The Equivalents

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The Equivalents Page 39

by Maggie Doherty


  “I WILL DO IT”: Kumin to Sexton, 9 Sept. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “gemlike”: Ibid.

  “Our good critical instincts”: Sexton to Kumin, 29 Sept. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “It was with the words”: Sexton to Kumin, 4 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “of self hate”: Sexton to Kumin, 6 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  It received mixed reviews: Millicent Bell, “Newton Poet’s Novel Offers Moving Story,” Boston Globe, 12 April 1965, 12; Irvin Gold, “First Novel Falls Short,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 1965, N15.

  “I think about you fondly”: Cowley to Olsen, 22 Jan. 1963, Olsen Papers.

  “I have to ask”: Cowley to Olsen, 15 April 1963, Olsen Papers.

  “You should do”: Cowley to Olsen, 4 Sept. 1963, Olsen Papers.

  her own rejuvenation: Cowley to Olsen, 21 May 1963, Olsen Papers.

  $2,500 to fund a summer: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 231.

  “no worry about paying back”: Ibid., 233.

  Sam Lawrence: Ibid., 234–35.

  “This most harmful”: Tillie Olsen, “Silences: When Writers Don’t Write,” Harper’s, Oct. 1965, 161.

  Sexton, who had loved: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “My show has already earned”: Swan to Smith, 4 Nov. 1963, Institute Archives.

  “I can barely cross”: Sexton to Miller, 5 Aug. 1963, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 172.

  “I’m terrified”: Herbert A. Kenny, “Commitment Necessary to Be a Poet,” 19 May 1963, Boston Globe, B16.

  “I wish I were back”: Sexton to Snodgrass, May 1963, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 164.

  “I shall never forget”: Sexton to Lowell, 6 June 1963, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 170.

  CHAPTER 14: We Are All Going to Make It

  “execution date”: Sexton to Brother Dennis Farrell, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 170.

  “All I have to say”: Sexton to Kumin, 21 Aug. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “touched all the way”: Kumin to Sexton, 23 Aug. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  Sexton left for her year: Sexton to Kumin, “Sunday, 3:00 PM,” Kumin Papers.

  “I’m lonely as hell”: Sexton to Kumin, 6 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “You know whats wrong”: Anne Sexton to Maxine Kumin, 9 October 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “the world’s loveliest city”: Quoted in Charles Poore, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, 27 Nov. 1956.

  She even started to style: Sexton to Kumin, 9 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “can you imagine me”: Sexton to Kumin, 30 Aug. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “God, how awful it is”: Sexton to Kumin, 3 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “true nature of the poet”: Sexton to Kumin, 13 Sept. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “Oh Max, how I miss”: Sexton to Kumin, 30 Aug. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “beg me…to be his”: Sexton to Kumin, Oct 17 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “Oh Maxine, all this chat”: Sexton to Kumin, 9 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “nothing changes”: Kumin to Sexton, 23 Aug. and 4 Sept. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “If John could not separate us”: Sexton to Kumin, 29 Sept. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “I had not realized”: Kumin to Sexton, 23 Aug. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “Some people have adventures”: Kumin to Sexton, 4 Sept. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “downing crème de cacao”: Kumin to Sexton, 3 Oct. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  “periodically drop everything”: Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages in Literary London, 1910–1939 (London: Virago, 2009), 75.

  “friendship is every bit”: Ibid.

  “touching deep friendship”: Kumin to Sexton, 9 Sept. 1963, Sexton Papers.

  Sexton was the stormy: My analysis of their relationship is in part informed by an interview conducted with Linda Gray Sexton, 12 February 2019.

  “There is a world of water”: Maxine Kumin, “September 1,” Kumin Papers.

  “Max, the thread is bare”: Sexton to Kumin, “October something” 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “Oh Maxine”: Sexton to Kumin, 12 Oct. 1963, Kumin Papers.

  “the first time in my life”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 232.

  “We thought anyhow”: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1965, Sexton Papers.

  “I sometimes get so longing”: Olsen to Kumin, birthday note, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  “Sometimes perhaps you”: Olsen to Kumin, 15 May [n.d.], Kumin Papers.

  “bemused”: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1965, Sexton Papers.

  “done for”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 233.

