I am very pleased with the way things are going on your poetry volume. [ . . . ]
Cat seems to be going great guns, with a third printing on press now. People I have talked to about it have been particularly appreciative of the fact that you gave them both versions of the play, and, with hardly any exceptions, have liked yours better than Kazan’s. I hope that if you work with him in future you will be tougher about not letting him change things around to suit himself.
Did you finish any new short stories over the summer? We would like very much to have another one from you for Perspectives, if you have one that would be suitable. By the way, we are running in Number 14 an article on “off-Broadway” theatres by Alice Griffin, which deals at some length with the production of Camino up in Connecticut, and has an illustration from it. I wish I could have seen that, as it sounds to have been very good.
I’ve talked with Maria several times on the telephone and hope to be seeing her soon. She sounds cheerful and benevolent, a mood which I hope will continue. She keeps giving me various messages from you about the poetry, but they aren’t too clear, and anyway I guess we can wait until you get back to sort out the details.
With best wishes to Frank,
James Laughlin
« • »
112. TL—1
October 20, 1955 [New York]
DEAR TENN—
I’ve been trying to reach you on the telephone the last two days, but no luck. I have to go out of town tonight until Monday and heard from Bob that you were also heading toward Key West soon. I wanted to go over a few things with you on the poetry manuscript before you leave.
I have read them again carefully and am once again impressed by how moving and exciting they are. Nobody else is writing like that, or putting so much of his inner self into his poetry. There is a terrific emotional charge and many lines of a haunting beauty and insight. You have a freedom of imagery that is akin to that of the Surrealists, but your poems are better than theirs because you always hold them in focus on a theme.
I don’t think I would suggest many changes: a few places where I think a line could be made a bit more musical. [ . . . ]
Thinking about a title, what would you say to something rather simple and severe like Legends: A Book of Poems? This suddenly came to me and I rather like it. It suggests the mythic quality that so many of the poems have. But if you would prefer something romantic there are plenty of fine images in the poems to choose from.
As to format—type and paper, etc.—I’ve suggested to Bob that he bring up to show you a complete set of our Poets of the Year series. Each one of these has a different design, many of them lovely, and I’m sure that one among them will appeal, and then we can follow that.
As ever,
[James Laughlin]
« • »
Poets of the Year series: From 1941 to 1945, ND published a series of short paperbound volumes called the Poet of the Month series until the Book of the Month Club threatened ND with a lawsuit and the name was changed. JL intended each of the forty-one volumes of the series to be an example of fine printing as well as to showcase the work of an individual poet.
113. TL—2
Tuesday, July 17, 1956 [Westchester, New York]
DEAR TENN,
I’ve been meaning to write for a long time, in fact I feel very guilty that I haven’t. No secretary, and impossible temporary help, too many books suddenly ready for publishing, too much life I guess. Although everything has been going forward, the amenities have suffered. Hope the voyage was a great rest, that Spain or wherever was exciting and pleasant. Hope you are having all you desire in Rome.
[ . . . ]
Jay, by the way, is in Germany organizing a supplement for The Atlantic Monthly, like his ones on Japan, India, etc., and I’m sending him your address in Rome, in case he gets there.
Have you seen any of the reviews of In the Winter of Cities? I think they are mostly rather good, although you were right of course and no one is willing to concede your importance as a poet separately from your importance as a playwright. I’ll try to send you at least the Time magazine one tomorrow.
Incidentally, Thomas Merton has written Jay saying that he found much in the volume very stimulating and moving. He also admired the organization of the book itself, and hopes to do likewise with his own poems. Babette Deutsch wrote me that you “have Rilke depths,” and that she was liking much of the book.
What are you up to? Did you find Paul Bowles in Tangier? How was the bullfighting? [Federico García] Lorca’s brother reports that he really thinks things in Spain are simmering to boil over, that the Franco regime is wobbling, despite the support it is getting within the country from U.S. aid. He was there this last winter on a Bollingen grant (which we helped him get) in order to collect his brother’s manuscripts while people who knew him are still alive. Perhaps you read that the nephew was arrested for leading the student demonstrations. This was the boy who has been typing up Federico’s manuscripts, in some cases for us—The Butterfly’s Evil Spell, for instance, which [we] hope to have published in translation of course late this year. How’s the new bulldog? She was certainly killing with that mirror at your apartment.
My very best to Frank.
Fondly,
[Robert M. MacGregor]
« • »
Merton: Thomas Merton (1915–1968), American Trappist monk, author, poet, and contemplative. Merton and JL became close friends—ND published twenty-nine titles by Merton. (See also note following letter from JL to TW on June 9, 1949.)
Babette Deutsch: (1895–1982), American poet and translator.
Lorca’s brother: Francisco García Lorca (1902–1976), brother of the martyred Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, whose work was published by New Directions. A diplomat and scholar, Paco (as he was known) became friends with Robert MacGregor in New York where he lived in exile from 1939 to 1957, teaching at Columbia University. ND published his In the Green Morning: Memories of Federico in 1986.
the nephew: Manuel Fernández-Montesinos (1932–2013), nephew of Federico and Francisco García Lorca, became family spokesman after the death of Francisco. He presided over the Fundación García Lorca in Madrid from its founding in 1984 until his death.
