Milan, August 13th, 1938.

Dear Mr. Ezra Pound:

For some time I've been trying to contact you and it was
only this morning that I received your address from the American
Consulate of Genoa.

It was while at Yale that I came across an old copy of the
"Harkness Hoot" which contained one or two of your cantos and the
criticism by Andrew Wanning, my English instructor and very good
friend. Under one of the cartoons of yourself, there was the inscrip-
tion"from Idaho to Rapallo" and that is how I got the clue as how
to locate you.

For some five years I have been living in Milan, having
attended school in England. Entering Yale last year, as a freshman,
I was made a member of the Yale Literary Board (Editor of photography)
and have written biographies and salon criticisms.

Perhaps as you know, the Yale Literary Magazine has suffered
in the past as being too conservative, afraid to publish progres-
sive poetry or writing in any form. This year, with the new chariman,
Roger Starr, there will be a much more realistic magazine. It is the
hope of the Board that more constructive writing will be handed in by
several instead of a select few and I don't mind admitting that we'll
follow the Harkness Hoot example as much as possible.

It would be a real feather in our hat if we had the opportunity
of having an interview with you and if you will permit it, I would like
to have the pleasure of calling on you at Rapallo and visiting with you
at your convenience. I might add that there have been many requests for
interviews with poets of the Modern American School and I feel confident
that it would be very much appreciated by our Board.

The next four days I shall be spending at the Lido but up to
the 1st of September, when I leave for America, I am at your disposal.

I hope that I will be able to see you.

via Dante 16
Mileno.

IO Jan

Dear Jim

All this is vurry fine an' active. How the hell
I am to do my own work and take two months off to collect
my own bibliography i dont SEE.

Does the Yale lib/ expect to BUY any ms/ ?? I dug a trunk
or so full out of my mother in law's flat in London last year.
There may be some entrunk'd in Paris..

The dealers NOT having had the best etc/ the price's haven't
been Picasso'd. I am not disposed to shell 'em out at ten
for a penny.

Rene Taupin did some rooting round in Brit. Museum.

and I heard of some bloke in Phila on bibliog/ but it AINT my
pigeon.

I am having one helluva time to get the day into 24 hours: and
certainly no time for retrespects. Too much is going ON.

Also I AM writing and publishing despite the hermetic closing
of the American editorial offices. I have no idea what
has appeared in the orient. Kitasone can tell you part of it.
but whether he would take time off on retrospect I don't know.

I don't WANT the subject investigated or Kuhn Leeb may stop
it.

The plan for Zukofsky Oppen; collected prose of E.P.
may still exist. I mean I might find the table of contents/

It was proposed to do about 40 vols, and then a single big
FOLIO in double col, four pages of the TO edtn/ as one
from the electros

June 19, 1939.

1947 Yale Station,
New Haven, Conn.

Dear Ezra,

Sorry about the long delay with the photographs etc. but I have just got my enlarger rigged up and here they are. As a whole I am satisfied with them. They are YOU and that is what I wanted. This letter is going to be very involved before it is finished and so you must be lenient as to mistakes and continuity, anyway you will have to admit that the type-writer works much better than yours. After I left Rapallo I was very excited about the Ta Hio and have read it often, also Calvicanti. But there are quite a number of things that I will have to hold up until I get the chance of seeing you in Rapallo.

Here at school I have been incorporating myself into a sort of Ezra Pound information bureau and you would kill me if you knew what I have been saying about my visit. I exaggerated the five days into months and have supplemented the time element with extracts from 'Culture', (That's what they call it here), and Make it New. I have your pictures which have been ogled at by every Yale English Prof. The other day after a course in Chaucer and Bacon I took my instructor aside and showed him a few of you. He was delighted and almost wept with joy when I gave him a small picture of you staring full-faced at the camera. He told me that I didn't know how much this meant to him etc. and I told him that he ought to read the Ta Hio and some of the essays and he said he would..... so.... if your sales don't go up over here then you had better shoot your publisher. Also I have had several of the Editors and younger Profs. and Instructors around and they liked the pictures and autographed books very much. In fact one of my better friends Wanning, a young instructor who studied at Cambridge has a seminar course in Modern poetry and likes you very much. Well this enthusiasm was what I was trying to get a good hold on for I remebered our little conversation concerning the Bergan Lecture that they have here. And I asked one of the fellows what he thought of having Ezra Pound here, 'God', he said, 'it would be great if we could only get him over here, but it's all up to Billy Phelps'. So I went over to see Mr. William Lyons Phelps and the results were no soap.

But I think that I had better give you some details about that little interview as I found it very revealing as to Yale and its institutions. I had to telephone Phelps to get the interview, and when he found out that I was from the Yale Lit. he was very nice and oily... an old man nice and oily. Well I went over to his plush office and warmly shook his hand. He was very friendly and we knew each other all our lives. He talked about the weather, the new plays, the Lit and then I asked him if it was true that he was in charge of the Bergen Lectures.

2.

he said yes and that he really didn't like the job as he was
Prof emeritus and didn't think that it was right that he should
have to look after the speakers etc. It was a good line and
you can see that the old biy loves those lectures, in fact that
is about the only connections that he has with the University
and is good advertisement for any lecturer to be able to put at
the top of his stationary. Well I didn't want to take much of
his time so I told him how the fellows interested in writing be-
yond the Saturday Evening Post were anxious to have Ezra Pound
come up and to speak for the lecture. He did't faint but he was
jolly well shocked. And before I could say anyhting more he was
off on a long spiel: Well I could never do that. As a matter of
fact as long as I have anything to do with the lectures I refuse
to extend an invitation to him or any of those. As a matter of
fact I received a letter from Pound. He had some crack-brained
idea about the accademy. I (condeendingly) was kind and wrote
him back a nice letter and told him that I had forwarded his
letter to the committee. They wrote me back a note with four words, 'Ezra
'Pound is crazy'. tha's what he is, crazy and I won't ever have
him here'. At this point I came in hard and felt like doing some-
thing violent, but he is senile. I told him that you were a
very good friend and that you were as sane as he or any person
around there and that you had friends that wouldn't go with crazy
people and that they wouldn't go with him etc. The old boy almost
passed out when he heard that I knew you and then he started his
long and oily job of trying to cover everything up. He started
out with a long speech about art, and everytime that he would
mention something about aesthetics etc. I would say, 'Yes but
you are not acquainted with the T a Hio, or 'Have you read
the essays etc. An he would admit that he hadn't and that he
had heard once that you did receive a good report from the London
Times and that he had read it etc. And then he got fed up to
his blue gills and said that any man who would write another man
a letter and call him a son-of-a-bitch was crazy, and I said,
'Oh I don't know. and he took that kind of personal and got
red and then I suggested that they take a vote around the Uni-
versity so that the students could choose whom they wanted and
he said NO. That he knew damn well that everyone would want to
hear Gertrude Stein or Ernest Hemingway besides yourself and
that he didn't want it as long as he had anything to say about
it. I got up at this point and fish-like held out my hand and
casually remarked to him that he had some embarrassing incidents
with the Lectures and he said that I was right but that as long etc.
and I said nothing but left and he said after me I do hope
that you have a little respect for an old man and don't think
him a fogy or a fuddy-duddy- and that he wouldn't something or
other but by that time I was over in my room and picked up a
few photographs that I had taken Of Thomas Mann when he gave
the lecture and in which for some reason or other Mr. Phelps
had got his hoary locks, these I took over to his secretary
and told her that I didn't want them. Within a day or so I
received a letter from the old boy saying that I had heaped
coals of fire on his head.

3.

I then went over to the Lit and told them all about it and Roger Starr who is the Chairman was very fed up with Billy and we are going to take pants down of the Lecture because it is nothing more than an old woman's tea. They get some obscure fellow from way out in Canada to give a lecture and no one from the University shows up. It's terrible. I will give you all the dope on this.

I am supposed to write up an article about my time with you in Rapallo and hope to bring in all the pictures possible. As a matter of fact I think that they should get some advertisement for your books from New Directions.

Incidentally the other day we received a copy of New Directions and I was very interested in your Villon. So much so that I got a fellow up at two in the morning to play it. He is a competent violinist and has played for over twelve years. He played it in pyjamas and it looked rather comical but the music is so full of a weird feeling that it sobered me. And after he finished it he asked who in the hell had written that. He said that it was very good and that he hadn't played anything with such strangeness. Tell me more about it Ezra.

