Chapter XVI: Part THREE: West Indies-Europe (1)

(1926-1930)

1926

225: TO MALCOLM COWLEY

[_Patterson_] _Jan 3rd_

Dear Malcolm: The poem[41] has been read with approval--is flatteringly apocalyptic and has the proper nautical slant.... Seriously, though, it seems to stand on its own feet as a poem and I appreciate a very great deal the tonality and direction of it in its more intimate aspects. You and Peggy [Baird] have been more than good in remembering me--thanks for the photo, too. --/--/

Are you reviewing _Doc. Transit_ anywhere? Schneider finally sent me out a copy. It intrigued me more than any such tour de force since Poe, though it has its obvious weaknesses. Some chapters, however, of great imagination. I didn’t anticipate half so much from the earlier things I’ve read by Schneider.

I’m coming in town probably about two weeks from now, and should like to know what day or days about that period you’ll be there also. You know what the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of S. Carolina--! I’m such a rum-scallion that I never even planned to stay put anywhere very long in the woods. Let me hear from you soon. --/--/

226: TO HIS GRANDMOTHER

_Patterson_ _Jan. 5th ’26_

Dear Grandma: I was sorry to hear from Grace yesterday that you have been undergoing more pain and illness--and I only hope that this finds you MUCH improved. I wish I could be near you--and have a long talk. We certainly will manage that when I come out to Cleveland next spring.

Yesterday I finally got started into my _Bridge_ poem--really the first full day I have [had] for the work since arriving. And from now on I hope to have the necessary inspiration to keep steadily at it. One really has to keep one’s self in such a keyed-up mood for the thing that no predictions can be made ahead as to whether one is going to have the wit to work on it steadily or not.

It is fine to get somewhere where I can sleep soundly again. I’m beginning to feel very much rested. I’m so glad that you both are located in a place where there is nothing more to do than to care for your personal comfort. --/--/

227: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson_ _Jan. 7th_

Dear Grace & Grandma: --/--/ There isn’t much news--only the good news (to me!) that I’ve been at work in almost ecstatic mood for the last two days on my _Bridge_. I never felt such range and symphonic power before--and I’m so happy to have this first burst of substantiation since I had the good luck to be set free to build this structure of my dreams.

I sent New Year’s greetings to Kahn and in the mail today comes the most cordial answer--wishing as he puts it, “that you will prove yourself a master builder in constructing _The Bridge_ of your dreams, thoughts and emotions.” --/--/

228: TO WALDO FRANK

_Patterson, N. York_ _Jan. 18th ’26_

Dear Waldo: I am not through working on it yet, but I thought you might care to see this last part of _The Bridge_, oddly enough emergent first.[42] It is symphonic in including the convergence of all the strands separately detailed in antecedent sections of the poem--Columbus, conquests of water, land, etc., Pokahantus, subways, offices, etc., etc. I dare congratulate myself a little, I think, in having found some liberation for my condensed metaphorical habit in a form as symphonic (at least so attempted) as this.

The bridge in becoming a ship, a world, a woman, a tremendous harp (as it does finally) seems to really have a career. I have attempted to induce the same feelings of elation, etc.--like being carried forward and upward simultaneously--both in imagery, rhythm and repetition, that one experiences in walking across my beloved Brooklyn Bridge. I’m now busy on the Niña, Santa Maria, Pinta episode--Cathay being an attitude of spirit, rather than material conquest throughout, of course.

I know I can depend on you to mention the flaws and shortcomings. This section seems a little transcendental in tendency at present,--but I think that the pediments of the other sections will show it not to have been. --/--/

229: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson_ _Jan. 26_

Dear Grace: It _is_ a good thing I got your letter yesterday--or I _should_ have been sore. I was so tired last night I simply fell into bed at 10. We had spent most of the day shopping in town and I later built me some bookshelves which are very simple but extend to the ceiling--the kind I have always wanted. My study now is a picture to enjoy. When I was in New York I bought some beautiful and rare Congo wood carvings--and added to my Sommer paintings and your photograph they make a marvelous room.

My hands are so stiff from wood-cutting that my writing looks funny. It is very, very cold today, was yesterday and promises to continue. We all go about shivering most of the time and I’m sorry to say get too little freedom for our writing. Certainly the spring warmth will be unusually welcome to all of us.

--/--/ We do not correspond--except at considerable intervals as I hesitate to presume much on his [Otto Kahn] attention. There are so many others whom he is always helping that his time is largely taken up anyway. What with two personal secretaries and a whole corps of personal office help--_besides_ his huge financial machine (his interests occupy a building of about 22 stories) he must be a busy man. He wants to hear from “time to time” as he puts it--about how my poem is progressing. But, since writing him New Year’s I shan’t presume again until next March or so. My second thousand is not payable until along in May. At which time I shall probably personally talk to him again. Beyond this money I have no expectations of more assistance, but if my poem when completed seems good enough to him, it may be, of course, that he will be further interested. I’m thankful enough for what I already have, however!