  “What I need is a mother”: Sexton to Annie Wilder, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 255.

  The house was too big: Sexton to Olsen, n.d. [around Valentine’s Day], Sexton Papers.

  Her mental health deteriorated: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1965, Sexton Papers.

  “The g.d. tranquilizers”: Sexton to Olsen, 1965, Sexton Papers.

  “as fragile as a”: Sexton to Olsen, presumably early Jan. 1966, Sexton Papers.

  as relevant to her life: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1965, Sexton Papers.

  “It would be hard”: James Dickey, review of All My Pretty Ones, by Anne Sexton, New York Times Book Review, 28 April 1963.

  she carried a copy: Linda Gray Sexton, Searching for Mercy Street, 102.

  These were the times: Linda Gray Sexton, interview by author, 12 Feb. 2019.

  “it’s the same old crowd”: Sexton, “Flee on Your Donkey,” in Collected Poems, 97–105.

  “For the very first time”: Sexton to Olsen, 17 or 18 May 1965, Olsen Papers.

  “short and funny”: Kathie Olsen, email to author, 20 Jan. 2018.

  “I’m in love with you already”: See Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 213.

  “the baby on the platter”: Sexton, “Live,” in Complete Poems, 167.

  “Even so”: Ibid.

  “I say Live”: Ibid., 170.

  “I have a feeling”: Sexton to Degener, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 287.

  “with all due apologies”: Sexton, “Author’s Note,” in Complete Poems, 94.

  “They’ve sent me”: Sexton, “Author’s Note,” in Complete Poems.

  “I’ve outgrown that”: Oral history interview with Swan.

  By March 1965: Swan to Connie Smith, 11 March 1965, Institute Archives.

  The collection had actually been inspired: Linda Gray Sexton, interview by author.

  “most realized tone”: Helen Vendler, “Malevolent Flippancy,” New Republic, 11 Nov. 1981.

  “No matter what life”: Anne Sexton, Transformations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), 3.

  “You always read about it”: Ibid., 53–54.

  A poem based on the fairy tale: Joanna Fink, interview by author, 9 Feb. 2019.

  “more than I trust myself”: Swan, “Reminiscence,” 85.

  “I did it because of friendship”: Oral history interview with Swan.

  “Generous greeting”: Quoted in Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 272.

  For the rest of her life: Ibid.

  “Your poems are sensitive”: Sexton to Dorianne Goetz, in Self-Portrait in Letters, 263.

  “Mother was generous”: Linda Gray Sexton, Searching for Mercy Street, 96-97.

  “make not so alone”: Sexton to Olsen, 2 Oct. 1965, Sexton Papers.

  CHAPTER 15: Hurt Wild Baffled Angry

  “more like a chic-career woman”: Dolores Alexander, “NOW May Use Sit-Ins, Pickets to Get Equality,” Newsday, 25 Nov. 1966, 2B.

  “We will take strong steps”: Lisa Hammel, “They Meet in Victorian Parlor to Demand ‘True Equality’ NOW,” New York Times, 22 Nov. 1966, 44.

  “had fac
ed both kinds”: Alexander, “NOW May Use Sit-Ins, Pickets to Get Equality,” 2B.

  “ingenious new methods”: Ibid.

  “put your bodies”: Mario Savio, “Sit-in Address on the Steps of Sproul Hall” (speech, Free Speech Rally, University of California, Berkeley, 2 Dec. 1964).

  Kumin didn’t start: Daniel Kumin, interview by author, 15 Jan. 2019.

  “self-liberated and pre-liberated”: Joanna Fink, interview by author, 9 Feb. 2019.

  “never applied the word”: Linda Gray Sexton, Searching for Mercy Street, 98.

  “I hate the way”: Showalter and Smith, “Nurturing Relationship,” 129.

  “into your redeeming”: Sexton, Complete Poems, 70–71.

  “intensely involved”: Olsen to Sexton, [n.d., presumably 1965], Sexton Papers.

  “guess about the man”: Sexton, “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward,” in Complete Poems, 24.

  “You need what you merit”: Olsen to Kumin, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  “last minute, of course”: Olsen to Sexton, [n.d., presumably 1965], Sexton Papers.