My room-mate has done quite well with his writing and was elected to the Elizabethan club the other day. At present he is writing a long piece for the Yale Lit in the defence of James Farrell. It is really going to be very involved and should prove revolutionary for Yale. Yes there is no doubt about it that we are going to raise a few roofs before we leave here and there are a damn good many that need it. I am having a personal scrap with a few of the fellows on the board that don't read anything later than Spencer. As a matter of fact the little newspaper that I started some x months ago when I was a freshman has been bursting ahead, and they have made it the official paper for 800 men.

You told me that you were willing to come in and help if you had the chance with any of the school publications. Well the other day Yale took a big step forward, (not very difficult) and has all the possibilities of putting out the largest thing possible in French. The name of the new magazine is Vif, and they hope to have about 2000 circulation around the better Eastern schools. I think that they will be able to do it and I know that already they have received the support of hundreds of bigwigs so everything is set except the material. Now I have told them that I would probably get something from you but that you wouldn't write as the magazine might be too stuffy. They were very, very anxious to get something from you. As a matter of fact I think that we could run a full page photograph at the same time. I don't know what you think about it but I think that if you could send anything it would be tres bon.

4.

One of the fellows think that it would be better if you could
give us one of your unpublished poems in french if you have one.
I don't know Ezra if you are very much interested in this, but
I think that the cause needs you as I fear that there will be
a good many stuffy people writing for it and I have heard that
Andre Maurois etc will write. This would be an excellent time
to have something from you and I would write a forward and get
the best photograph. Maybe later on we can get you a regular
place on the magazine. As a matter of fact there has been no
organization around the place and I will have to do all that
I can. The more I think of it the more I am certain that we must
have you. The money end of it is damn doubtful as a few of the
boobs were buying everything in sight on credit before the
idea was formed. And there are hardly no ads, but we have to dis-
tribute at least 2,000 copies according to our contract and if
we ever get on a paying basis I will see that you get your share.
How would you like to be proposed as one of the fathers?

The other day I was in the periodical dept. of the
Library and I saw in the N.E.Review something that puzzled.
Under the table of contents for the Dec. 8th. you were supposed
to have corresponded.... there was no Ezra Pound but there was
a Major Dudley or someone and the editors had placed before
his name (or was it your name?) '(signed)'. Now I see a good
many of these letters and wonder if you are the author. I have
been reading this with a great deal of pleasure and was very
pleased to see that our friend Drummond has been going along so
smoothly. Please write me and give me any inside dope that you
might have as to this.

My room-mate, Reed Whittemore is reading James Joyce's
Ulysses and I know that he is finding himself delightfully mud-
dled but interested. These are things that I have to write to
you about later as they involve things that I would like to feed
Yale through a spoon, tactfully.

I see that there is a new book on your friend Hulme
and was very pleased to run across it and the reference to your
piece in the canto about Hulme and Gaudier and the War. I had
just read it. Also I read all the parts that were pertinent to
you and thought them rather brief, but these are things that I
would rather take up with you when I get the chance of seeing you
in Italy. Also questions about H.D.

Tonight we have been drinking very bad beer so I had
better keep my remarks impersonal. The beer, (incidentally Amer-
ican) was very very bad.

5.

There are quite a few things that I would like to see
you about Ezra, but I guess that these will have to keep un-
til I see you again. One of them is the matter of colored
photographs of you and your father, also your mother. You
must remember me to them and do tell your Dad that I was
very happy to know that he is from Idaho. Do you remember
how we talked about taking his picture with the colored
coat?

I received a small note from Cornet Esquire Inc.
plus one poem. They said that it wasn't the type of stuff
they wanted and that I should try Poetry Magazine and also
send them something after March 1. I don't know if this is
a stall or not, at any rate it is the most favorable reply
that I have had from them and written, but vanities of vanity
this is it. I have a sister up at Bryn Mawr and she is doing
a great deal of campaigning for you. As a matter of fact she
has got together a group of girls that read you often. I hate
to say it but you're the mania that is replacing Rupert Brooks.
She has been pestering me for one of your photographs and I
promised her one, but I wonder Ezra if you wouldn't mind
shocking her by sending her an autographed copy of one of these
duplicates; she wants one for their club-room. Her name is
Carmen Angleton and I am proud to say that she has one of the
strictest courses there... History.... Latin....Greek....English.
And she knows Italian and French, a little unusual for an Ameri-
can girl over in the East. Her address is Carmen Angleton,
Merion Hall, Bryn Mawr Penn.... Please don't think that I am
trying to exploit on you but it helps to have your photograph
around along with a few of your books. I have had a thousand
arguments with masters and as yet haven't lost a speaking acquaint-
ance.

I am enclosing a few pamphlets of Gundlefinfeg, an old
Yale man that has been sending out stuff for the last twenty
years or more. He is supposed to be very wealthy... this I don't
know for sure. Anyway his philosophy revolves around the phallic
orgies of the New Fraternity and are extremely shocking for Yale.
As a matter of fact his name is Taboo here. Once I did a terrible
thing by publishing a letter that he had written years ago. I
didn't add his name and when the Dean looked the proof over he
thought that the best article that we had ever printed. Un-
fortunately of the fellows put the trade Mark 'The New Frat'
on it and I was in a little trouble. I am showing you also
a copy of the thing that we re-printed. Whatever you do don't
write him or he is sure to publish the fact in his pamphlet
and the results are not fair to yourself. I hope that you will
be able to follow something that he says.

6.

I am breaking into this letter with something that is extra special. I have given birth to a new magazine or at least I feel the growing pains. The name is Furioso and the time of its arrival should be within a month or so. It will recur ever two months. Would you be the God father of this? I know that this is asking a lot from you but so far I have the good possibilities of beginning something new around here and I feel sure that you are the only person that can get it started on its fett. The young fellows around here say... Ezra Pound and I think that you are the only person that can give us the prestige that we need. We are publishing poetry, all the stuff will be modern and we want to have your help. My room-mate is editing it with me. I hope that you can see fit to do this. I will write more about it as time passes but I must get this letter into the mail so that we can have your answer about the thing. Can we shove your name on the prospectus? So far we have met with a good deal of enthusiasm but I feel that you as the founder of the modern school should be the one t assure us of a great success. Please let me know as soon as possible about your opinion. We have enough dough to get xxxix at least four issues out and the prof... young instructors think that we should do damn well. I hope better than New Verse.

WE WANT YOUR OPINIONS ON THIS AND ANY IDEAS THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE. DO YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD TURN OUT SOMETHING ABOUT CRITICISM ETC. OR PERHAPS THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE A CANTO THAT NEEDS TO PENETRATE THE SKULLS OF VASSAR, BRYN MAWR, AND SMITH, NOT TO INCLUDE THE RAREB SPECIMENS FROMPRINETON AND HARVARD.

with the best wishes from a distracted friend....

Yes, I'll back up any and all the proposals in yrs/ 19th inst.
But we had better think out WHAT will do the job best.

The "text book" ought to be ready soon/ you can quote
from advance copy of that.

I have always insisted in payment for Cantos/propaganda I
can't expect to be paid for.

I MIGHT of course want copyright on a Canto held, and
in that case it cd. under some circumstances come into
yr/ scope of action.

Please note current issue of T WNSMAN/ it answers several
points in yr/ note.

I wrote to Phelps on strength of yr/having told me he was
human. Yr/ report is good documentation/ only place for him
if' is in Boston Museum of "natural History."

MY
The crazy idea about the Institute was that it should DO
SOMETHING ... in accordance with the professions of its
OWN Constitution/

Obviously an " absurd " idea.

Yale Lit/ might cite my article on Mencius in last summer's
Criterion/ as evidence of insanity (or the reverse "+) //

One of the Maaavud deans told me four years ago that
the only thing to do was to wait fer the ole buzzards to
die/ this isn't verbaitim/ his words were something about
" seniority rule " in the faculty.

I don't know why the student body shd/ wait twenty years
to learn things quite well known in Europe.

That seems to me to be up to students and "younger professors" or whatever they are called.

I have been "forced" or "led" to comment on Irving Fisher without eulogy recently/ I spose that wd/ make it as difficult to lecure on History or Econ/ as on letters ...

I SUPPOSE Peps was a lit prof ?