Your news about Grandma is rather heartrending. I do hope she won’t have to suffer much longer--and if she does that she will be given enough sedatives to keep the pain dulled, no matter what the consequences. It would be best if she really gives up more--for the remainder of her existence--under any conditions--promises her only misery. --/--/

230: TO HIS GRANDMOTHER

_Patterson, New York_ _January 27th_

Dear Grandma: --/--/ I am hoping to hear from Grace tomorrow all about how you are. Much better, I hope.

We had a brief flurry of snow again today, but not enough yet to permit me to use my scrumptious snow shoes. I have been reading the _Journal of Christopher Columbus_ lately--of his first voyage to America, which is concerned mostly with his cruisings around the West Indies. It has reminded me many times of the few weeks I spent on the Island to hear him expatiate on the gorgeous palms, unexpected pines, balmy breezes, etc., which we associate with Cuba. -- -- -- --

231: TO GASTON LACHAISE

_Patterson, New York_ _Feb. 10th, 26_

Dear Lachaise: Constantly your seagull has floated in my mind--ever since I saw it, and it will mean much to me to have it. I can’t thank you enough. I am enclosing an amount which I hope will to some extent defray the cost of materials, and you must let me know if more is needed.

I envy you your occupation out here in the extreme cold of the last two weeks--wiggling a pen or tapping a typewriter is hardly as conducive to good circulation or warmth while every breath one takes comes out like a steaming snort from a dragon! At present the snow is so deep that we are obliged to use snow shoes or skis to get anywhere. Fortunately we are well supplied with wood and oil and provisions.

When I get to New York--probably not for six weeks or so--I hope to find you in. If the white bird is done before then you can express it out to Patterson, or I’ll be glad to carry it back when I come in. -- -- -- --

232: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_Patterson, New York_ _March 2nd_

Dear Charlotte et Ricardo: --/--/ In spite of many inconveniences, however, I am glad of coming out here. Temperate living, good sleep and considerable outdoor exercise have had their usual effects. The cold has kept us hopping, though, and I’ll be glad to greet the first warm days that come. Then there will be both more time and more comfort for reading and _The Bridge_. The finale of which is just about completed--but the antecedent sections will take me at least a year yet. At times the project seems hopeless, horribly so; and then suddenly something happens inside one, and the theme and the substance of the conception seem brilliantly real, more so than ever! At least, _at worst_, the poem will be a _huge_ failure! If you get what I mean. When I am a little better satisfied with certain details of the part already finished I’ll send it on to you, although I really shouldn’t--as isolated from the rest of the poem it would probably not be interesting.

Mother wrote me that you called on her. She was extremely pleased, and remarked how beautiful and youthfully radiant my Charlotte was! --/--/

233: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Patterson, N.Y._ _March 5th_

Dear Gorham: The long siege of snow--the mail delivery has been discontinued for six weeks, and isn’t resumed yet--despite occasional sportiveness with snow shoes and skis, has been a burden. Especially as I was swindled on a fifty-gal. drum of kerosene I bought for the stoves in my study, and have had to risk chapping hands every time I came near the typewriter to say nothing of tumbling through many a chilly night with chilblains from cold floors, damp, etc. It really would have been alright had I had pure kerosene, though. Nothing but the swindler is to blame.

None-the-less, I’ve read considerably--Aeschylus (especially the _Oresteia_) was a revelation of my ideal in the dynamics of metaphor--even through the rather prosy translations[43] one gleans the essential density of image, impact of substance matter so verbally quickened and delivered with such soul-shivering economy that one realizes there is none in the English language to compare him with.--Then Prescott’s _Ferdinand & Isabella_, _Journal of Columbus_, a book on Magellan by Hildebrand (this was rather inexcusable), Melville’s delightful _White Jacket_ as well as a marvelously illustrated book[44] on whaling and whaling ships, published by the Marine Research Society, Salem, Mass.... In the midst of my readings of _Science & the Modern World_, Whitehead,--along comes _Virgin Spain_. I’m about half way through this at present and feel like telegraphing Waldo my immediate uncontrolled and unstinted enthusiasm. As prose it certainly is his climax of excellence--and as a document of the epic one of the most lively testaments ever written. I had been dwelling with a good deal of surprise in a pleasant conviction that Lawrence’s _Plumed Serpent_ was a masterpiece of racial description. It certainly is vividly beautiful, its landscapes, theatrical vistas, etc.--but Waldo’s work is a world of true reality--his ritual is not a mere invention. Only my interest in Maya and Toltec archaeology led me to order Lawrence’s book. It was poor in this--at least regarding the details I had hoped for, but I was rather astonished at the calibre of much of the prose.

As Waldo may have mentioned, the finale of _The Bridge_ is written, the other five or six parts are in feverish embryo. They will require at least a year more for completion; however bad this work may be, it ought to be hugely and unforgivably, distinguishedly bad. In a way it’s a test of materials as much as a test of one’s imagination. _Is_ the last statement sentimentally made by Eliot,

“This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,--
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

is this acceptable or not as the poetic determinism of our age?! I, of course, can say no, to myself, and believe it. But in the face of such a stern conviction of death on the part of the only group of people whose verbal sophistication is likely to take on interest in a style such as mine--what can I expect? However, I know my way by now, regardless. I shall at least continue to grip with the problem without relaxing into the easy acceptance (in the name of “elegance, nostalgia, wit, splenetic splendor”) of death which I see most of my friends doing. O the admired beauty of a casuistical mentality! It is finally content with twelve hours sleep a day and archaeology.

