The Equivalents
Page 38
“So what?”: Ibid.
wanton display of wealth: “Women of Talent,” Newsweek, 23 Oct. 1961.
“doing my duty”: Macrakis interview.
“I thought that before”: Interview with Sexton, Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“So you felt the same as me?”: Macrakis interview.
“exact carbon copy”: Interview with Kumin, Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“I would just as soon”: Interview with Sexton, Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“Can we play?”: Ibid.
“There are times”: Ibid.
“My writing, Bah”: Sexton to Olsen, Nov. 1961, Sexton Papers.
“not very different”: Foreword to “The American Female: A Special Supplement,” Harper’s, Oct. 1962.
“They were horrid”: Macrakis interview.
It was not a choice: “A Literary Woman ‘at Home’ in Newton,” Newton Times, 15 Nov. 1972, 12–14.
“There were friends and neighbors”: Untitled reflection, Kumin Papers.
“charged with evaluating”: Elizabeth Singer More, Report of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women: Background, Content, Significance, report, History and Literature, Harvard University.
“How little we knew”: Stendahl, “On the Edge of Women’s Liberation,” 16.
“a readiness to listen”: Kumin, untitled reflection, Kumin Papers.
CHAPTER 7: We’re Just Talking
The seminars were not mandatory: Stendahl, “On the Edge of Women’s Liberation,” 16.
Vilma Hunt: Untitled news clipping, Institute Archives.
“mother hen”: Stendahl, “On the Edge of Women’s Liberation,” 16.
She had also annotated: Maxine Kumin, mimeograph of “Morning Swim,” Kumin Papers.
“I think we might as well”: Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
There were several reasons: Sexton and Kumin discuss their wariness in Showalter and Smith, “Nurturing Relationship,” 129–31.
women made up only: Gail Collins, quoted in Francine Prose, “Women’s Progress: Gail Collins’s ‘When Everything Changed,’ ” New York Times, 20 Oct. 2009.
Even later in their careers: A sentiment expressed in Showalter and Smith, “Nurturing Relationship.”
“You enter into the voice”: Ibid., 125.
“My books make me happy”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 151.
“We’re just talking”: Showalter and Smith, “Nurturing Relationship,” 127.
“It is the most stimulating”: Ibid.
“winked and sulked”: Maxine Kumin, “A Hundred Nights” and “Casablanca,” in Selected Poems, 1960–1990 (New York: Norton, 1997), 24.
Though Halfway sold only three hundred copies: Maxine Kumin, Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry (Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 2000), 98.
“had unquestionably”: Harold Rosenberg, “Six American Poets,” Commentary, Oct. 1961.
“set out, oily and nude”: Kumin, “Morning Swim,” in Selected Poems, 31.
“Water and I”: Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
“Hungry for oysters”: Maxine Kumin, “In That Land,” in Bringing Together: Uncollected Early Poems, 1958–1989 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).
“an apologia for”: Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
“I’m not awfully well-prepared”: Ibid.
“morbid sensibilities”: Ibid.
“stiff procession”: Anne Sexton, “The Truth the Dead Know,” in Complete Poems, 49.
“someone else that I wasn’t”: Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
“I’m afraid all my poems”: Ibid.
“It’s for all of us”: Ibid.
“Turn off the tape!”: Ibid.
“It’s what your mummy”: Ibid.
“Oh, that’s a most complicated”: Ibid.
“We’ve been doing this for years”: Ibid.
“Dear Mrs. Kumin”: Ibid.
“supposed to destroy each other”: Showalter and Smith, “Nurturing Relationship,” 129.
“No, no, we’re different”: Ibid., 125.
“I would say we never meddled”: Kumin to Irving Weinman, 13 Jan. 1975, Kumin Papers.
CHAPTER 8: Happily Awarded
$3,600 each year: Tillie Olsen application to the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, 13 Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“Up at six”: Olsen to Sexton, 26 Jan. n.d., Sexton Papers.