Oh yes/ Phelps "THEY" was I suppose the Secretary

I;e. CANBY.

calculations as to age and hardness of arteries in these circles..may be news, or mebbe not.

To get down to brass tacks/ WHAT do you want for these various mags/

UNTIL there has been notice of Guide to Kulch/ etc
I dont quite know where to start.

I cd/ do a note on the INTENTIONS of my operas/

in concerts

The Villon was experimented bit by bit in Paris, must have been 1925 or thereabouts/ and twice broadcast from London.

"arding, B.B.C. man in charge said that members of the cast kept on humming it in the corridors for a year afterwards.

He SAID he wd/ do anything I wrote 'em. and I did the Cavalcanti/by which time Aarding had been moved on to another job/ and THAAAR we stick.

I believe there are a couple of unimportant errors in the Newy Directions copy, but haven't had time to go thru it.

Antheil said in 1920 that it wd/ be twenty years be ore people wd/ stand it. ABOUT up/

1947 Yale Station,
New Haven Conn.

Dear Ezra,

Gangway... here I come... a very excited piece of
protoplasm after your wonderful and to-the-point-letter. I
have several things to say and inform you about. I have just
read your article in the Townsman and the poems. I have also
seen the reply by Drummond. I might add that I was responsible
for the Yale Library subscribing to the Townsman. When I first
suggested it they were very shy of it.... they have a ma Perkins
at the head of the order Dept. and she is the one that has to
O.K. all selections for the Dept. I had to tell her that the
great men of letters were writing and making History in it and
she took about two months to make up her mind. It seems that
the binding made her a wee bit afraid that the contents were
not good enough for the sons of Mother Yale. She drinks a great
deal of weak tea.

You should receive within a few days if you haven't
already a copy of Vif. Vif is the new Interuniversity French
Mag. and I have landed the job of Managing Editor. You will
notice that in Phelps article the opposite ideas are set forth
by Romain. I hope that everyone will see this. For the next
issue we have received from Andre Maurois about one third of
his new book that will be published sometime this year. We are
running this to get our circulation up and at the same time to
keep from going on the rocks. We don't have to pay a thing for
any of these articles, but at the same time it costs a good deal
to put out a mag. and get the subscribers. I was down to Bryn
Mawr to see my sister and they are going to take a 100 copies.
I think that we will really penetrate the schools as we are the
only mag written in French. (My room-mate wrote the story called
'Le Matinal' and I am sending this to you in English to get your
frank opinion.) Now I was thinking that if you wrote something
very pertinent for the classrooms of America and for teachers
I will translate it and run it in Vif. Vif really has the best
group of readers for you. We have all sorts of enthusiasts in
Harvard, Princeton, Vassar and all the big schools and hope to
get into several thousands of subscriptions. Now if you have
something that is definitely good I want it and we will run it
together with an autobiographical story of you and with a photo
that I took at Rapallo.... and a lsit of your books published
in America..... I want to splash you big and will if you will
send something. In spite of Phelps and the rest we will print
it.... for I have complete control of the editorial policy.
Give me any criticism that you might have for the issue and
maybe you will be able to write a very autobiographical article
of your times in Paris... something sweet about the transplanted
American Colony of writers and we will try to do you justice in
the translation. Please do something about this Ezra and show
these academic monkeys the folly of their antics.

(2)

Now to get to the more meaty part of Yale existence.... Furioso. Reed (my Room-mate) and myself have been writing letters to all the people that we can possibly contact. We expect to publish the first copy of Furioso in the latter part of May. So far we have received letters from Eliot, Williams, Macleish, Prokosch, and Pound. Chamberlain, (John) who writes the book-column for Harpers, is trying to get Macleish and Benet to unloosen themselves from frippery and tripe and answer us. He is a good man and wrote the preface to Studs Lonigan. Now to get down to the details of the correspondence. Eliot wrote as follows:-

"I thank you.... etc... and wish you all success etc.. Whether you are rash or not, I am not in the position to say, but I know that there is always a need, although not always an opportunity for new non-commercial periodicals. As for myself I have had to decline all invitations to contribute poetry to periodicals on the one final ground that I have not written any poems. All the verse that I have written in the last two years forms part of a play which is about to be published, and there is nothing in the play which I would wish to publish separately in advance. So send me your first number, and if I think that it is good enough, I will subscribe. In either case, I will tell you what I think of it. etc. T.S.E."

Frankly I was disappointed with this.... But perhaps I was led to believe too much in the idea that men like Eliot would crutch to a start new literary efforts.... especially so when I think of the letter that the Doc.... Williams sent us. I think that his enthusiasm was due a great deal to your letter and your name, which I mentiond.

"My subscription is enclosed... etc.... I will send you the best I have etc.... A warning: don't count too much on help.... etc.... we need youth etc.... Go to it, and the more power to you.... It's a tough racket.

The name Furioso is a knockout. Nothing could be more to the point.... etc.... If youth ain't furioso at the slutty spectacle the world presents today with all its backhouses propped up on the offical stilts- then it ain't worth a damn.. Start Furioso...... etc... I hope that I will be able to dig you up something there..... before the end of March.... I'll do my best. See my son Paul at the U.of P. for a correspondent. Yours, W.C.Williams."

"I am sorry to be so late in answering... etc. I wish that I had something.... etc.... But I am at the end of a long piece of work... etc.... I do hope that you will understand.

Faithfully yours, Archiebald Macleish."

(3)

There you have an idea as how things stand with Furioso. But I think that things will come along after we get out a few letters and I am damn certain that we are going to get something good and I hope that you will get us something. An unpublished canto would be damn good and we will get the copyright for you. Also I want to see you this holidays about a special issue of Furioso which would deal with the cantos. But to get on with your end of this.... with the proper help etc. we will be better than New Verse but we need help and plenty of it.... you are in Rapallo sitting on your puss and all the time you know and have more influence on men of this age than any other person... well what do you suggest or am I approaching the question too bluntly... should I crawl or squirm... I feel Furioso about the whole thing and hope to see Furioso bast and blast the lid off of a rather more than smug bloody bunch of readers of the crepuscularity of Victorian verse bunch. But the thing is nebulous.... the librarians say, yes we will take it if it has enough... nice big names... get Ezra Pound.... very fine.

WELL DAMN IT ALL THAT IS WHAT WE WANT TO DO AND WE WILL GET THE COPYRIGHT AND ANY OTHER DAMN THING GOING AND IF I GET ENOUGH LIRE I WILL GET YOU SOME OF THOSE BUT I HAVE NO BLOODY DOLLARS.

Our dead-line is APRIL 15. See if you can get a good polemic article from Drummond. I will try to get a letter off to him sometime soon and I think that he was hot in the Townsman. That is the sort of thing that we need and by God I hope that you can get it for us.

My sister was very pleased when she received your picture and I might add that it came at the right time for this is the time of the year when they read the cantos at Bryn Mawr... Your name has been well chewed by them all. I want to write you later about a possible modern literature club, Furioso, which will be formed plenty soon. I have many more things to tell you but I will have to await your letter and get more time. I hope and hope that you will get excited about Furioso and send us something soon..... we need to get others in it from abroad.

The Periodical Room here at Yale has practically every magazine. Incidentally I might say that Dudley Fitts is going to write for the first issue.... he was Laughlin's Prof at Choate.

Do you want any dope etc.... Write and I will reply presto... tanti auguri....

Yours
Jim Angleton

In the hit you
will find one of my
poems and a friend of mine
after his毫升fable.

Dear Ezra,

Just a bit of hot news to cool you. To-day I have
been up to Archibald MacLeish's and we talked a great deal
about you. He told me that he would try to arrange for you
to come to Harvard. He says that it would probably be possible
for you to arrange a neat tour and that it would more than
pay for expenses. I will get you all the details as I see
Archie. I hope that you stay in Rapallo this summer as I want
to see you over there and as for New Haven you will find it
damn dull until the latter part of Aug. I suggest that you
make arrangements to come over in the latter part of Sept.
and then we will be able to fix up a hell of a lot of things.
I think that you would be able to knock them cold here in New
Haven. Archie will try to get something up in Harvard. One
of their reading lecturers pays $100 and Archie says that there
are several other things that might be easily worked up.
I think that this is going to be good. Maybe you will get cold
feet and want to back out, but you can bet your boots that
you will find plenty of first-hand excitement over here if
you decide to drop over. There are plenty of people who would
like to see you and after-all you ought to come over and give
these blighters a catharicpeptalk. Well I'm waiting impatiently
for something hot to happen. I think that everything will
be wonderful if you come. It would probably mean that you
could get lecturerships all over America. Archie says that
there are some good agents that arrange those sort of things
easily. REMEMBER that America is impressed by the person...
you really affect audiences and would if you would give a lecture
with the gusto etc that you gave me at Rapallo... and
I'm not kidding. You should hear some of the dry things that
they say around here. Anyway I will write to you as soon as
I hear from Archie. He said that he would write me in two weeks
on anything that he can find out. He is a plenty big man at
Harvard. He likes you.