I am glad that you have switched over to the more profitable and leisurely programme which you describe. And that you’ve gone back to writing again with such vim. The social distractions of NY are so terrific that I hope to never live there again beyond six months at a period. I’m really just getting around to a working basis, the first real platform of my life--here. In many ways it proves to be a revelation of certain potentialities.

Do send me your comments on Crane. And may I be frank--without seeming to reflect on any personal relationships of the past--in stating my reactions? Not that I shall desire to exert any changes, but that there may possibly arise (between ourselves) certain questions of direction, aims, intentions, which I may feel are erroneously ascribed to me. At least my agreements or objections may interest you. -- -- -- --

234: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Patterson, New York_ _March 17, ’26_

Dear Gorham: My rummy conversation last Monday offered, I fear, but a poor explanation of my several theoretical differences of opinion with you on the function of poetry, its particular province of activity, etc. Neither was I able to express to you my considerable appreciation of many accurate distinctions made in your essay which certainly prompt my gratitudes as well as applause. It would probably be uninteresting as well as a bit excessive for me to enumerate and dwell on these felicitations, however gratifying to myself I may feel them to be. Your essay is roughly divided in two, the second half including our present disagreement, and inasmuch as I have never really attempted to fulfill the functions therein attributed to the poet, your theories on that subject can be discussed from a relatively impersonal angle so far as I am concerned. Furthermore, it is _one_ aspect of a contemporary problem which has already enlisted the most detailed and intense speculation from a number of fields, science, philosophy, etc., as you, of course, know. I’m not saying that my few hasty notes which follow are conclusive evidence, but the logic of them (added to the organic convictions incident to the memorized experience of the creative “act,” let us say) is not yet sufficiently disproved for me by such arguments, at least, as you have used in your essay.

Poetry, in so far as the metaphysics of any absolute knowledge extends, is simply the concrete _evidence_ of the _experience_ of a recognition (_knowledge_ if you like). It can give you a _ratio_ of fact and experience, and in this sense it is both perception and thing perceived, according as it approaches a significant articulation or not. This is its reality, its fact, _being_. When you attempt to ask more of poetry,--the fact of man’s relationship to a hypothetical god, be it Osiris, Zeus or Indra, you will get as variant terms even from the abstract terminology of philosophy as you will from poetry; whereas poetry, without attempting to logically enunciate such a problem or its solution, may well give you the real connective experience, the very “sign manifest” on which rests the assumption of a godhead.

I’m perfectly aware of my wholesale lack of knowledge. But as Allen said, what exactly do you mean by “knowledge”? When you ask for exact factual data (a graphic map of eternity?), ethical morality or moral classifications, etc., from poetry--you not only limit its goal, you ask its subordination to science, philosophy. Is it not equally logical to expect Stravinsky to bring his fiddles into dissent with the gravitation theories of Sir Isaac Newton? They _are_ in dissent with this scientist, as a matter of fact, and organically so; for the group mind that Stravinsky appeals to has already been freed from certain of the limitations of experience and consciousness that dominated both the time and the mind of Newton. Science (ergo all exact knowledge and its instruments of operation) is in perfect antithesis to poetry. (Painting, architecture, music, as well). It operates from an exactly opposite polarity, and it may equate with poetry, but when it does so its statement of such is in an entirely different terminology. I hope you get this difference between _inimical_ and _antithetical_, intended here. It is not my interest to discredit science, it has been as inspired as poetry,--and if you could but recognize it, much more hypothetically motivated.

What you admire in Plato as “divine sanity” is the architecture of his logic. Plato doesn’t live today because of the intrinsic “truth” of his statements: their only living truth today consists in the “fact” of their harmonious relationship to each other in the context of his organization of them. This grace partakes of poetry. But Plato was primarily a philosopher, and you must admit that grace is a secondary motive in philosophical statement, at least until the hypothetical basis of an initial “truth” has been accepted--not in the name of beauty, form or experience, but in the name of rationality. No wonder Plato considered the banishment of poets;--their reorganizations of chaos on basis perhaps divergent from his own threatened the logic of _his_ system, itself founded on assumptions that demanded the very defense of poetic construction which he was fortunately able to provide.

The tragic quandary (or _agon_) of the modern world derives from the paradoxes that an inadequate system of rationality forces on the living consciousness. I am not opposing any new synthesis of reasonable laws which might provide a consistent philosophical and moral program for our epoch. Neither, on the other hand, am I attempting through poetry to delineate any such system. If this “knowledge,” as you call it, were so sufficiently organized as to dominate the limitations of my personal experience (consciousness) then I would probably find myself automatically writing under its “classic” power of dictation, and under that circumstance might be incidentally as philosophically “contained” as you might wish me to be. That would mean “serenity” to you because the abstract basis of my work would have been familiarized to you before you read a word of the poetry. But my poetry, even then,--in so far as it was truly poetic,--would avoid the employment of abstract tags, formulations of experience in factual terms, etc.,--it would necessarily express its concepts in the more direct terms of physical-psychic experience. If not, it must by so much lose its impact and become simply categorical.