114. TL—2
August 16, 1956 [New York]
DEAR TENN,
[ . . . ]
I could not have been more pleased by the news of Maria’s wedding. She deserves a good break and I hope she gets it. I sent a clipping of the New York Times story to J. L. in Germany, but I’m not sure that he received it since he was traveling around. He should be home at the end of the week and I gather that he did not have the time to go to Italy after all. I expect he was pleased by the news of Maria’s marriage and I am sure that you were, too. Do you know anything about the gent?
[ . . . ]
Fondly yours,
Robert M. MacGregor
« • »
Maria’s wedding: In 1956 Maria Britneva married Lord Peter St. Just, a childhood friend whose mental instability resulted in repeated stays in various hospitals and treatment centers. Eventually she inherited the family “stately home” of Wilbury Park in Wiltshire, England.
115. TL—2
November 10, 1956 [Norfolk]
DEAR TENN—
I was distressed to discover, when I was downtown this past week, that you had already gone back to Key West. I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of you, and particularly wanted to arrange a get-together with Ann, who is eager to meet you. Please be sure to let me know if you come back up North, won’t you?
If you are likely to be up around Thanksgiving time we would like very much to have you and Frank come to an evening when we will have the Indian sitar virtuoso, Ravi Shankar (brother of the dancer), and his wonderful drummer, Chatur Lal, playing for a few people at the apartment. This is really the way to hear them best, when they sit right on the floor in the middle of a small group, and you get right into the “jam
”—which is about what it is like, or, rather, a sort of mixture of quite intellectual chamber music and a jazz jam session. They start off rather formally on a raga and then it gets hotter and hotter and the rhythms are terrific. I think you would like it, and they would be interesting people for you to know when you make your trip to India. I don’t know the exact date when the party will be, but will let you know, and hope you can make it.
[ . . . ]
Have you read James Baldwin’s novel Giovanni’s Room? If you haven’t, be sure not to miss it—one of the few things I have read recently that was really good. Don’t be put off by Anthony West’s smart-aleck review in the New Yorker, it is really a beautiful book.
Here is one thing I have on my mind that is quite important: would you feel like joining in a petition to Eisenhower for the release of Ezra Pound? It would be a very carefully staged and managed effort, with perhaps only about a dozen big literary names signing a letter asking clemency which would go to Ike through a private channel, entirely reliable, that has opened up. As you probably heard, Ike asked Faulkner to get ideas from leading writers about ways of improving relations with writers abroad, and Bill Williams gave one of the best answers, I think, when he told them that one of the easiest things they could do to make us be “liked” by writers abroad would be to let our leading poet out of the coop where he has been languishing these past ten years. This attempt would follow along that approach. It wouldn’t try to argue the degree of his “guilt”—I have always felt that his political behavior was just a part of his whole illness—but just point out that, whatever it was, he has been locked up for ten years, and that is enough; that his illness is not getting any better where he is, and that he is not violent or dangerous; and, finally, that it is getting to be a national disgrace—at least so it is widely viewed abroad—to keep one of our greatest poets behind bars.
I’ll keep you posted on how this develops—the ground has to be prepared very carefully—but would be glad if you could let me know right back if you are willing to help—subject to liking the actual letter, that is.
What do you hear from Maria? I would certainly be glad to hear that things were better for her. I think about her often and send up a little silent prayer that things will straighten out. She just wasn’t for me, but she is a wonderful person, with very rare gifts, and she deserves much better luck in life than she has had so far.
Bob and I have been trying to pry a script of Orpheus [Descending] out of Audrey, and it is promised for this week. I’m eager to see how you have changed it from Battle [of Angels]. I hear that Magnani is out of the picture now, which is too bad, but she did sound hopelessly difficult.
Baby Doll must be cold tonight over there in Times Square, all 168 feet of her (Get me some of that, man, the taxi driver said as we drove past her the other evening) as winter seems to have come and it’s down below freezing. Hope it is nice down there.
As ever, and best to Frank, [James Laughlin]
« • »
Ann, who is eager to meet you: Ann Resor Laughlin had married JL in the spring of 1956. An intelligent and cultured Radcliffe graduate, Ann was eager to help JL in his literary and cultural endeavors. She provided funding from her own considerable assets for various ND titles and even underwrote the education expenses for the children of several long-term ND employees.
Ravi Shankar: (1920–2012), Bengali musician and composer who popularized the sitar. JL sponsored the first party held for Shankar in America on November 29, 1956.
