have sold
a few to near friends but it's not very easy for me to advertise
myself here so -

It's a pity there are three typographical errors in the
little spanish piece at the front . Would you mind letting me
have the corrected proof of that page, I ask this for my father's
sake and for mine own . Pop was furious !

Have you sent a copy to Pound ? If not don't . I have
seen no reviews . The silence is complete , makes me as happy as
I'd be in a wood , a true forest , some August noon . Great !

I sincerely hope you don't loose money on this venture.
I hope you sell enough copies in the west to cover yourself .

I'm working hard at my quack trade, curing people of
their ills. Of course these puffed up American peasants are the
salt of the earth. You're a great publisher. It's thawing out-
side. There goes a woman in a grey plush coat and a black hat etc.
It must be great to have sense and be logical like you and
Bodenheim and Amy Lowell and Dr. Williams.

Say, have you found occasion to publish my autobiography?

BACK BAY
1506

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BOSTON, U. S. A.

Mar. 15, 1919.

Mr. William Carlos Williams,
Rutherford, N.J.

Dear Williams:

Referring to your letter of Mar. 11th, I have
sent you ten more copies of "Al Cuó Quiere", and enclose
bill herewith. The other bill was for the same amount, so
that you owe a small balance of 29 cents.

The book is certainly getting some extraordinary reviews. There was a very good one in the Richmond Journal, and a very bad one in the Baltimore News, and an editorial in last week's Minneapolis Bellman giving me hell for what I said on the jacket.

There was also a pretty good review in the
Springfield Union. There have been a number of notices and
paragraphs, but these are the only real reviews that have
drifted in so far.

If you haven't seen any of these, I can send you
copies.

Yours,

EB DD

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Last year I published a book of poems by William Carlos Williams. The title —
"Al Que Quiere!" — was not good for much. It doesn't
mean much to most readers, and furthermore it isn't very good Spanish, but it
was a tribute to a Spanish strain in the author, so I didn't try to argue a new
title out of him. The book itself, however, is great stuff. I thought so then
and I think so now. But when I first published the book, I didn't feel that it
would interest many readers, and so I wrote some impolite remarks on the jacket
of the book, to the effect that I didn't give a damn whether any one bought it
or not. This is what I said:

"This book is a collection of poems by William Carlos Williams. You, gentle reader, will probably not like it, because it is brutally powerful and scornfully crude. Fortunately, neither the author nor the publishers care much whether you like it or not. The author has done his work, and if you do read the book you will agree that he doesn't give a damn for your opinion. His opinion of you is more important than your opinion of him. And we, the publishers, don't much care whether you buy the book or not. It only costs a dollar, so that we can't make much profit out of it. But we have the satisfaction of offering that which will outweigh, in spite of its eighty small pages, a dozen volumes of pretty lyrics. We have the profound satisfaction of publishing a book in which, we venture to predict, the poets of the future will dig for material as the poets of to-day dig in Whitman's Leaves of Grass."

Now of course these remarks on the jacket offended a good many people, including the reviewers, who unanimously assumed that Williams wrote the jacket himself. Because I have appreciated the unconscious compliment, but for two reasons, I want to say now that I, and not he, wrote the jacket. First, because the book inside is offensive enough to some people, without saying the jacket to add insult to injury, and I don't want that blamed on the author. Second, because I have considerably altered my opinion of the book, as expressed on the jacket, and I want to REMIND mend my ways. Gentle reader, I do care whether you read this book or not. I want you to read it. Since publishing it, I have read it again and again, and much that seemed to me crude in it has become sharp and clean like a knife; and much that seemed brutal has become wholesome and strong like a HUGING MUSCLE nude athlete; and above all I have discovered that there is romance as well as realism in this stuff, and altogether almost eighty pages of real poetry. Real poetry! Poetry with guts in it! Not the wearying succession of sonnets and ballades, and rondeaux and preludes, and reveries and odes, and every other form under which the English lyric has been camouflaged, which we generally find in a book of verse. Not the tiresome narratives which make us wonder why such good storytellers have wasted their time trying to be poets. Not the incessant reiteration of some of the greatest English詩人 and some of the greatest dead men's tales which remind us more of the Sleepy Hollow edition of a Hearst newspaper than of poetry. Some of these, and some of those, are really an astounding variety. As I read them over, I am surprised and delighted as I turn from poem to poem — this man Williams makes a cynical and almost offensive observation in one poem, and jams it home, and on the next page gives another poem which is a bit of lyric beauty. The variety of treatment is almost as astonishing as the variety of ideas.