“The novel is the book”: Cowley to Olsen, 2 Feb. 1960, Olsen Papers.
“How interrupting is it?”: Olsen to Sexton, n.d., Sexton Papers.
“Write them”: Sexton to Olsen, 5 Jan. 1962, Olsen Papers.
“unskilled work”: Olsen application, Institute Archives.
“Economic freedom”: Ibid.
They were the family: Kathie Olsen and Julie Olsen, interviews by author, June 2016.
“I think it was the first”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 194.
“an essential portion”: Olsen application, 5, Institute Archives.
“Clumsy, ineffectual application”: Olsen to Sexton, n.d., Institute Archives.
“an attractive woman”: Hannah Green, Letter of Recommendation in Olsen Application, 15 Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“simultaneously dedicated”: Anne Wilder, Letter of Recommendation in Olsen Application, 12 Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“lucky”: Oral history interview with Pineda.
She was inspired by the play: “Marianna Pineda,” Sartle, 30 April 2018, www.sartle.com.
“I felt we were too different”: Oral history interview with Harold Tovish, 24 June 1974 and 17 March 1977, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.
“Oh, it’s very nice”: Oral history interview with Pineda.
“great liberation”: Ibid.
“she feels her way”: Quoted in Patricia Hills, “Marianna Pineda’s Sculpture,” in Marianna Pineda: Sculpture, 1949 to 1996 (Boston: Alabaster Press, 1996), 2.
he sold Pineda’s Mother and Child: Marianna Pineda Papers, 1943–1998, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Swetzoff took a third: Nina Tovish, interview by author, 23 June 2016.
“It was a very lonely business”: Oral history interview with Pineda.
they were friends: Nina Tovish, interview by author.
“Maybe that was a mistake”: Oral history interview with Pineda.
“I have hopes”: Marianna Pineda application to the Radcliffe Institute of Independent Study, 15 Oct. 1961, Institute Archives.
“a very strong candidate”: Ibid.
“Dear Friend”: Sexton to Olsen, 3 May 1962, Sexton Papers.
“candidate of unquestionable distinction”: Anonymous evaluation, 5 April 1962, Institute Archives.
“I WISH THAT WE ALL”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 215.
“JOYFULLY ACCEPT TRUST”: Telegram from Tillie Olsen, 2 May 1962, Institute Archives.
“I love you”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 224–25.
she also arranged for Laurie: FBI file, Olsen Papers.
She decided to quit her job: Kathie Olsen, interview by author, 16 June 2016.
“I was furious”: Julie Olsen Edwards, interview by author, 3 June 2016.
“Marianna’s generation”: Oral history interview with Harold Tovish.
As the Olsen family: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 225.
CHAPTER 9: The Equivalents
She wondered if she: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 226.
The two women took a walk: Ibid.
“Meeting you and being with you!”: Sexton to Olsen, n.d., “Monday night,” Olsen Papers.
“With one
long breath”: Ibid.
“Having been with you”: Ibid.
she felt electricity: Kathie Olsen, interview by author.
“What are you working on?”: Ibid.
“People were not there”: Ibid.
“She loved seeing nature”: Ibid.
Swan produced a portrait of Olsen: The portrait is printed in an insert in Reid, Tillie Olsen.
It was a warm fall: “Boston, MA Weather History, October 1962,” Weather Underground, www.wunderground.com.
she delighted: Details from Reid, Tillie Olsen, 225, and Kathie Olsen, interview by author.
The company paid women: Jane Thompson and Alexandra Lange, Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2010), 76.
she bought bright, patterned cloth: Kathie Olsen, interview by author.
Teasdale had written: “Sara Teasdale,” Poetry Foundation, accessed July 14, 2019, poetryfoundation.org.
“I found more joy”: Sara Teasdale, “Morning,” Poetry Magazine, Oct. 1915, poetryfoundation.org.