I think it must be due to some such misapprehensions of my poetic purpose in writing that leads you to several rather contradictory judgments which in one sentence are laudatory and in other contexts which you give them,--put me to blush for mental attitudes implied on my part. For instance, after having granted me all the praise you do earlier in your essay for “storming heaven” as it were, how can you later refer to that same faculty of verbal synchronization as to picture me as “waiting for another ecstasy”--and then “slumping”--rather as a baker would refer to a loaf in his oven. Granted your admiration for the “yeastiness” of some of my effusions, you should (in simple justice to your reader and your argument) here also afford the physical evidence (actual quotation or logical proof) of the “slump,” the unleavened failure. There really are plenty of lines in this respect which could be used for illustration. What I’m objecting to is contained in my suspicion that you have allowed too many extra-literary impressions of me to enter your essay, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The same is true of your reference to the “psychological _gaming_” (Verlaine) which puts the slur of superficiality and vulgarity on the very aspects of my work which you have previously been at pains to praise.--And all because you arbitrarily propose a goal for me which I have no idea of nor interest in following. Either you find my work poetic or not, but if you propose for it such ends as poetry organically escapes, it seems to me, as Allen said, that you as a critic of literature are working into a confusion of categories. Certainly this charge of alternate “gutter sniping” and “angel kissing” is no longer anything more than a meretricious substitute for psychological sincerity in defining the range of an artist’s subject matter and psychic explorations. Still less should it be brought forward unless there is enough physical evidence in the artist’s work to warrant curiosity in this respect on the part of the reader.

Your difficulties are extra, I realize, in writing about me at all. They are bound to be thus extra because of the (so far as the reader goes) “impurities” of our previous literary arguments, intimacies of statement, semi-statements, etc., which are not always reflected in a man’s work, after all. But your preoccupations on the one hand with a terminology which I have not attempted and your praise on the other hand of my actual (physical) representation of the incarnate _evidence_ of the very knowledge, the very _wisdom_ which you feel me to be only conjecturally sure of--makes me guilty of really wronging you, perhaps, but drives me to the platitude that “truth has no name.” Her latest one, of course, is “relativity.”

Apropos of all this the letter by Nichols in _The New Criterion_ will interest you when you read it; there are interesting quotations from Goethe, Santayana, Russell, etc. And I am enclosing a hasty bundle of notes written at O’Neill’s request for what angles they might suggest to him in writing a foreword for my book. (This, I hope, may be returned.)

Allen tells me that he has just mailed his note on me--for possible use in _The New Masses_. I told him to do this, not remembering definitely what you had told me about it before. It can do no harm anyway. I’m enclosing copies of the poems which Potamkin had intended using. It certainly was very kind of you to have suggested these matters to the _Masses_ editor. Do let me hear from you soon.

PS--Needless to say, the notes for O’Neill contain repetitious matter for you, and certain accents were especially made against biases and critical deficiencies which I felt [might] lead to unwarranted assumptions, misplaced praises, etc., on his part. But the definitions of the “logic of metaphor,” “dynamics of inferential mention,” etc., I think are quite exact.[45]

235: TO OTTO H. KAHN

_Patterson, New York_ _March 18, 1926_

Dear Mr. Kahn: You were so kind as to express a desire to know from time to time how _The Bridge_ was progressing, so I’m flashing in a signal from the foremast, as it were. Right now I’m supposed to be Don Cristobal Colon returning from “Cathay,” first voyage. For mid-ocean is where the poem begins.

It concludes at midnight--at the center of Brooklyn Bridge. Strangely enough that final section of the poem has been the first to be completed,--yet there’s a logic to it, after all; it is the mystic consummation toward which all the other sections of the poem converge. Their contents are implicit in its summary.

Naturally I am encountering many unexpected formal difficulties in satisfying my conception, especially as one’s original idea has a way of enlarging steadily under the spur of daily concentration on minute details of execution. I don’t wish to express my confidence too blatantly--but I am certain that, granted I’m able to find the suitable form for all details as I presently conceive them, _The Bridge_ will be a dynamic and eloquent document.

As I said, I have thus far completed only the final section,--about one hundred lines. I am now going straight through from the beginning. There has been much incidental reading to do, and more study is necessary as I go on. As I cannot think of my work in terms of time I cannot gauge when it will be completed, probably by next December, however.

There are so many interlocking elements and symbols at work throughout _The Bridge_ that it is next to impossible to describe it without resorting to the actual metaphors of the poem. Roughly, however, it is based on the conquest of space and knowledge. The theme of “Cathay” (its riches, etc.) ultimately is transmuted into a symbol of consciousness, knowledge, spiritual unity. A rather religious motivation, albeit not Presbyterian. The following notation is a very rough abbreviation of the subject matter of the several sections:

I Columbus--Conquest of space, chaos
II Pokahantus--The natural body of America-fertility, etc.
III Whitman--The Spiritual body of America
(A dialogue between Whitman and a dying soldier in a
Washington hospital; the infraction of physical death,
disunity, on the concept of immortality)
IV John Brown
(Negro porter on Calgary Express making up berths and
singing to himself (a jazz form for this) of his sweetheart
and the death of John Brown, alternately)
V Subway--The encroachment of machinery on humanity; a kind
of purgatory in relation to the open sky of last section
VI The Bridge--A sweeping dithyramb in which the Bridge becomes
the symbol of consciousness spanning time and space

The first and last sections are composed of blank verse with occasional rhyme for accentuation. The verbal dynamics used and the spacious periodicity of the rhythm result in an unusually symphonic form. What forms I shall use for the other sections will have to be determined when I come to grips with their respective themes.