I am going to give you two quotations which have particularly delighted me—
although it is almost impossible to select any two poems to characterize the book,
the variation in theme and style is so great;

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN IN BED.

There's my things
drying in the corner;
that blue shirt
joined to the grey shirt—

4

Some give for a thousand years to me of
one face, some for a thousand
to all men and some few to all men
while granite holds an edge against
the washer.

Judge then of love!

"My flesh is turned to stone. I
have endured my summer. The flurry
of falling petals is ended. Lay
the finger upon this granite. I was
well desired and fully carressed
by many lovers but my flesh
withered swiftly and my heart was
never satisfied. Lay your hands
upon the granite as a lover lays his
hand upon the thigh and upon the
round breasts of her who is
beside him, for now I will not wither,
now I have thrown off secrecy, now
I have walked naked into the street,
now I have scattered my heavy beauty
in the open market.

Here I am with head high and a
burning heart eagerly awaiting
your caresses, whoever it may it,
for granite is not harder than
my love is open, runs loose among you!

I arrogant against death; I
who have endured; I worn against
the years!

Here, you see, gentle reader, the like may end about as you please,
and capital letters are at a premium, and the printer put in what little
punctuation there is, but—it is poetry!

Therefore, I apologize for saying that I don't care whether
you read the book or not. I do care. I want you to read it. It is good
stuff to read, and it will grow on you from reading to reading. I don't
care whether you buy the book or not—but read it. Get it at a library,
borrow it, steal it, or send us a Confederate bill for it, —but read it!

EDWARD R. BROWN

Feb. 13, 1919

Dear Brown : -

Flossie says that she is boob enough to stand
for 200 dollars worth of stock from anyone who praises her
husband's work to the extent, the practical extent that you have done
and if Flossie is game I ought to be.

If the purchase of the above mentioned amount of stock
in your company will save you from the clutches of capital and
at the same time will insure the publication of my book I am game
to send you a check on the signing of our contract provided
you will really get that book out this spring. I hate to think
of going through the summer with THAT on my conscience.

If this is satisfactory to you please send me a few
figures for forms sake and go ahead with your arrangements.

Aiken's willingness to back you is enough for me and
I would rather have you do the job than to go dickering around
N.Y. from one man to another. I really appreciate your spirit
and I want you to publish the book if you can and will.

Come again and I'll see that you have the MSS in its
final form at the earliest possible opportunity.

If you want to use that locomotive thing on the side
you are welcome to it. You and Mina Loy are about the only ones
who have mentioned it in particular.

With best wishes to Sanborn and Aiken, I am

TELEPHONE, RUTHERFORD 669

RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, M. D.

March 3, 1919

Dear Brown : -

After quarreling vainly with my wife this
morning over the proper schedule for starting the days activities
I sit me down to the house serious business of sending you
the signed contracts and a check for two hundred heavy dollars.

I have shut my eyes five times and tried to make out
the check but it has been no go. Now I am decided. The check
shall go in this letter. Hell take it, what is a man to do?
I have worked day in and day out on these damned improvisations,
they have been my meat for months at a time. I have lived them
or I have lived because of them or I have lived and they have
lived because I have lived and so in any case they have
fastened themselves to me faster than my own children. But
I cannot afford the two hundred dollars. Or I don't see how
I can offord them. BUT I AM sending the CHECK.