  “The suburb of Uxport”: Maxine Kumin, The Passions of Uxport: A Novel (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975), 19.

  “Boston version”: Fortunata Caliri, “Boston Version of Peyton Place,” Boston Globe, 23 April 1968, 3.3.

  “make its way”: Olsen to M. S. Wyeth, 25 Feb. 1968, Kumin Papers.

  “I guess I feel pretty sad”: Kumin to Olsen, 12 March 1968, Kumin Papers.

  “JUST HOME YOUR LETTER”: Olsen to Kumin, telegram, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  “when I think of how mysterious”: Olsen to Kumin, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  “Third hand I hear”: Olsen to Kumin, second n.d. letter, Kumin Papers.

  “I think I know what happened”: Ibid.

  “I have never before”: Kumin to Olsen, 30 April 1968, Kumin Papers.

  “Meanwhile, Black Power”: Kumin, Passions of Uxport, 175.

  “was a nail biter”: Ibid., 8.

  “Nervous breakdown”: Ibid., 9.

  “Hallie, rise, wash out”: Ibid., 60.

  “snugger than sisters”: Ibid., 45.

  “They reinforced each other”: Ibid., 70–71.

  “I love you”: Olsen to Kumin, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  A visiting nurse: Middlebrook, Anne Sexton, 269.

  “get into that Hallie-Sukey talk”: Olsen to Kumin, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  “I was so shocked”: Sexton to Olsen, 21 July 1970, Sexton Papers.

  “the weakest”: “Review of The Abduction,” Kirkus Reviews, 22 Sept. 1971.

  “devoted reader”: Sexton to Olsen, 21 July 1970, Sexton Papers.

  “a genius”: Sexton to Olsen, Nov. 1961, Sexton Papers.

  “Anne—cherished and estranged”: Olsen to Sexton, 7 Oct. [n.d.], Sexton Papers.

  “This has been a ghastly year”: Kumin to Olsen, 30 April 1968, Kumin Papers.

  “My pants are pulled down”: Olsen to Sexton, Feb. 1968, Sexton Papers.

  “I take them”: Olsen to Kumin, n.d., Kumin Papers.

  CHAPTER 16: There’s Nothing Wrong with Privilege, Except That Everybody Doesn’t Have It

  “The center was not holding”: Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Saturday Evening Post, 23 Sept. 1967.

  “DESIST IMMEDIATELY”: Andrea Long Chu, “On Liking Women,” n+1, no. 30: Motherland (Winter 2018), nplusonemag.com.

  “the process by which”: Rosen, World Split Open, 197.

  “the movement was ravaged”: Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), 202.

  “struggling towards a common goal”: Quoted in ibid., 217.

  “The Eruption of Difference”: Ibid., 203.

  A 1971 report: Florence Howe, “A Report on Women and the Profession,” College English 32, no. 8 (May 1971): 848.

  “politically volatile”: “CSWP Is Born,” cdn.knightlab.com.

  “Elizabeth Cady Stanton”: Florence Howe Biography, www.florencehowe.com.

  “finally freed herself”: Howe, “Report on Women and the Profession,” 849.

  women made up 80 percent: “VFA Honors the Founder of the Feminist Press, Florence Howe,” Veteran Feminists of America, archive.constantcontact.com.

  only a one-in-nine: Howe, “Report on Women and the Profession,” 848.

  In the academic year: National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/​programs/​digest/​d10/​tables/​dt10_267.asp.

  She received an invitation: The description of the Amherst appointment is from Reid, Tillie Olsen, 241–42.

  Instead of gabbing with the sex workers: Sex worker anecdote from Kathie Olsen, interview by author; jogging from Reid, Tillie Olsen, 245.

  At Amherst College, Olsen taught: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 246.

  “really heightened her understanding”: “The Tillie Olsen Project,” Amherst College, www.amherst.edu.

  “There’s nothing wrong”: Ibid.

  “Literature of Poverty”: Tillie Olsen, Syllabus for “Literature of Poverty, Oppression, Revolution, and the Struggle for Freedom,” 1969, Olsen Papers.

  “influential”: “Tillie Olsen Project.”

  twenty-one English courses: Elaine Showalter, “Women and the Literary Curriculum,” College English 32, no. 8 (May 1971): 856.