Well you will find a prospectus inside. But we are
worried that you won't get us anything here by the 2nd of
May. You just got to get a poem Ezra or we'll be the laughing
stock of the town. Williams has sent us a lot and I think
we will do well with you along fighting. I've got some big
things up my sleeve and will send you the dope as things break.
Please get Drummond interested. Also any old cronies, Wake
them up. Hope to hear from you soon.

April 19, 1939.
1947 Yale Station,
New Haven, Conn.

Dear Ezra,

I hope that this letter reaches you o.k. It was wonderful to hear your voice the other day and a little dis-appointing that we couldn't get you down to Yale first. I still think that we could have done a hell of a lot more for you here. Well that's another matter. BUT I have been snooping around especially with an eye on some dough for you and some good people and the results are that one very energetic fellow here at Yale thinks that he can get you a good lecture at Oberlin for $100, and I know that you can get into some of the college lectures here. One of the instructors, (a fellow of Pierson College Yale) told me that you could easily get into something good here and what is more I am sure that we can get you a large hall and get a heel of a lot of people. The other instructor who has the Oberlin thing well in hand says that he could arrange to go over the head of Dictator Phelps and get you the Bergen Lecture. They may be filled up this term but you bloody well could have it next. Well I am wondering a hell of a lot of things. I would like to know why you came over here, when you will be back in Milan and the day that we will see you in New Haven???? Also I wish you would tell me about your lectures and opinion about speaking here at Yale. Around here they would like to hear some of your evaluations of poets etc. any of those things that yours truly heard at Rapallo would be wonderful. Auden came here and the fellow made an idiot out of himself talking on China. They even had his name wrong and naged him as William. We have a nice place ready for you when you come up, a Dr. Whittemore, who is the father of my room-mate. He lives in New Haven and is the co-editor of FURIOSO.

Well Ezra it is certainly good to think that you are in this place. I hope that you will take advantage of your pilgrimage...yah yah, and come and see us. Also FURIOSO needs that help that you promised. Our first issue comes out at the end of May and we have among other contributors, Cummings, Zukofsky, Gregory, Williams, Fitzgerald, La Farge, and Laughlin. We need something good in metrics from you otherwise we will take in our shingle and clean the dung off the streets of New Haven. My last letter to Eliot was tactless or something....he refuses to answer, or just doesn't give a damn. There has been plenty of excitement about FURIOSO and there will be plenty more after we get the old verse play over-radio working. Maybe this will interest you. MacLeish is the innovator and he is writing about it for the first issue. The idea is that every American has a couple of ears and that the ear is half poet. That by radio a vast crowd is reached which gets the muse by flicking a button. Hence whole masses can hear and obviously enjoy poetry. The poet chooses social subjects and whatever he pleases and at the end of the program they announce that 'this comes to you by courtesy of the Hot Tamali Corp etc.' All very cunning. Actually the only part that we are concerned with is the primary stage of broadcasting on records and re-broadcasting until the proper

- 2 -

effect has been obtained then we take it to a local station
and if they like the idea they will use it. They have a large
cast on hand for all parts and will even let us have something
to say as to the production etc. The field is wide open. After
MacLeish's AIR RAID broadcast, the station received more letters
from all over than ever before. From farmers and all other
classes. This is good and we have only started. Please comment.

Let us know your plans as we might be near one of your
lectures and would like to stop in and hear the 'sage'.

Hoping to hear from you soon and waiting for a few
lines from your muse I am,

This magazine just came back to me. I have the right address now thank God and what is more I have a leetle proposition that just came in. One of the best colleges here at Yale which is run by a Swiss chap make the following offer. "For any lecture on a literary subject we will pay Mr Ezra Pound $50".... I don't know what you think of this but at any rate you might find that you can take this in your stride when you come up. They state the following dates. Preferably May 2 or if that is not convenient they would like you to try the 12 th. There wouldn't be more than 75 people or so and I think that you will find it interesting. AS a matter of fact one of the nicest blighters around here is the Master of the College, (Pierson) a mister Wolfers. Let me have the dope as soon as you can as I would like to use some of my photos to a good advantage. As a matter of interest I went into the book-dealers here the other day and asked them about your books and he smiled at me and told me that he had just sold your A lumi Spenti, The first one printed in Venice, for $25.... consequently I didn't order it.

I was at e.e.cummings just after you left and he was very tickled to see your little squib in the newspaper and the plug. He also gave us a nice little piece. We are probably having the first issue hand-set. We are certainly looking forward for a canto or something unpublished. E.e. was talking about your suitcase full of them. ' MacLeish hasn't written as yet and we are getting a cold-sweat up about the content for the first issue....maybe it will go to press with blank pages.....old trick.

Well Ezra there may be some of the old Photos appearing in LIFE or TIME this week but I don't know.... I hope so.

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN CONNECTICUT

PIERSON COLLEGE
THE MASTER AND FELLOWS

April 25, 1939

Dear Mr. Pound:

I suppose you will have heard from Jim Angleton by
this time. I am writing for the college to make the invitation of-
ficial. We are all hoping very much that you can accept.

Angleton has probably written that we can offer a
lecture fee of $50:00. It isn't a princely sum, but the college funds
are small, and it's all we can afford. The best date for us would
be May the second, but the twelfth is a possible alternative if it
would suit you better.

We would want you, if it weren't impossible, to dine
beforehand with the Fellows of Pierson at their weekly dinner. Your
lecture would follow, and we hope that you wouldn't object to more
informal talk with a smaller audience either at my rooms or at the
Master's House afterwards. I think we can promise you a good aud-
ience; we should take care to round up the reputed bright boys of
the University--though I don't think that would be very difficult
for your lecture.

Your audience would probably expect you as a poet
to talk about some subject related to modern poetry and its aims, or
to the metier of the poet in the contemporary world; I hope you
won't mind that much limitation of your subject. Economics is may-
be over-technical for a general to literary Yale audience.

Everybody here is hoping very much that you will be
able to stay around New Haven for several days. I've been wanting to

meet you myself for quite a few years, having heard a lot about you
and Rapallo from Jay Laughlin. You may remember that I once wrote
an article about your early cantos, in a sheet called the *Harkness*
HOOT, which was full of admiration if not of understanding. The
HOOT is dead, but I am still full of both admiration and questions.
I hope I'll be able to ask some of them within the next few weeks.
Everyone I've talked with about the possibility has the same anti-
cipation.

Easter, 1939,
1947 Yale Station,
New Haven Conn.

Dear Ezra,

Just a short note to tell you that the subscriptions are rolling in and that we are getting contributions, also to tell you that you certainly have plenty of friends over here. Last Saturday I went down to New York and spent some time seeing our new contributors. We landed E.E.Cummings, Horace Gregory, Robert Fitzgerald, Archibald MacLeish and perhaps Zukofsky. Man alive they like you. Williams gave me a wonderful dinner of chicken etc. and it was like being home. He told me how you were the great man and put it on pretty thick, and all the time he was unaware of the fact that I know you. He said that Ezra was like the old poets who lived in the grand style, while he was a practitioner etc. Then we saw E.E.C. who said that he certainly wished that you would come abroad etc. And then I visited Horace Gregory and he was great in his praise and ended by saying that you were the possesseur of the finest ear since Spencer. Boy this is certainly laying it on thick but I am getting it to you verbatim. Incidentally Cummings had a practical reason as well why you should come down here. He said that you ought to get back into the proper vernacular.