It isn't that I haven't the money. I have it right
inside the cashier's window but - but - BUT I AM
SENDING THE CHECK. I am a pig. I know it. I am selfish. I am
a fool in the last degree. I think of myself more than I think
of my wife, of my children of -

Do you know anything about the Mexicans? But I suppose
most stupidly primitive christian peoples do the same. The
natives will crawl a mile or two on their bare knees whipping their
backs, their own backs with cactus branches or something of the
sort in order to get up their penitential ardor. You see
I am trying to convince myself that I am doing right when I know
damned well that I am going to bring out this book whether right
or wrong. I simply WILL bring it out at any cost (foolish
confession to your publisher) therefore I am a hog.

Kindly change one thing in the contract. I want @ 20
copies instead of 10. MSS. will be in Boston Monday March 10.

Yours

TELEPHONE, RUTHERFORD 669

RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY

March 18, 1919

Dear Brown : -

The voices have been about my ears ever since
I let you have the Improvisations. They tell me I am a fool,
that I should have done this that and the other - But the
worst thing they say is that I am burying myself. They say you
do not push me, that I am not sufficiently advertised etc. etc.
Oh well, that's your business. However there IS one thing I wish
you would see to. An increasing number of people come to me of
late asking where my book is to be had. They say they have tried
to get the book in the usual N.Y. stores and that THEY HAVE FAILED.
If this be true it is indeed a grievous fault. Please communicate
with the Washington Sq. Book Shop and with the Sunwise Turn and
possibly Brentano's. It wont hurt to have a few more copies on
sale in N.Y. than are now available. Come on now let me hear
your side of the story. Echo: Come on now let me hear your
side of the story.

Please send me also as many copies of my book Al Que Q.
as my credit on sales will allow me - about five I imagine. Dont
delay. It really seems that I am beginning to get a little local
fame - among the grafters at any rate. Marsden Hartley has taken
my book to read in New Mexico and now California. You may yet find
me a paying proposition.

Best wishes and don't forget to keep me posted on
the progress of the new venture.

Yours

TELEPHONE, RUTHERFORD 669

RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY

July 14, 1919

Dear Brown,

Thank you for your very nice letter. I suppose I'll just have to naturally forgo the pleasure of having anyone in New York buy my book until I can get sufficient reputation to impress the bookstores with the necessity of stocking it. It is true, one can hardly expect a store to stock a book that only sells six in the year. But from my own point of view this is nearly a catastrophe for the readers which I would pick up by ones and twos are ALL the readers I have. Let it pass. No doubt the men who would read me will find a way to borrow or steal the book somewhere.

I have, as you guessed, a crate of The Tempers in my attic. I believe there are perhaps a hundred copies there all in waxed paper. I am sending you two under separate cover. If you wish to carry a small stock of them you have only to tell me how many you care to have.

Strange to say the Improvisations seem to hold the most who see them. I have been surprised at the quality of appeal that seems to be in them. Of course this may not be the kind of virtue that will sell the book but it is true nevertheless that more kinds of people like the Improvisations than liked Al Que Quiere. I think the makeup of the book too will be more appealing to the purchaser.

So the stuff IS NEARLY SET UP on the old presses. I hope so. I'll be away all the month of August. I had hoped to see some proof before I left but inasmuch as I am coming up your way for my vacation it won't matter. My address after August 1 will be c/o Mrs. Geo. Atwell, Woodmont, Conn. I have even considered taking a run up to see you. If you think my presence will be of any value in getting out the book please tell me the most advantageous time for my visit. And MAKE that time advantageous!

Best luck,

Ju -- August 3, 1919

Dear Brown :

What do I know about selling books ? Seventy five
cents is probably more than seventy five people will pay for The
Tempers, of course sell it for seventy five and of course I'll
knock the lot down to you for fifty: I have a hundred more copies
at home which you can have when you want them.

I'll let you know when I can leave here for 67 Cornhill,
it will be after the middle of the month. Maybe I'll be having so
good a time by then that I won't want to leave here.

Will you look up for me and send to me that issue of
The Poetry Journal which contained a prose article by me. I am
getting together all the prose I have been guilty of in the past
in order to hold an inquest over it.

I am here surrounded by oval wash basin, double lipped,
rooooo handled, grooved bellied water pitcher, and piss-pot all
white and pink, pink leaved and stemmed pink poppies, bird's eye
maple dresser, beclapboared walls and ceiling nicely weathered -
oh I'm living with wife and children in two rooms near the shore
and the weather is fine.