I would gladly send you the completed section for present reading, but unless you especially wish to see it now I should prefer your judgment on it later when a more synthetic reading will be possible.

I hope that this extended amount of particulars,--evidence, perhaps, of an excessive enthusiasm on my part, has not been tedious reading. Your interest and confidence have proved to be so great a spur to me that I must mention my gratitude again.

236: TO WALDO FRANK

_Mid-channel_ [_Patterson_] _March 20th, ’26_

Dear Waldo: Just a word to say I have finished my first reading of your _Spain_. It is a book I shall go back to many times. Its magnificence and integrity are so rare that they constitute an embarrassment to our times in some ways. “The Port of Columbus” is truly something of a prelude to my intentions for _The Bridge_--which I seem to have got back to today after a hideous experience in New York and in spite of a very bad cold I seem to have caught from overheated city buildings.

I can’t resist sending you the first verse[46] at this early time, along with the revised version of the finale. Your discipline and your confidence are so dear to me that in moods like this today (adrift a music that is almost a burden) I have to be a little uncontained and remind you of my love. Will send the Kahn article next week when a fresh copy arrives.... Temporarily--Don Cristobal--

237: TO MALCOLM COWLEY

[_Patterson_] _March 28_

Dear Malcolm: The news of your plans for the summer is good to hear! We’re all anticipating the first of May--though you _will_ be a little distant. Five miles walking says Mrs. Turner, coming out of her aunt’s part with the tea.

After a perfect spasm of sentiment and “inspection” I was released from the fond embrace of my relatives in Cleveland--only to fare into rather more than less spasmodic embraces in N.Y.--a one night spree--on my way back. Since which I have been reading the philosophies of the East until I actually dream in terms of the Vedanta scriptures. Also am finding Marco Polo pleasant to incorporate in the subconscious.

I’ve often wondered how you got home that night. After you left I was roused from my stupor by an amazing scandal at the next table. Benét, Wylie and some others discussing ---- who, it seems, doesn’t write at all. Her father does the trick--works off “suppressed desires” that way, etc., etc. I was very good after that and stormed over to the Albert, lectured the clerk for not admitting my friends, and went to bed, tout seul.

The next morning after the next I was discovering that my mother knows how to mix the best cocktails I ever drank.

Are you going ahead with the Boyd proposal? I think you should--a fine weapon against further attacks from that gent. again--and not, however, implying any concession whatever on your part. --/--/

238: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson_ [_March 29, 1926_]

Dearest Grace: Your letter came yesterday. And I was _immensely_ glad to hear from you. Altogether, the news seemed good, too, and I’m _so_ glad you and Charles [Curtis] have made a definite decision! By _all_ means make The Little Church the scene. Then I can be there and we can all take a bus ride afterward. Of _course_ you’ll be acceptable--who ever heard of such distinctions being made in any Protestant church against widows and widowers, grass or otherwise! Then maybe you could make my humble domicile one of the stops on your celebration.

I, too, think I made my visit at just the proper time. I’ll never forget how really eloquently Grandma looked, how intelligent and fresh. And _you_ looked so good to me, too. Remember, that suffering does, if borne without rancour, it does build something that only grows lovelier with time--and it is a kind of kingdom among those _initiated_, a kingdom that has the widest kind of communion. You and I can share our understanding of things more and more as time goes on. I loved you _so much_ for many of the things you said when I was with you.

Yes, I hope you never will turn your back on me, as you say. And this is not to say that there may come occasions for it--but there may, after all, be times of temporary misunderstandings as there have been before. I can be awfully proud of _you_, however less occasion I may [have] to feel similarly about myself. I do some awfully silly things sometimes--most of which you don’t know about, but which I sometimes (not always) regret. Don’t let this stir your apprehensions, any, however. I’m in no particular pickle at present.

We have had another snow and I’m just disgusted. I had counted on a modified weather on my return and instead it’s been just one snow flurry after another. Sore throat is some better, but I’m still threatened with tonsilitis. No chance to start gardens yet. -- -- -- --

239: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Patterson_ _April 5_

Dear Gorham: It seems evident that I somewhat too egoistically argued what I intended as simply a defense of the position and province of poetry, as an art form, rather than any claims my work might or might not have to critical praise. This has been my attitude throughout our discussion, and though certain contentions are still unresolved, it doesn’t in the least conflict with what you say in your last letter. Indeed, I should say that your essay rather over-estimates my achievements in some particulars. Please don’t think me ungrateful or disgruntled, anyway.

Rorty was so swift in returning Allen’s NOTE that I have been wondering if he had actually taken some interest in the “Voyages” I sent you. I should have sent them direct to him had I known that he was subsequently to write me a request for something. Sheer inadvertency on my part not to have mentioned my intentions in sending them to you. Allen gave Untermeyer and Kreymborg such digs that it’s not surprising that Rorty summarily returned the mss. I shall be surprised if he fancies my work.