I should be getting some dope from MacLeish in a few days about the lectures at Harvard. I don't think that you will have to worry about paying your way over here. In fact I think that you will clean up and what's more really waken some of these Rip van Winkles. I have to hurry with this letter as I have a damn long Ibsen paper to do. All the big libraries are taking FURIOSO and we have decided to pay something (pretty small) for contributions. I can't thank you enough for the help that you are going to give me I hope I hope. Please see if John Drummond feels like boiling somebody in words....Auden?

Write soon and send your contribution....we think that we will publish several thousand of the first issue and then have them on the stands until we go back to Yale in Sept. Big things are going to break..... Laughlin has been sending me the books.... I have been getting something good in the way of a review ready for the Lit on the New Direction Books.

Best of everything..... and don't do the Gautier stunt on us and grab a rifle...

I think that you might get Bergen Lecture over Phelps head -
I'm working on it with an English Instructor - keep it under your hat,

Furioso

a magazine
of poetry and poetry criticism.

First Issue, MAY, 1939

Deadline for contributions to First Issue, APRIL 15

Editors: JAMES J. ANGLETON
E. REED WHITTEMORE, JR.

"The name FURIOSO is a knockout. Nothing could be more to the point. If youth ain't furioso . . . then it ain't worth a damn. Start Furioso."

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

"Yes, I'll back up any and all proposals in yrs/ 19th inst."

EZRA POUND

"Whether you are rash or not, I am not in a position to say, but I know that there is always a need, although not always an opportunity, for new non-commercial periodicals."

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT

When a man climbs a tree, it makes you curious. You want to know what he's up to. You go over to the tree and yell up at him, "what are you up in that tree for?"

Then you get all sorts of answers. The man says he's a tree surgeon, or a pterodactyl, or just looking for his wife. But these aren't his reasons. They're really his excuses for being in a *specialized* position. And you wonder why he didn't simply say, "because I like it up here."

At least it is so with us. We could give a lot of reasons for starting Furioso. And we do, in fact, have strong feelings about the surfeit of "dishonest" literature, literature which is empty and yet bloated, and about magazines which, while professing to be sincere, are actually *big business* — and show it.

But mainly, we like it up here. We like to try to make a magazine that will be lively and provocative. We like to grind a few axes. And we think we have some good things to say.

About some of the contributors to the first issue,

EZRA POUND

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

DUDLEY FITTS,

you have undoubtedly formed an opinion. For the most part the contributors will be young and unknown poets "doing *their* best to get on." Some of them *will* get on, but not too far, we hope.

There will be reviews, letters, analyses of poems, and critical studies of the work of different poets. This is the axe-grinding department. A large and important one.

If you are interested don't be afraid to send us your subscription—or your contributions. And if you know others similarly interested, send us their names. Please send these subscriptions, contributions, names, angry letters, etc., to

FURIOSO

1947 YALE STATION

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

All manuscripts should be accompanied by stamped, self addressed envelopes.

SUBSCRIPTION BLANK

$1.00—four issues (bi-monthly except summer)

Name

Address

May 3, 1939,
1947 Yale Station,
New Haven Conn.

Dear Ezra,

I was very glad to get the text-book which just arrived. I guess you are too busy with the Washiton socheelites to write a proper letter. Well to get on with it, we are going to print this in VIF the French Intercollegiate Magazine. I am supposed to be the editor. They use it all over the country and it is especially used in class-rooms for dicatations. I'll write a long Article on some title such as EZRA POUND The World's unappreciated genius, or The Curious Cyle of Ezra Pound, or something else. I have a vague idea what it will be.... namely your work from U. of Penn. through Italy etc up to your trip over here. There will be one of the photographs used if I can get the business board to let me have the dough for a full-page cut. Probably the large profile. Then will come your text book all very neatly handled in typography. It will go over big, and just wait until they read it at Smith, Bryn Mawr, Harvard and the teachers dictate from it to the young high-school kids.... I'll probably get the sack. You will be appearing in the same issue with Andre Maurois, now don't get excited about that and tell us that you refuse. You would make a hell of a good censor, good at the red pencil, but they get the idea around here that you are a little afraid to come up here and speak to the boys and that you are timid in your writing, that you are seeking a chair and that the best place for you is at a pink-tea. I am only giving you verbatim what I have had told me by various people. And of course there are the others who are all for you but why tell you it won't do much good.

Right at this moment Ezra we are awaiting a canto or some-
thing. We have to have some verse from you. For God's sake we will
pay you but after all what do you think we want to print in Furioso
if we are a poetry magazine. I hope you are not going to pull the
Eliot stunt on us and not send something metrical. Something with
'insides'. We have Cummings, MacLeish and a hell of a lot of others
but we have been selling subscriptions with the use of your name
and we will not go to press until we get something from you in verse.
Maybe you think that I am mad, well you are probably right., but
when I come to think of it aren't you writing for Poetry.. poop
well I will be going back to Italy soon and then I intend to go
down with a young greeck instructor to Greece where he is going to
do excavations at some small place in Arcadia. I take Greek five
hours a week next year, take three English courses and the Dante.
One of the professors, a Mr Lipari who uses your Cal cant in his
course wants to see you if you come up to Yale. Well Ezra I hope
that the states are doing you up well. I called up MacLeish the
other day and took the liberty to give him your address. He is
one of the few influential peeple who is always going out of his
way to pay his debt to you. He did this in several lectures last
year and I know that he lectured for an hour on you at Hopkins or
Columbia. He said he would write you which I hope he has. Laughlin
has sent us some of his stuff and it is fairly good. He has helped
us out with mailing lists etc...... Please write by return.....
(over.)

Dear Jim

Li'l prumbl fer you IZ; if I did look into N. Haven
in the sprung time, say June/ whom wd/ I find to converse
with ?

Fer a text fer yr/ pyper/ try this.

## THE DEATH OF THE PROFESSOR

Is the death of his curiosity. The Professor dies the
moment he ceases hunting for truth, the moment he thinks
he knows something and starts telling it to h the student
instead of trying to find out what it is.

// as to the Jap/ plan/ sep. cov.

Do write a STRONG note( not refer/ to me) saying the ONLY
real way of communication is via bilingual/ i.e; IDEOGRAM one page
and english the other TEXTS of the BEST Chinese and JAP work
now commerciable via microphoto/ printing process.

That will help K/K/ get on with it.

Can't all come from me. And American student demand might
get and r official skin.

SOCIETÀ ANONIMA REGISTRATORI DI CASSA "NATIONAL,„

REGISTRATORI DI CASSA

MACCHINE CONTABILI

Telegrammi: NACARECO - Milano
C. C. POSTALE N. 3-3528
C. P. E. C. DI MILANO N. 49340

Nella risposta citare questa sigla

MILANO

VIA DANTE, 14

Telefono: Uffici 87-060 - Sala vendita 86-101

OFFICINA:
VIA MORIGI, 8

Telefono 16-268

Giroconto: CREDITO ITALIANO
BANCA POPOLARE DI MILANO
NATIONAL CITY BANK
BANCO DI SICILIA
BANCO DI NAPOLI

June 30, 1939.

Dear Ezra,

Thanks very much for the suggestion. As a matter of fact I have the same idea, but not as well-formed. I thought we might make one page for the announcement with a black border around it and an editorial squib to the effect that the next issue, (No.3 as you suggest) will be the memorial issue. Dad read your letter and thinks the suggestion concrete and well worthwhile. Perhaps you could give me the names of people worth contacting for this issue. Also it would be good if we could get some of his unpublished poems from his widow. I think that you could probably write the best piece of prose on Madox's contribution to literature for the issue, or better yet it would be notable if you wrote a few lines of verse to appear on the first page. However I leave this entirely up to you Ezra, and when I get down to Repallo we can get together and get something more definite. I would like to make it the best issue.

It is good to be home and to sit comfortably again. The food is good and at the same time my little library frees me from any desire to go to Venice;;;;; no matter what the attraction.

I want to get together with Drummond and see if I can't get him a few influential subscriptions in America. He's got plenty on the ball with his digest, and I feel sure that there are some classes in different universities where they could use it as a text-book. Also in the American colony here in Milan there should be plenty of people who would be interested. There are few of them who can read the papers fluently. I suggest that he send a sample copy to Buratti and Locatelli. They are quite influential and would be particularly interested to know that such a journal is being printed.

Got anymore ideas?

Thanks again, Ezra,

Dear Ezra,

It's about time that I get you a little word about
what is going on over here. The delay was caused for various
reasons, the main one being that I have had a little battle
with the Phelpslan forces at Yale and I think that we are go-
ing to come out the winner in a big way.