“the lowest of the low”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 196.
“the maintenance of life”: Tillie Olsen, Silences (New York: Feminist Press at CUNY, 2014), 34.
“Our love”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 196. Entire anecdote drawn from Middlebrook.
Swan’s husband, Alan: Kathie Olsen, interview by author; detail about shift from Reid, Tillie Olsen, 227.
“everybody had to have dinner”: Kathie Olsen, interview by author.
why does anyone ever fall in love?: Julie Olsen Edwards, interview by author.
the Tovishes stayed up: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 227.
“It makes me so mad”: Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
“health”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 197. Anecdote from Sexton’s seminar talk in May 1963, Radcliffe Sound Recordings.
More Eggs of Things: Maria Popova, “Eggs of Things: Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin’s Science-Inspired 1963 Children’s Book,” Brain Pickings, 18 Sept. 2015.
“had something to do”: Oral history interview with Pineda.
“as we think they may have”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 10: Me, Me Too
studying with George Lockwood: “Art of George Lockwood at the Library,” Duxbury Clipper, 4 March 1971.
“chicks”: Lois Swirnoff and Barbara Swan, “On the Fine Arts,” Institute seminar, 1 May 1962, Radcliffe College Archives Sound Recordings.
“small visual essay”: Ibid.
“old palaces”: “The Musicians,” mimeograph from Kumin and Sexton, “On Poetry.”
“a great hole in the earth”: Ibid.
“it isn’t a good reading poem”: Ibid.
“How about it”: Ibid.
“My painting and drawing”: Ibid.
“It’s like incest”: Ibid.
“It’s a false image!”: Ibid.
“The greatest art”: Ibid.
“Barbara and Anne”: Olsen quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 197.
“Anne moved into my world”: Barbara Swan, “A Reminiscence,” in Anne Sexton: The Artist and Her Critics, ed. J. D. McClatchy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 82.
“The artist and the poet”: Ibid., 81.
“marvelous blue-eyed comic”: Plath to Sexton, 5 Feb. 1961, Sexton Papers.
“an Earth Mother”: Journals of Sylvia Plath, 500.
“a house of our children”: Ibid.
“I am bedded”: Plath to Sexton, 21 Aug. 1962, Sexton Papers.
“the boot in the face”: Sylvia Plath, “Daddy,” in Ariel: The Restored Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 75.
“I have done it again”: Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus,” in Ariel, 14.
“saw the suicide”: Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 198.
“Thief!”: Anne Sexton, “Sylvia’s Death,” in “The Bar Fly Ought to Sing,” in No Evil Star, 11.
“those who contemplate suicide”: Anne Sexton, “Wanting to Die,” in “The Bar Fly Ought to Sing,” in No Evil Star, 8.
“You may paste it”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 200.
“fascination with death”: “Bar Fly Ought to Sing,” 11.
“It is not when I have a baby”: Journals of Sylvia Plath, 495.
CHAPTER 11: Mad for the Message
“a serious professional commitment”: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 477.
“the problem that has no name”: Ibid., 66.
“a vague undefined wish”: Ibid., 114.
“the highest value”: Ibid., 91.
“sexual passivity”: Ibid., 92.
“happy housewife heroine”: Ibid., 93.
“sexual sell”: Ibid., 299.
“sex-directed educators”: Ibid., 227.
“Much is being written”: Quoted in Coontz, Strange Stirring, 144.
“The indictment is uncompromising”: Fred M. Hechinger, “Women ‘Educated’ Out of Careers,” New York Times, 6 March 1963, 7.
“some hard whacks”: Charlotte Armstrong, “The Feminine Mystique Explored,” Los Angeles Times, 2 June 1963, B17.
“trapped”: Jean Litman Block, “Who Says American Women Are ‘Trapped’?,” Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 1963, C10.