Kara in Hell seems to me to be a good title for the
kind of good book which my good book purports to be. Besides it
is not a bad title.

It is Sunday morning and I didn't sleep well last night.
It's hard to get used to a double bed again.

High tide at 4 P.M. Here is my oldest boy with a kitten's
face under his chin: both have the same colored grey eyes.

TELEPHONE, RUTHERFORD 669

RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY

Sept. 17, 1919

Dear Brown :

You see the result of your laziness : people are beginning to doubt that the book will appear at all. I enclose Harriet's card.

Or perhaps it is a profound publishers trick that you are up to, to arouse, by prolonged anticipation, such a fiendish lust for the book in the minds of a great public that edition after edition will spring from the presses until your plant will be worn out and die in ecstacy.

In any case read what the divine Harriet has written and reward your servant with a word.

Yours

In view of the fact that we are
endeavoring to establish our business on a
cooperative basis, we would very much appreciate
your becoming a share holder in our company.
We have developed a healthy growth during the
past year, and it is our desire to establish
the closest relations with the people we do
business with, and particularly so with
reference to our authors, as it is through
them that our results are attained.

Will you kindly give this matter
your consideration, and we would be glad to
number you amongst our share holders.

Faithfully yours,

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY

M.B.P.S. Treas.

HWP/C

Jan. 15, 1920

Dear Brown :

In a day or two I will be returning the corrected
MSS. This letter is a memorandum of my wishes regarding the
final form I would like the book to have. I hope you will
approve. If not will you kindly not delay but write me at once
so that we may come to an understanding as soon as possible.

1. I have decided to omit all the poems at the end of the book. Unless you are strongly opposed to this I propose that the book shall end at the end of the Improvisations. What say you?

2. At the top of each page I would like to see a single ruled
line and above that the word : IMPROVISATIONS, in small caps.

3. Each group, designated by Roman numerals, must begin on a fresh page.

4. The dedication is : TO FLOSSIE.

5. The cover to be grey boards with heavy black lettering.
( In general appearance Knopf's book of Whaley's Chinese
translations would be hard to beat )

God bless you. The present proofs are marvelously clear and free
from bitching.

Medical Examiner for large industrial plant, to young lady who
is applying for position; You appear to be in good health except
these pimples on your back. One I think. Are they worse around
your period? - Young Lady: No, just on my back.

Yours

March 7, 1920

Dear Brown,

For God's sake don't correct my MSS to read (on page 80 I mean) "paralysises". If the plural of the word contains more than four syllables please, oh please, leave it in the singular.

Take a little pains for me in this crisis, Mr. Brown,
that I may never think of you with loathing.

The word then is to remain in the singular if the
plural has more than four syllables.

Best wishes for a fruitful springtime,

Yours

March 27, 1920

Dear Alibi Brown :

Anyhow thanks for the sweet letter. I am
ready to grovel and to beg that you will keep your word and
have the book out before May first.

Your methods of advertising and salesmanship are
your own, with them I have nothing to do, but a spring announce
ment that does not contain one of the books to appear in the
spring is incomplete . Your explanation will have to suffice
me however .

I asked you to correct my error in spelling of the
plural of the word mentioned . When your card arrived I found
that you had done as I desired and let it go at that . I see
now that I should have acknowledged your courtesy and stated
my satisfaction with what you had done . The word "paralyses"
is exactly what I wanted .

Best wishes for an Irish Easter,

Yours

TELEPHONE, RUTHERFORD 669

RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY

May 6, 1920

Dear Brown :

I received the certificate last evening. I
thank you.

Now that the book is nearly finished, I hope, I
want to place an order with you for twenty-five copies in
addition to the ones I am to receive according to the
contract. Will you kindly send me all my copies the moment
the book finally appears. I believe you allow me a discount
on my purchases.

What your plans are for sales in London I do not
know but in case you do not intend to canvass very exten-
sively there will you not quote me prices as follows : on
sheets, 250 copies and on copies folded and collated, 250
copies. The prices would have to be about at cost to you.
Of course you understand what I have in mind, publication
there under another imprint. Send me the figures at any
rate.