In the first place I have taken the Library to task
about the hell of a lack of interest they have shown in modern
poets and writing. The head of the place is a fellow named James
Babb, that is he is the assnt. Librarian and has plenty on the ball.
The outcome is that they are going to pay for all the costs of
putting out a full bibliography of you, and I am to do the compilation.
This is going to be the start of the matter. There will be a large
exhibition in the Library and the published bibliography of your
works. I hope to do this up well and it would be a good thing
if you could be over here to open the exhibition. It would certainly
receive the full support of the Yale Corporation and we can put you
up for a long time, if Washington doesn't call urgently.
I would like to get all your manuscripts for the library as I
think they are the ones to preserve such work, otherwise it will
probably find its way to some jew dealer and be scattered all
over the place. What manuscripts can we have for the exhibition
and give to Yale? I can put the exhibition off until you arrive in May.

I will send you the results of your little note to Yale
when I get back. My father came over with 28 trunks filled with
Italian mercahndise to help out Italian exports and we are spending
most of our time at the customs.

They have let out both Wanning and Mizener, the two young
instructors who you met at Yale, (on the excuse that they have a
szm small budget). But there is still Maynard Mack whose father is the
head of the English Dept. at Oberlin. He is the chap who wanted
to get you the lecture and Yale Degree and is really going places here
at Yale. As a matter of fact he has been promoted to Asst. Prof.
I hope to be able to tell you by the time I write the next letter
that William Lyon Phelps is dead or no longer will be in charge of
the Bergen Lecture. I know from the Dean that they are trying to get it
away from him.

I saw William Empson the other day and I am going to get
him to do some more work for Furioso. He has just returned from a two
year visit to China and is now working with I.A.RICHARDS who has a job
lecturing at Harvard. I see Cummins ever so often when I get up
to New York and he liked the article SENZA VELENO very much. He sends you
his best wishes and wonders if you are coming back soon. Dick Eberhart
has been doing a great deal of writing and should have out a new book soon
He is here in New York now and we have been going around together a good
deal. MacLeish published a eleven page poem 'AMERICA WAS PROMISES' where-
in he puts you on the side of the sea at Rapallo, something like
Achilles in all his wrath gazing and gazing. The reviews were lousy
and there is no doubt that the boy is a great diluter, WC Williams
has been a little fed with me because I objected to the stuff he wrote
about your economics. I think the boy is actually jealous of you and
Eliot. No fooling the tome that fellow adopts in criticism you would

Dear Ez old man, thanks for the letter. First news of import is that your new cantos are coming out in Sept and Laughlin has bought the rights to all the others. This is official and has been announced to the public. In this connections I would appreciate having a review of the latest cantos done by Drummond and sent over by air-mail if you can reach him. I believe that he could do the best job and that way the critics would have something good to go to bat on. Laughlin is also putting out some sort of explanatory note which is upposed to make it easier for the new readers. I talked to Dad on the telephone a day or two before the war and mentioned the little shekel which you might need, say a couple of thousand and he said o.k. so I hope you will oblige by writing him and accept it as a favor. The comment on the obit has been very gratifying. Allen Tate has been holding it up as the last word on Ford as have even the Profs. Please accept the latter as a compliment. Writes Mrs Sadakichi Hartman, 'I like the obit by Ezra Pound very much. I think Ford Madox Ford was one of the best prose writers I encountered...' and hundreds of comments on the last issue which I can recount because of bulk and trans-atlantic expense. I'm enclosing a few clippings which you might like. The one from the New Yorker is publicity for you. Have you seen it before? Ezra what about a serious poem for *Furioso*? I'm persistent bastard aren't I? Anyway I'm trying to edit a poetry magazine. There is a ship going to Lisbon and I'm putting a lot of magazines on it for you. I hope you receive them and that Italy has cleared the way through France for their safe-arrival. The newspaper is the new daily that has appeared in New York entitled P.M. It is supposed to have no money from advertisers and is something new in that respect. I'm going to stump for the Republicans in New Haven and have some ideas about publishing a few political pamphlets. If you think Europe is interesting you should have a look at America. We've got the goods. I might say that I got hell for the *Lit* Editorial and some of my marks in mass courses were lousey. The profs are techy suh! Try air-mail: Jim

Dear Ezra,

This is the first chance that I have had to write you because of exams. I have seen Cummingsa number of times and he has been very good to FURIOSO. The other day I had a chat with W. Lewis who is over here painting pictures of University Profs for a price. He is out of town. I believe as he has been taking cheap lect. which no one else would give, Spencer wrote me that he wasn't very good at Harvard. I don't think that e.e. likes him very much as the man has too many 'masks'.

I have been reading the New English Weekly and do understand what you are driving at. It fits in with Jonson and Dante (Shakes). There is no doubt about it that people are going to wake up to the fact that (and e.e. told me this) that Pound is right after all. The whole country is hot after war. We had a peace petition anti-credit to Allies etc. who got over 1000 names in two days. There was some talk about it in TIME and other papers, though certain profs were strongly against it. The attitude among the American undergraduate body is anti-war but everyone else including the profs are all for fighting. The new bait is that we are next on Hitler's pro-DEM, and people actually believe this. I got in a fight near e.e. for accepting a communist publication and signing a peace notice. It's the damn American Legion. They are all out for war and yesterday (Memorial Day) they had the bloody nerve to march around with bands and wreaths and honor the dead while Roosy talks about another billion for defence. Take it from me that we are really going into the war soon. That is unless Germany cleans up soon. Everyone wants it. In the first place people have just sat around on their rumps letting the mongers go to work. There is no decent publication in America which will print

anything against the allies. Everything from the front page to the last is against Germany and for England. The news reels would sicken you. The other day MacLeish deplored the fact that there had been so much anti-war writing, that the allies had not received support, that writing after the war (and he accepted some of the blame) which was purely a literary effort should be the doctrines of the young. The president in his peech-speech used this sentence 'America is Promises' and I believe that Roosy and MacL have been speaking together. On every hand the men whom you might have had some respect for are yelling their heads off about moralities etc. Now they have passed laws against the fifth column activities. This is just another way to stop anti-war believers. The real fifth columns are the British and English who are here trying to get us to join up with them. They are all over the place and sleep in the best beds. Nothing too good for them. They come into our universities, theatres, publications, and will soon be invading our privies. In the university we just sit back and listen to the craperia and can't do anything about it because we know as well as I am sitting here that we are going into this war, that all our efforts are to hurry up the guns etc so we can enter soon.

I imagine that things are getting tough for you and I would like to help. As far as I know I will have to get a job this summer, probably in a bank as I have no dollars. They wouldn't let me have a pass-port to get back so I will have to find some way to support my brother and sister in New Haven. But if you need money please write my father, (I am going to send him a letter with this one) and ask him for lire. He doesn't have any dollars. I will try to explain everything to him. If you want to do something for me I would like to have a dozen translations of La Forgue or others that you believe important, enough poems from the symbolist movement that would show up much of Eliot, not that I have anything against the Possum, but I know that you are very capable of doing this if you can let the econ go for just enough time to let us have something like this and then I would try to collect some more money from others over here

2

and give you any help that you might need. I believe that Dad would be willing to help you. He has, or did have, lire. I received a letter from him just the other day (telegram) that he had gone to Paris. There was nothing more. I don't know if anything happened other than that he had not intentions of leaving Italy. Anyway, Ezra please write him if you run into any difficulty. I really owe you a lot and wish that I could see you this holiday. If you will accept advice from a fix friend, please do a series of translations as I am sure that you would again come back into the poetry competition to the point where you would find some good publisher who would buy up all your rights and do well by you. I would give my right arm if it was possible to do this. I gave a lecture here at Yale on your poetry and effectively played the gramaphone record. Everyone was enthusiastic but when they tried to buy your poems there was no way to get any. Laughlin is all right, but few people take him seriously, and he is no advocate for a poet of your atanding. Willains is about all that he ever rise to. I want to do something for you, but what can I do when you never write me the details. I could place things for you. At least do more than the literary agent that is handling your things now. There are several magazines such as the Southern Review which pay high, also the Partisan Review who printed Eliot's EAST COKER; I believe that you should be writing for them. There is a new need for your energy in that line and I would be willing to get the review copies for you if you are interested. Then when you write an article I would be pleased to place it and open an account here for you. I believe that an article long and scholarly would fetch a good price and I believe that I could get the Southern Review to take it. There are a lot of pot-boiling writers who have nothing to say and whatever you might have to say would be of importance. Please consider this carefully and let me know as I have the summer and I would be willing to give all the time to this. Everything is up to you, my dear Ezra.