The Cowleys move up here May first. I hope to have a few “animations” with Malcolm before I, the climate, the solitude, or whatever it is, drives him into the kind of shell that Brown and Tate seem to have retired into lately. My mood being pre-eminently N. Labrador these days--I should like a little good company immensely. A life of perfect virtue, redundant health, etc., doesn’t seem in any way to encourage the Muse, after all. I almost feel like coming to town and seeking a job, at least that would make me part-time useful, meantime there wouldn’t be the suspense of weeks going by without a written line. I’m afraid I’ve so systematically objectivized my theme and its details that the necessary “subjective lymph and sinew” is frozen. Meanwhile I drone about, reading, eating and sleeping. It’s really quite agonizing. For in so many ways I know what I WANT to do.... The actual fleshing of a concept is so complex and difficult, however, as to be quite beyond the immediate avail of will or intellect. A fusion with other factors not so easily named is the condition of fulfilment. It is alright to call this “possession,” if you will, only it should not be insisted that its operation denies the simultaneous functioning of a strong critical faculty. It is simply a stronger focus than can be arbitrarily willed into operation by the ordinarily-employed perceptions. Do you find anything in my rough notes that’s interesting?

240: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson, New York_ _April 18th_

Dear Grace: It would be a relief to be able to talk with you an hour or so today. I’m in such an uncertain position in regard to a number of things that I feel as though it would be a fitting end to settle it with powder and bullet. The whole benefit of my patronage from Kahn, my year of leisure, my long fight with the winter, etc., out here is about to be sacrificed -- -- -- --. I refer to Mrs. Tate, and Allen. But primarily it has been Mrs. Tate who has influenced matters until they came to a head the other day, since which time I have had a note from each of them, respectively -- -- -- --.

I am accused of having victimized their time and their quarters by intruding without regard to their wishes, etc. This is in part justified,--justified, I say because the contingency of such a matter was bound to exist between two families which had agreed on sharing a common water pump. I had to have access to it as much as they did, and had to pass through their kitchen occasionally on my way. When Mrs. Tate--this occurred last week--instead of simply telling me that she wished I would avoid such passage in the future--when she began putting bolts on her doors, and all that--I could take the _hint_ without having to be knocked down by a hammer, and so removed my shaving utensils, etc., which had been beside the pump, into Mrs. Turner’s kitchen. Why this should make them mad, I don’t know, and why it should make them mad because I immediately began avoiding their parts of the house _completely_ (not being invited to do otherwise) I can’t see, either.

Of course when I encountered them outside, and saw how sulky they behaved, etc., I began to lose all respect for such behavior--made up my mind to ignore them as much as decency permitted, although I realized that with such an atmosphere about the place it would be very difficult to proceed with any creative work. Matters came to a climax day before yesterday, shortly after breakfast. I had been talking to Mrs. Turner around on “our” side of the house about some plans for cleaning up some rubbish, etc., when suddenly a door opens from the Tates’ kitchen and Allen shouts out, “If you’ve got a criticism of my work to make, I’d appreciate it if you would speak to me about it first!” Then the door savagely banged, and Mrs. Turner and I (who hadn’t mentioned him or anything that concerned him) were left staring at each other in perfect amazement. I can’t easily describe how angry I was. I felt myself losing all control--but I managed to address the Tates without breaking anything. Mrs. Turner came in with me and corroborated the facts of the matter, and it turned out that the Tates hadn’t heard actually a thing I was saying--their imaginations, they evidently felt, were perfectly justified in building up a perfect tower of Babel out of nothing.

Nothing was touched on at that fiery moment, but the immediate circumstances of what I had said and what I hadn’t, Tate finally admitting that he was all wrong. My feelings remained little cooled, however. The rest of the time since then has been simply hideous. The next morning (I, not sleeping, had heard the Tates getting out of bed during the night and pounding out something on the typewriter), I found a couple of the nastiest notes under my bedroom door that I ever hope to get from anyone. Mrs. Tate began by saying that they had arrived in the house first; that they had invited me to share quarters with them in the first place because I was penniless in New York at that time, and that as soon as they found out that I had been fortunate in acquiring funds they immediately had begun to doubt the advisability of inviting me out, but _of course_ hadn’t felt privileged to say anything about such matters before this. I’m not quoting _insinuations_ in any of this, I’m using practically their own words. Then she went on to say that they had allotted me one room only (this is an absolute lie; they assumed that I was to have a bedroom and my study besides) and that I had from the moment of arrival proceeded to spread myself and possessions all over the house, invading every corner; and so on,--finally ending up with the assertion that I had been busy ever since I arrived in trying to make them menial servants of my personal wants! The contents of Mr. Tate’s letter were about the same, a little more gracefully phrased, that’s all.

As a matter of fact, I have never, so long as I’ve been here, requested a single favor from either of them. You know the story about the cooking arrangements already--how I changed over to Mrs. Turner --/--/. Since then--even though I derived no benefit from the wood stove that the Tates use in their kitchen--I’ve been careful to go out and help Allen cut and saw, etc. And made it a point to mention--that while I couldn’t constantly keep after him with questions as to when he wanted to saw and when he didn’t--if he’d let me know about such occasions I’d be glad to join him whenever possible.