  “Can we wonder”: Ibid., 857.

  “consciousness”: “VFA Honors the Founder of the Feminist Press, Florence Howe.”

  “It is the women’s movement”: Tillie Olsen, “Women Who Are Writers in Our Century: One out of Twelve,” College English 34, no. 1 (Oct. 1971): 6.

  “Isolated. Cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d”: Ibid., 7–8.

  “You who teach”: Ibid., 16.

  Olsen loved love: Reid, Tillie Olsen, 221, 250.

  “The greatness of literature”: Olsen, “Women Who Are Writers,” 17.

  “Tillie Appleseed”: Quoted in Reid, Tillie Olsen, 263.

  “It may be comforting”: Margaret Atwood, “Obstacle Course,” New York Times, 30 July 1978, 27.

  “Silences changed what we read”: Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic: The Lessons Silences Has Taught Us,” introduction to Olsen, Silences, xii.

  “She was gone a lot”: Julie Olsen Edwards, interview by author.

  “damn proud”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 17: Springs of Creativity

  Pineda especially: Nina Tovish, interview by author, 23 June 2016.

  “all-white community”: Tillie Olsen, “Two Years,” Institute seminar, 8 May 1964, Radcliffe College Archives Sound Recordings.

  the percentage of black students: Marcia G. Synnott, “The Changing ‘Harvard Student’: Ethnicity, Race, and Gender,” in Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History, ed. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 203.

  Alice Walker: In its early years, the Institute did not record the race of its fellows, though it did record their marital status, number of children, and degrees.

  “It’s very intimidating”: Evelyn C. White, Alice Walker: A Life (New York: Norton, 2006), 284.

  “a love story”: Quoted in ibid., 208.

  The following March: Ibid., 217–18.

  “renewed fellowship”: Quoted in ibid., 286.

  “Though it’s often lonely”: Sara Sanborn, “A Woman’s Place,” Harvard Bulletin, June 1972, 29, Institute Archives.

  “As far as many Blacks”: Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 299.

  “What do black women feel”: Toni Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib,” New York Times, 22 Aug. 1971.

  “a family quarrel”: Ibid.
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  “Angela Davis has nothing”: This exchange is quoted in Peniel E. Joseph, The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights–Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006), 141.

  “politically barefoot”: Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 318.

  “sexual differentiation”: Toni Cade, “On the Issue of Roles,” in The Black Woman, ed. Toni Cade (New York: New American Library, 1970), 101.

  “double jeopardy”: Frances Beale, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” in Cade, Black Woman.

  “If you really examine”: Quoted in White, Alice Walker, 217.

  “black woman who cannot lie”: Marge Piercy, review of Meridian, by Alice Walker, New York Times, 23 May 1976.

  Walker developed assignments: White, Alice Walker, 224.

  “unearthed a part of our history”: Ibid., 222.

  In the process of researching: Alice Walker, “Saving the Life That Is Your Own,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 10.

  “Zora, who had collected”: Ibid., 12.

  Walker later claimed: White, Alice Walker, 249.

  Throughout the trip: Alice Walker, “Looking for Zora,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, 94–95.

  In one retelling: Ibid., 105.

  “all purpose”: Aida Kabatznick Press, “The Black Experience at Harvard,” Radcliffe Quarterly, June 1973, 7.

  “Judging by white”: Ibid., 8.

  “unreal”: Ibid., 10.

  “For these grandmothers”: Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, 233.

  “It is not so much”: Ibid., 237.

  “womanist is to feminist”: Ibid., xii.

  “sort of breakdown”: Walker to Olsen, 3 May 1978, Olsen Papers.

  “I cherish the ins and outs”: Walker to Olsen, 23 Jan. 1979, Olsen Papers.

  “read this book”: Norma Rosen, “The Ordeal of Rebecca Harding,” New York Times, 15 April 1973, www.nytimes.com.

  CHAPTER 18: The New Exotics

  “Women have become”: Pat Murphy, “Poems Bring Instant Fame,” St. Louis Tribune, Kumin Papers.

  “I’m just absolutely knocked out”: “Newton Poet’s Book: A ‘Bony Stare,’ Lyrical Look,” Boston Globe, 8 May 1973, 22.

 

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