Chatur Lal: (1925–1965), Indian tabla player.
a petition to Eisenhower for the release of Ezra Pound: In 1956, the long campaign among primarily American writers to have Ezra Pound released from St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., was building. He had been incarcerated at the institution for eleven years after being declared unfit by reason of insanity to stand trial for treason over his wartime broadcasts on Italian radio. Archibald MacLeish, poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, organized (with JL’s help) a letter to President Eisenhower that was signed by T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and many other authors of world standing. This is the “petition” that JL is asking TW to sign. Although there is no evidence that TW signed the letter, he did visit Pound at St. Elizabeths early in 1957, accompanying Maria Britneva St. Just, who reported to her friend Mary de Rachewiltz, Pound’s daughter, that “he gave Tenn a nice hug when we left and kissed my brow” (letter postmarked New York, 2/25/57). JL used the back-channel of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Hauge, special assistant to the president on economic affairs, to make sure that the letter got to Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, in February 1958. The same month, Frost had dinner at the White House and brought the matter up directly with Eisenhower. All charges against Pound were dismissed on April 18, 1958, and he was released from St. Elizabeths and returned to Italy.
all 168 feet of her: As part of his sensational and successful promotion of the film Baby Doll (based on TW’s one-act plays 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper), director and producer Elia Kazan had a gigantic billboard posted in Times Square that featured actress Carroll Baker, who played the title character, in a baby crib wearing a short, flimsy nightgown, and sucking her thumb.
116. TL—2
January 22, 1957 [New York]
DEAR TENN,
Just a hasty line to tell you that, quite unexpectedly, Ann and I are off for a couple of months in Burma, to assemble material for a “Perspective of Burma” collection for The Atlantic Monthly.
This is very unexpected, because I had thought that the [Ford] Foundation was all finished with us, and that I was again a free man. But they assure me that this is the last one, and I must confess that I’m not too unhappy about going to Burma because it is such a wonderful country and such really delicious people. If you get bored with Key West, fly out and join us! I know you would like it.
Audrey kindly let me read a script of Orpheus Descending and I was much taken with it. It really packs quite a wallop. And it was especially interesting for me to see the way you had developed the original theme of Battle of Angels. The dramatic structure is now much tighter, and I think that the characterizations have been deepened. You’ve added a lot, of course, and I like the symbolism and the way the thing drives ahead relentlessly to its tragic conclusion. There are some very lovely poetic passages, and also your usual fine ear for the way people talk. Needless to say, we want to publish the book and hope that we can get it out as soon as you have the final playing script in shape. Bob will be following along with you and Audrey while I am away, and I’m sure that everything will go smoothly.
Ann and I enjoyed Baby Doll very much, though we felt it was uneven. A question of the direction, I would say. There would be moments of the greatest poignancy and authenticity, then suddenly it would seem as though the director had become afraid to go the whole way and the tone would switch over into a kind of artificiality. Then a moment later it would switch back to the real thing. It’s a pity that this film couldn’t have been made in Italy, because I’m sure that what caused the trouble was the famous Hollywood production code. The acting, of course is terrific, and so is the background setting, those wonderful colored people slouching about, and the whole eerie atmosphere of the ruined mansion. That one flash where the colored man laughs at the husband out of the window of the cotton gin is pure inspiration and quite unforgettable.
I was so sorry that I didn’t get a chance to see you when you were last in New York. Life runs along, so rapidly, and one never seems to manage to make it stand still and fully yield itself up. I do hope that you’ll be around when we get back in April so that you can meet Ann and perhaps come up to see us some day in the country, where you have never been, and I wish you would come.
You’ll be glad to hear, I’m sure, that New Directions is going to publish James Purdy. It was a bit of a battle to arrange it, because a number of other publishers were after him, but he felt himself that we were the r
ight firm for him, and I am very excited about his possibilities. The first book will be a short novel, plus the short stories that were in the two volumes he privately printed.
You never did tell me whether you would be willing to sign a petition for poor old Ezra. Do drop a card about this, because the matter is moving forward, and your support would be very valuable. Just write me care of New Directions and they will send it out to me in Burma by airmail.
Hope you are having fun down there and that the swimming is good. I believe there are crocodiles in Burma, but maybe I can find a pool, as it will be hot out there.
With best wishes,
As ever,
J. Laughlin
« • »
James Purdy: (1914–2009), American novelist and short-story writer. ND published Purdy’s collection of short stories Color of Darkness (1958) and the novel Children Is All (1962).
117. TL—1
March 13, 1957 [New York]
DEAR TENN,
Thought you might be pleased to know that In the Winter of Cities has been chosen as one of the “fifty books of the year” by the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
The year, of course, is 1956 and the “best” is best designed. This means that the book will be on exhibit at the New York Public Library probably in April and in five other cities, either in art museums or libraries. They also publish a catalog, a copy of which I shall try to get you.
I am delighted to hear that Orpheus Descending is getting such enthusiastic receptions out of New York.
Yours in haste,
Robert M. MacGregor
« • »
“fifty books of the year”: Graphic designer and visual artist Elaine Lustig Cohen (1927–2016), who assisted her first husband Alvin Lustig (1915–1955) on a number of book covers for ND, was the designer of this book.
The Luck of Friendship Page 22