It’s all simply disgusting. I don’t know how much money they owe me exactly--but I have told them that I was always glad to advance them funds whenever needed, and while they haven’t been extravagant--they have nevertheless been momentarily relieved from sudden circumstances by frequent access to my funds. On top of all this I have practically given Allen the fare for two trips to New York (on one occasion I was so anxious for him to have the chance to hear a certain opera that I gave him ten dollars to get a good seat), I’ve had them in to dinner with Mrs. Turner and myself frequently, I gave Carolyn my old typewriter to work on her novel -- -- -- --. She didn’t have one herself and would otherwise have had to depend on such moments as her husband wasn’t using his to write at all, while I on the other hand, should certainly have been able to make a good discount on my new machine by turning in the old had I not purposely wished to be amiable about the matter. There have been lots of other amenities which I enjoyed extending. And you know me not to obviously hold such things over people’s heads. _Doesn’t_ it all look as though, _as Mr. Tate says_, I valued their friendship only for the purpose of exploiting their services to me.

Mrs. Turner has cried for two days and nights about the matter--she hates to have me leave so. She says there is another room in the upstairs which I can use and not be obliged to have anything to do with the Tates’ part of the house, their rent or their arrangements. I must say I’m stumped. How can I, on one hand, persist in staying here after such an insulting statement from the Tates to the effect that I was originally their guest and that I was invited on the grounds of charity rather from any other motives? This is one of the hardest matters I have ever had to decide. For I feel that I owe some sense of economy to Mr. Kahn, who didn’t give me money to keep moving about -- -- -- --. My money is very low now. The first thousand is gone--it cost me more than I ever would have guessed to have just got settled here with all my books and materials at hand as they are. I wrote Kahn recently that I needed more money, and he very speedily and kindly replied with a check for five hundred. At the same time the Rychtariks wrote from Cleveland that they needed the money they had loaned me for my land--that they required it for the summer trip to Europe, etc. And so two hundred will have to be taken out of the Kahn money at once.

It really is tragic. The whole fruit of the first opportunity of my life to write an extended poem is apparently about to be blighted -- -- -- --. As I say I don’t at this moment know which way to turn. If I remain here (spring is just coming on--and the best time for work, so long waited for, has come!) if I remain here under such unpleasant relations it is very doubtful whether or not I can overcome the hypnosis of evil and jealousy in the air enough to get back into my poem, really just started. But if I move away it means that so much of my slight funds will be wasted in just the cost of travel, etc., that in less than a month I’ll be back looking for a job again--and in the middle of the summer, the most devilish and exhausting time to work in the city. I don’t feel that I ought to let my indignation and pride affect me so far as the hasty and ill-founded remarks of the Tates are concerned. I would sacrifice all that to my work and remain here if I felt enough assurance of being _able_ to work under such circumstances.

If you feel at all sympathetic to this situation of mine I wish you _this time_ be generous enough to let me go to the Island and finish my poem there. At least I should not have to fear being put off the little land that is still ours in the world. I have ample money to get there and to live economically for some time. It may reasonably be expected that Mr. Kahn will come forward with the other five hundred which he promised within a certain time, meanwhile I can’t ask him for more before six months without risking the charge of extravagance. I think that I can re-sell the land I bought to Miss Flynn from whom I purchased it. Summer in the tropics isn’t of course the paradise of the winter months, but it is a thousand times better than a hall bedroom in New York without light or air, to say nothing of the fact that it might cost me a hundred or so of what I have left just spent in _looking_ for work. You know how long it is sometimes.

If I can’t somehow succeed in taking advantage of this one opportunity given me by Mr. Kahn, I don’t know how I’ll feel about life or any future efforts to live--and if you can’t see how it is reasonable for me to request under the circumstances some privileges from my family I shall be amazed. You’ve already said that you didn’t think I’d like Mrs. Simpson, etc. Well, do you think _that_ is half so important to me or to anyone else after all. I’m not able to reason why this issue should hang on the whimsical temper of an old woman. If I went to the island I should do my best to preserve the most pleasant relations with Mrs. Simpson, and I haven’t much doubt but what I should succeed. I ought to be able to live a few months in the house my grandfather built without being put off by a hired keeper of the place--especially when I am much better fitted naturally, by simply being a male, for keeping up the place than she is.

I’m asking you for this refuge. I’ve always been refused before. If you deny it now I’m not sure how much farther away I’ll go to accomplish my purposes. Perhaps to the orient, even if I have just enough to get there and no more.

I shall go into New York early in the week, perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps several days later. I’ll let you know where I settle and what plans are finally adopted. Meanwhile please write me here, as before; Mrs. Turner will be sure to send my mail to whatever address I have at the time.

I’m sorry to have such melancholy news, especially after such lovely letters as recently came from you and Grandma, but it can’t be helped. It all may be very much for the best in the end. I do hope you’ll be generous enough to give me your sanction on the Island matter--that’s all I’m requesting. I can always get money enough to get back (from at least 5 people) and go into an office again. But that isn’t the issue now. I’m writing a poem that is bound to be a magnificent thing _if_ I can escape the -- -- -- -- long enough to build it. Won’t you help?