19 June

Dear Mr Angleton

Jim is all het up for fear that I with poetic
imprudence might have failed to putt by a few biglietti di mille.

I shall still eat/ even if Morgenthau, Hall and that ass F.D.Roosevelt
have succeeded in having the mails blocked, and payment on U.S. cheques
suspended.

I wasn't sure whether you are still in Italy. If you are I shd/
like to talk seriously with you re/ something more important
than my personal affairs/ The god damned heax of foreign EM trade
when considered as MORE important than internal trade ; will come to
an end/ but the present drive in Washington to shut South America
to European trade is excessive.

I have never made out what line you are
in, but some sanity can be exercised, and one can even NOW
start making arrangements for sane exchange of goods between

Italy, Germany, the U.S.A. and South America. With Milan no longer
as important, esp/ on timing of exchanges , you may decide that Venet
Venova is more central, esp/ for stuff coming thru from Northern
Europe/ etc/ etc/ I can't tell till I know more. also no use
writing till I know whether you get this.

Am convinced that even in business no one ever knows enough, or
has more contacts than they need. Time has come when I might be
a business asset. ( wild as the idea wd/ appear. ) I don't mean IN
an office; but setting at the seat of news.

I don't suppose you are interested in silver ? ( by any chance ? )

Kapalle / 19 June Dear Jim: If Stendhal had spent the day after Waterloo writing retrospect re/ Fontenelle or Bessuet ??? etc. In short: NUTS. I am not a Lyon Phelps or ass of that sort. If you want to be useful, get in touch with John Slocum, co/ Hurd, Hamlin and Hubbell, 52 Broadway. New York, and find out between you where I can print something CONTEMPORARY. As Roosevelt, Morgenthau and Bullett are responsible for the war/ along with shits like Churchill, Eden, Eynaud and other pimps it wd/ be a crime to let the U.S. endorse their stinking politics/

which INCLUDES trying to murder all yr/ generation in the interest of the Bank of Eng/ the Banque de France and the swine who met and doubled their salaries// Someone has got to SEE who Roosevelt has been handing moneys TO. Called purchase of gold/

also armament racket. Well, yes. Have a defence/ BUT do it sensibly and NOT borrowing the nations OWN credit from shits, thereby increasing the mortgage ON the nation/ to shit/ and/ co. Alies

Leeb/ Kuhn/Rothschild, Wiseman etc. The fact that the govt. has NOT protected its OWN mail/ let the stinking Brits/ censer all news, private letters etc/ from Europe OUGHT to open public eye to STINK/ to fear of truth. Newspapers run on borrowed moneys etc/ The whole shitted lot ought to be peopled. You don't say whether you have reed/ any of my ms/ or whether the Brits/ stole 'em are still held 'em at Gibraltar. ( Young men should learn to ANSWER letters ). And Roosevelt plus Morgenthau Baruch ought to GO// even if anpub/ party is an ass. If the reps/ cant put up a MAN? a he one, mebbe time for third party/ at any rate even if nominated Roosevelt ought to be peopled, and the war guilt brought home not only to Blum, Cet Reynaud, Churchill, but ALSO to the american asses and skunks who puppied up Poland; etc/ and encouraged the fools to make an unjust war. Fake after fake/ no reply to case for Danzig/ nothing but shit/ Streit, H.G. Wells, Nic Butler/ " federal union " under the arse of international moneymakers etc. Time is NOW to peop/ out the lot, and, for yr/ generation, to get round to living in the 1940s not in the 1870s. You can thank Hitler if you ain't being slaughtered. At any rate you aren't going to FRANCE, and if you get a gun

in time to get to Aberdeen or "newfoundland", it will be yr/ own fault.ead yr/ Overholtër. I cant write every day at 9 lire 50 cm/

If the American people STILL want Lippmann and Shittery Thompson and cant YET print me/ then they better go die.. something is diseased in the nation; and no therapy will save 'em. All of which you can discuss with Cummings and Slocum. There ought by now to be the nucleus of starting a DAILY PAPER. Grey on the N.Y. Sun might be worth seeing if you or Slocum can get to him. As it costs a buck to send three shetts of this thin paper, I am NOT going to write articles on spec/ must know they are to be used. "ave sent two to Slocum ( now in a lit/ agency ). anyhow, see him, and Cummings and try to see J.C. Grey ( edtr. of Sun, or was last year. )

You can still send PRINTED matter via Japan Siberia. ( save me price of another air mail, by notifying Mrs V.B.Jordan, 195 Jefferson Ave Tenafly. N.J. to this effect, as she used to send me papers. must be marked: via "Japan Siberia." yrs.

7 July

Rapallo

Dear Jim It is quite possible that Roosevelt is the hypnotized hippopotamus, serving Morgenthau, i;e; Rothschild. What must go to MELL is the foreign bank influence in the U.S. / Rip van Wendle Wilkie is unconvincing. / paragraph 7 of the platform is a stall.

ANYthing is better than Roosevelt/ BUT support of Wilkie shd/ try to wake up the bastid. Until the crime of 1863 is wiped out, NONE of the bustards deserves any support. O.K. that youth congress shd/ be again Roosevelt. / but the YOUNG republicans shd/ have heard of several things that pop Wilkie has NOT heard of and DONT want to hear Blighter has NOT heard of the past 20 years of European history. Someone ought to TELL him. // As to pamphlets/ the stuff I printed when IN the U.S. plus the America article, and THREE articles now with Slocum/ GET in touch with J.Slocum of Russell, Volkening, lit. agents 522 Fifth Ave. New York / note especially that my article To whose profit Roosevelt OUGHT to bust the blighter if he has the brass to run again. at any rate that ought to be in a pamphlet. and a damn good pamphlet ed/ be made of the Capital Daily article, with date/ the 

Waal, git bhsy with Slocum/ and make a pamphlet. and so forth.
no results YET of Lisbon boat/ a real govt/ not to say a DIPLOMATIC
corps; that wasnt a corpse would months ago have estab/ american
mail to europe WITHOUT Rothschild interference.

yrz

Rapallo/ 12/ Nov. Dear Jim; Annals of Am/ so called Academy of
Political science arrive regularly/ also last HIKA, also Oct. issue
Dillon's parish gazette/ but NO Furioso/ esp/ the Ford issue.

Someone bought to send me a MONTHLY note, with at least items re/
Laughlin/ McPherson etc. and if possible of the few people left in
England whom wd/ wd. like to know are alive.

You better subscribe to Japan Times weekly issue, where I get printed.
also Meridiano di Roma/ Or communicate via Kitasono/

I badly want news of the elections/ esp/ list of who is still in Congr'
Congress and Senate/I get no details

No news as to whether Laughlin got out the Santos in Sep. as he said.

Use the LITA, and try regular mail either via Lisbon or via
Kitesono to forward.

Believe Dodsworth's essay on Cummings is due for reprint in Meridiano
Dod/ fell off bike and got killed a couple of months ago.

I thought of coming over on clipper at end of Sept/ but no places
obtainable till Dec. 15 which is no use.

ANYway it is tile to make some attempt to get some
news, both political, and if any literary.

I think; but have NO news and no data/ that for next four years/ people
better back Wheeler and Wallace/ BUT, I repeat, I have NO data
and can't have a real opinion... Wulkie was 20 or 30 years
behind the times/ as FAR AS I can make out, but I have NO means
of being sure of anything.

The last known aurora licheroor wuz poEm of Cummings in Furioso.
will now proceed to tennis if I et therefore it reins.

yrz

Did Tiakhan stand again for congress, or retire.

Are Bridges, Voorhis and Sen. Bankhead in ?