Kindly send me, too, six copies of Al Que Quiere,
one of which I will return to you autographed together with
an autographed copy of The Tempers.

And for God's sake when *is* my book to appear ?

Yours
William

Wednesday [22 Sept 1920]

Dear Brown :

I've got to catch up with myself, I must have a
book of verse by next spring. I come to you first as usual.
I so hate to think of working up an acquaintance with another
publisher. I suppose I'm a damned fool but so are you so that
may be the reason I stick to you. Anyhow -

This book will be of the ordinary poetry book size and
will contain poems to be set up in the ordinary way. It wont
be very large. The fact is that I must get it going, must
get it off my chest.

And of course I expect to pay. BUT Sweetheart I shall
pay this time AFTER the book appears and only IF the book
appears by a certain date, say May first at the latest.

If you will take all this to heart and if you will agree
to write all this into the contract AND IF the contract itself
will be rendered null and void after a certain early date and
IF your price is reasonable - why in that case I shall be glad
to hear from you. Otherwise do not waste your time, some Boob
in N.Y. may even print the thing gratis.

No reports yet from the reviewers but the poets themselves
by personal letter seem satisfied to let me remain in the
country.

Best luck,

Friday

Dear Ed :

Corrected proofs in this letter. It is a very lovely
book. We are agreed, are we not? that each poem is to
begin a new page, regardless of the length of the poem.
The dedication I have changed. I wish the book to be
- To Alfred Kreymborg -, to whom it, in major part, rightly
belongs since most of the sturr in it was written during
the time of my intimate association with departed Alfred.

The usual acknowledgements will have to be made :

Certain of the poems in this book have appeared in the
magazines - Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, The Egoist, The
Little Review, The Dial, Others and Contact.

I am sending under separate cover the new issue of CONTACT.
I hope you like it. Perhaps you will be ready to offer bail
for me, perhaps to identify the body.?

Since you have done so well this time in getting the proofs
done at such an early date I am kindly expecting to have
the book finished before November. Well, let's hope for the
best at any rate.

Best wishes for a rapid recovery from your peevishness as
described by you earlier.

Yours

Dec. 26

[1945?]

Dear Ed : -

You got it at once : it is to laugh - so is the great American novel. Somebody spit on the mirror so I smashed it. You shall see the result as soon as published. I understand my sturr goes to press about Feb. 15 next.

Mons Veneris does not particularly enter into my composition but of course one is always looking out over the valley from some mountain or other. I suppose that's because our eyes are in the head instead of the great toes. Imagine what it would mean - in our eyes were in our toes - to say, I'll give you a kick in the ass. etc. : Just a sample of my latest prose style.

God damn these sons or bitches or patients to hell and make it hot - Here I just sit down to write a few letters and some rucking bastard of a kid gets a chill and my Olympian moment is shit on - How in Christ's name can a man exist today ?

Let him shake. I continue. My deepest respects to your lady. If I ever have anything to sell I will seek her out. At present I am all in the head and nothing on paper. What's the use? From now on I am a writer. I write to write. Let the result take care of itself. If anything startling results later on why - so much the better. And so much the more likely will it be that no one will want to see it.

There is a constant barrier between the man and his consciousness. If there is an ocean it is here. The reader knows himself as he was twenty years ago and he also has a lovely notion of what he would like to be some day - oh, some day. But the thing he never knows and never dares to know is what he is at the exact moment that he is. And this moment is the only thing I am at all interested in. Ergo, who in hell cares for anything I do. And what the hell do I care?

I love my fellow creature, Christ how I love him, ehdways, asways, cuntways and the other ways - but he don't exist. Neither does she. I do - in a bastardly sort of way. Yes, by Christ, I do. And I'm doing it more.

At 60 Ezra sees me a great man. I have just learned how to get a hard on at sixty. Have your prostate massaged three to five hours before the event. So let it slide. Maybe someday a woman will be born who k# $$ or at least wishes to know. Yes, wishes to know.

You are my soul and always have been. You are