Angry letters poured into: Letters from readers, “In Defense of Today’s Woman,” Chicago Tribune, 9 June 1963, H40.
said it well: As Coontz puts it, “Books don’t become best sellers because they are ahead of their time. They become best sellers when they tap into concerns that people are already mulling over, pull together ideas and data that have not yet spread beyond specialists and experts, and bring these all together in a way that is easy to understand and explain to others.”
one of the best-selling nonfiction books: Coontz, Strange Stirring, 145–49.
“mad for the message”: Kumin to Sexton, 23 Aug. 1963, Kumin Papers.
“I felt as though”: Quoted in Coontz, Strange Stirring, 81.
“I finally realized”: Ibid.
“I can’t express”: Ibid., 83.
notes “showed her”: Linda Gray Sexton, Searching for Mercy Street, 98.
“the only kind of work”: Friedan, Feminine Mystique, 476.
“The amateur or dilettante”: Ibid., 477.
“The ‘arts’ seem”: Ibid., 476–77.
“But I have noticed”: Ibid., 477.
“Women don’t strive”: Interview with Anne Sexton, Jan. 1962, Institute Archives.
“Money helps”: Ibid.
“washing herself down”: Anne Sexton, “Housewife,” in Collected Poems, 77.
“And suppose the darlings”: Maxine Kumin, “Purgatory,” in Selected Poems, 43.
“The fact is”: Letter from Maxine Kumin, Ladies Home Journal, 1 Oct. 1962, Kumin Papers.
“If the kids were sick”: Julie Olsen Edwards, interview by author.
“women worked, period”: Ibid.
“I was a young mother”: Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing,” 298.
“I sure would like”: Quoted in Coontz, Strange Stirring, 132.
CHAPTER 12: Genius of a Sort
“It was like giving her”: Kathie Olsen, interview by author.
“own work”: Ibid.
Olsen had first stumbled: Olsen, Silences, 117.
“Literature can be made”: Olsen, afterword to Silences, 117.
A stray footnote: Ibid.
“Masses of men”: Rebecca Harding Davis, “Life in the Iron-Mills; or, The Korl Woman,” in Life in the Iron Mills, and Other Stories, ed. Tillie Olsen (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1985),
12.
“thwarting”: Olsen, Silences, 6.
preternaturally productive writers: Ibid., 12.
“The house seems to take up”: Ibid., 8.
“on writing”: Seminar Schedule, Kumin Papers.
“some aspects of sculpture”: Marianna Pineda, “Some Aspects of Sculpture,” 1 Feb. 1963, Institute seminar, Radcliffe College Archives Sound Recordings.
“The reason Connie isn’t sure”: “Death of the Creative Process,” transcript of a seminar talk given by Tillie Olsen, Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, 15 March 1963, Sexton Papers.
“Because I so nearly”: Ibid.
“revolutionary question”: Ibid., 2.
“political silences”: Ibid., 3.
“mute inglorious Miltons”: Ibid., 7.
“living in his work”: Ibid.
“What feeds creativity”: Ibid.
“Now and again”: Ibid.
“no mother of children”: Ibid.
“minutes on the bus”: Ibid., 31.
“The very conditions”: Ibid.
“strange breadline system”: Ibid., 9.
“makes it possible”: Karl Marx, “Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook,” The German Ideology (1845).
“My conflict”: Olsen seminar transcript.
“If anyone had stopped her”: Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 168.
“Genius flew the coop”: Sexton to Starbuck, 18 Nov. 1962, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 149.
“by not using it”: Olsen seminar transcript.
“What kills the creative instinct”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 198.
CHAPTER 13: Do It or Die Trying
“The Am. Academy”: Sexton to Snodgrass, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 163–64.
“It is your chance”: Ibid.
“The lost socks”: Kumin, Pawnbroker’s Daughter, 97.
“realized there were no other houses”: Ibid., 100.
“the Old Harriman Place”: Ibid., 91, 101.
“very spooky”: Kumin to Sexton, 24 June 1963, Kumin Papers.