241: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_Patterson, New York_ _April 25th, 1926_

Dear Charlotte and Richard: I hope you won’t think me insincere anywhere in this letter. A complete picture of my feelings and present circumstances would be hard to give, simply impossible. I’m relying on you for more than friendship in asking such considerations. I’m asking your love. And, of course I realize that I’m in immediate danger of losing both. But the story has got to be sold somehow for you to understand why I’m asking what I do. The thing is--in my state of mind (and after three weeks of such torments) it is hard to know where to begin. But let me say that the picture is somewhat different than it was when I was so happy with you in Cleveland. And I must ask you to let me off for the time being on paying you the full sum I borrowed. I can only send you a hundred dollars now. I can send the rest within seven months. Or at least I don’t think you would want me to give up the entire _Bridge_ and go into an office at once. You see, I’m assuming a great deal of interest on your part which may not be there. I wanted to state this request first, before telling you why and wherefore. Otherwise my story would seem featured too theatrically. --/--/

Well, I got so morbid about the matter that I finally decided to go into New York for a few days and think as clearly as possible. What to do! I have finally decided to go to my grandmother’s place on the Isle of Pines in the West Indies. Getting there will be almost as cheap as moving my things anywhere else--and living will be very cheap for [me] there. I must tell you that Mr. Kahn sent me only $500 instead of the entire second $1,000. It is to be presumed that I’ll get the other half later on. But I can’t ask for more at present, and you can see that there is just about enough to keep me there (my transportation also has to come out of this) until more comes. Out of this I can send you the hundred I mentioned. Won’t it be just as easy for you to wait just a little longer for the rest? I never hated to ask a question so much in my life--but I am simply crushed if I can’t go on a little longer with my effort on _The Bridge_.

It’s the one opportunity I may ever have, and I feel I owe something to the faith that Mr. Kahn has put in me. I am not seeking any thrills or pleasure by going to the West Indies in the middle of the summer--I’m sure you can understand how it would be much _pleasanter_ for me to go to the seashore. But _that_ would eat up my little remaining money in two or three months. I need longer to work on _The Bridge_, and I’m willing to go into a furnace for awhile if I can only feel sure about the ground under my feet. On my parents’ property I won’t need to feel that I’ll be insulted again, or forced away. I can _at least_ be sure of that. And that means a lot when you are trying to keep your imagination free and creative. Also, I can live very cheaply there. I may not have enough money to get back when I want to, but I’m not worrying about that--or other hardships.

My mother has made a terrible fuss against my going, but is finally reconciled. I realize it’s hard for her to think of me as so far away--but I’ll be still farther away, I think, if my _Bridge_ breaks down entirely. I can’t allow it all to be the victim of malice, envy, jealousy and petty-mindedness.

I won’t indulge in any more raving and fury now. But I do hope that you believe me sincere. You very possibly have a right to be angry with me (certainly I have never done anything half so kind to you) but I’ll prove to you in the end that I am sincere in my regard for you. I don’t think I’m a dishonest person.

I am sailing for Havana next Saturday. When I get back to New York on Wednesday I’ll send you the hundred dollars. Will you write me a word or so before I go? Send it care of Gorham Munson -- -- -- --.

242: TO ---- AND ----

_Isle of Pines_ [_Cuba_] _May 7_

Dear ---- and ----: It is still one day less than a week since we sailed, our second on the Island. Frank got Ward Line accommodations, which cut a day off the sea; and we were rather sorry. Still, passing Pam Bitch, My ammy and other Coney islands at midnight wasn’t especially thrilling: that part of the trip was too close shore. But Havana was more and better than I had imagined. Architecture rather like Chirico--some Spanish plateresque and physically metaphysically suggestive. But mostly on the surface, there isn’t other evidence.

F.’s Spanish brought us off all beaten paths. We didn’t visit an American haunt except the steamship office. The rest was mostly bars, cafes and theatres--filled with blacks, reds, browns, greys and every permutation and combinations of southern bloods that you can imagine. Coronas-Coronas, of course, for 15¢, marvelous sherry, cognac, vermouth and “Tropical” (the beer that I was talking about). Am. boats seem to be easy, by the way: we had St. Julian and Sauterne all the way down at table. Then we went to the Alhambra, a kind of Cuban National Winter Garden Burlesque. Latin “broadness” was somewhat veiled from me as far as the dialogue went, but actions went farther than apparently even the East Side can stand.

Gratings and balconies and narrow streets with plenty of whores nodding. The day of our departure a great fleet of American destroyers landed. Streets immediately became torrents of uniforms--one sailor had exactly the Chinese mustache effect that I aspire to. But no J---- F----: his boat must have passed to Brooklyn--passed in the night. Taxis anywhere in town for only 20¢, but that’s about the only cheap feature. Great black-bushed buxom Jamaican senoritas roared laughter at us, old women hobbled up offering lottery tickets (I finally got one on a hunch). The whole town is hypersensual and mad--i.e. has no apparent direction, destiny, or purpose: Cummings’ paradise. I shall have to go up for a real spree sometime when cash is plentiful, meanwhile this isle is enough Eden.