# The Immaculate Conversion

By J. J. ANGLETON

WHEN the pollen drips from stamen
Urging womb-fruit for next year—
I murmur to see the sun and rain
Quicken to dust the flowers again
Quicken to flowers the dust again
Quicken to dust
Didn't they smell for life this year
Didn't they smell for death
Didn't they smell I ask

At night illiterate I saw these things
Lying cadaverous in the parlour hall
Then quickening to the priest who sings
They sprawled as writing on my wall

So going quick to religious places
I inspect the graven gargoyles there
And finding myself among the faces
Affect a bow and tonsured hair

21

on. And the statue stands in true perspective,
ot in geographical space, but "the space in
which he knows/The locust's titter and the
urtle's sob?" the space of art, of beauty, or
value. And yet, says the poet, even imagination
as an end. Perhaps the eternal yearning of the
statue is the chief evil; perhaps the real yearn-
ing that we have is "to feel again/The recon-
iliation, the rapture of a time/Without imagina-
tion, without past/And without future, a present
ime, is that/The passion, indifferent to the
poet's hum/That we conceal?" Perhaps we de-
sire simply a kind of Dionysian union to make us
all one.

*Owl's Clover* expresses typically Stevens'
philosophy as it has been objectified in other
poems. We can see that the poet is not sure of
any value. While imagination is that which
gives things meaning and which has the power
to add beauty to existence, even that may be an
unsure value. Stevens has no positive philoso-
phy; he has no standards upon which to make
judgments. The conclusion that he draws, then,
is that life must be accepted as it is, and that the
eternal chaos of change must be not only
accepted, but consciously participated in. The
conflict between romanticism and realism is never
resolved.

22

LEADER:
Yale's Progress of Poetry

I have met many of these rattles that made a noyse and buz'd. They had their humme, and
no more.
—Ben Johnson

The Return
By EZRA POUND

See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the
uncertain
Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
Inviolable.

Gods of the wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!

* * *

Two summers ago a Yale undergraduate
visited Mr. Ezra Pound in Rapallo, Italy.
Mr. Pound expressed the desire to lecture at
Yale and thought it reason enough for re-
turning to America after 30 years of self-
imposed exile. The undergraduate left Mr.
Pound with assurances that the lecture would
not be impossible. On his return to New
Haven he went to an eminent professor of
English, a notable personage in the World of
American and English Letters. With the
proper timidity he put forth Mr. Pound's

proposals. The eminent personage said,
"Ezra Pound is crazy".

Mr. Pound came to America; he lectured
at Harvard: he received an honorary doctor-
ate from Hamilton and recognition from as
disinterested a quarter as the editorial page
of *The New York Times*. Mr. Pound did not
speak at Yale.

This refusal by the notable professor to
judge contemporary literature as a serious art
instead of an intellectual fad, (he held also
that James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Ger-
trude Stein and others were too notorious
and morally unaware for the undergradu-
ates), is now of little importance. One sees
the cadaver still flexing in the 'mass' lecture
courses, but as the prudery of Buchanan did
not silence the Pre-Raphaelites, the cadaver
does not stem the interest for poetry at Yale.
The future and being of an art cannot be
blotted out by god-like judgments, spoken
from the platform, which even a Dante would
hesitate to sign.

Evidences of the recent change are numer-
ous. Lectures given by William Empson,
I. A. Richards, Allen Tate, and others have
lent academic weight in defense of contem-
porary poetry. The Sterling Library, with
the help of a few English instructors, has
published (and is arranging to publish more)
contemporary bibliographies. It is also mak-
ing a collection of phonographic recordings
of poets. Of special note is the extra-curricu-
lar creative writing and criticism which
flourishes in weekly meetings at the home of
an English instructor, himself a poet and
critic.

Aware of these things and with an eye to
the future, this issue of the Lit has been
devoted to the cultivation of Pierian roses.

J. J. A.

THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE

6

EARLY RISER

He fell on the bed heavily. He sighed, grunted, shifted his
body, and relaxed. He was very tired, so tired that he was stupid.
His thoughts were so very stupid. Little phrases bounced back
and forth in his head. - Oh I am weary, weary, weary. Weary me.
I am a weary wanderer. I wear woolly underwear. Oh I am weary.

His name was Borg. He lay on a bed in a small room in a
cheap hotel.

- And the pig got up and slowly walked down the long center
aisle of the church toward the altar, lifting his feet high while
everyone in the church gave a short prayer for the pig who lifted
his feet so high. Oh foolish pig.

There was only darkness in the window. The one light of the
room was a shaded twenty five watt bulb sitting on top of a
metal lampstick which had its base on an advertisement-covered
bedside table. Borg lay on the bed staring at the darkness in
the window. He had emptied his pockets and placed on the bedside
table some small change, a much-chewed pencil, a tiepin, and an
unopened pint of scotch. Across the room a suitcase lay open
over the arms of a chair.

A man knocked and came in before Borg said anything. The
man said, "We leave on the six o'clock bus tomorrow morning."

"What? What? God, I need sleep. I can't move I'm so tired.
See, I can't move my arms." He grimaced as if he was trying
to move his heavy, heavy arms.

"Sorry - orders from big boss Johnson. I'll see you at
the depot at six."

"All right." - All right, hell. So Johnson has now decided
with that very wise brain of his that we don't need sleep. No,
not sleep. Why sleep? Forth from the gardens of sleep rode
the six hundred, joyfully, joyfully. I am so happy.

"So long." The man went out closing the door firmly but
not noisily.

- so long, you wonderful messenger, you bringer of glad
tidings, you son of a bitch. If Johnson thinks I am ready to
move on in six hours, he thinks x wrong. No, Johnson doesn't
think. He merely arranges things. Six hours. Six hours
with who? Oh for a woman a woman a woman, oh for a woman,
a fine and pretty lady.

Borg reached angrily for the bottle on the table. He cut
his finger taking off the metal cover. He swore at this and
took off the cap and swore and drank and swore again. He fell
back on the bed and swore and fell asleep without having removed
his clothes.

From a deep valley Borg looked up at two remote crests.
The valley was his cradle. Here was eternal peace, perfect
happiness, absolute relaxation. Borg thought that never would
he leave this valley of seclusion and peace.

Suddenly the valley shook. Something was definitely
happening in this valley of peace and seclusion. Borg was
shooting from the deep of the valley high in the air. Rapid
ascension. Borg returned to consciousness, found himself in bed, and

- 2 -

looked at his watch. It was six-fifteen.

Borg returned gloriously to profanity. He got up jerkily, rushed foolishly around the room in his rumpled clothes, threw things in the open suitcase, and suddenly sat down to say something nice about dear old Johnson, the timekeeper.

- Fly away little birds fly away, and leave me free, and leave me free, to think, to think - that it is six fifteen and they left at six o'clock. This is no time for rejoicing and I am no man to rejoice. I am the forgotten, the neglected. Or am I? Johnson sits there now in the bus looking at his watch, saying goddam Borg. Johnson and his watch, Johnson and his watch. Johnson will die horribly at 3:01 A.M. of a Monday morning. His watch will stop horribly dead also at that time. They will wrap horrible Johnson tightly in a white cloth - except for one arm which will rest on his chest holding the watch, holding the horrible watch - so that all who wish to know may observe that Johnson died at 3:01 A.M. Johnson will look with his dead eyes forever at that watch. By God.

- Sleep and time are opposed to one another. Sleep is the timeless necessity of a world of time. In sleep what is fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes of sleep is only recognizable in a waking state. Good work, Borg.

He smoothed out the slept-in suit, washed, brushed his hair, closed the suitcase, and left the room. When he paid the bill he had thirty cents. Borg was used to this. It always left him with a sick feeling. To alleviate the sick feeling he crossed the street for ten cents' worth of breakfast. At quarter of seven he left the restaurant and stood in the cold of the early morning out on the sidewalk looking toward the bus station. He had a problem. He might take the next bus. He might. With whose money? It made no difference. With Johnson and his timetable, Borg's job was nonexistent.

Borg turned on the sidewalk in the cool of the early morning and walked, hands in his pockets, scuffing his feet, up the street away from the bus station.

At seven o'clock at the bus station Johnson stumbled in holding his watch in one hand and looking appropriately apologetic with his face. There was a low rumbling of it's about time from the four corners of the bus station.

"Sorry boys," said Johnson, "but I overslept. First time in years by golly and by jiminy. We all make mistakes you know. (Short laugh). When is the next bus?"

And never one, not even for a single small moment, did anyone think about Borg until they were on the bus scooting scooting away.

Then Johnson said, "say boys, where's Borg?"

Not that Borg gave a damn.