Part 20 (1/2)

Do you ever come East? I don't think I'll be in SF for a while. In January I go to Puerto Rico to teach for four months. My first a.s.signment in more than two years.

Don't fly through these parts again without notifying me.

Yours affectionately,

To Keith Botsford October 4, 1960 [Tivoli]

Dear Keith, [ . . . ] I want the magazine to go on, want it badly, but I haven't come up to expectations, and have to go into this with myself very honestly. This is a great age for sleepers, myself snoozing with the rest, now and then sending out a call to awaken. No, it's not as bad as all that, but it's not what I had planned and hoped. But let's not quit yet. [ . . . ]

All the best, Love,

To the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation October 12, 1960 Tivoli, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Ray: Thank you for your letter. I've seen lots of stuff since I was so rash as to become an editor-new stuff, that is. Most of it is pretty poor, of course, but there are six or eight young writers, relatively unknown, who are first-rate. James Donleavy who wrote The Ginger Man The Ginger Man is to my mind one of our best writers. I don't think his book sold well, and I can't say how he supports himself. Then there's Grace Paley ( is to my mind one of our best writers. I don't think his book sold well, and I can't say how he supports himself. Then there's Grace Paley (The Little Disturbances of Man), a housewife with two or three children and a husband who earns a rather modest living. Thomas Berger who wrote Crazy in Berlin Crazy in Berlin is very good; so is Richard G. Stern, author of is very good; so is Richard G. Stern, author of Golk Golk. I'm sorry you were unable to give a fellows.h.i.+p to Leo Litwak who applied last year. He's got got it, I think, and he should be encouraged to apply again. I hope this list will be useful to you. it, I think, and he should be encouraged to apply again. I hope this list will be useful to you.

With best wishes,

Gordon Ray had succeeded Henry Allen Moe as president of The Guggenheim Foundation.

To Jonas Schwartz October 19, 1960 Tivoli Dear Jonas: Wise of you to write. If I had the dough I'd be glad to accept your kind offer. But I can't have checks bouncing, and right now I'm broke. The play is no more, and I owe Viking ten grand. I'll find the dough and get it to you next month. As for Adam, he can always count on his monthly check. I love that boy, and I have a hunch that in the end that love is going to count for more in his life than the ”protection” of lawyers and courts. But I don't want to get into an argument with you; I'm fond of you and I think your heart is in the right place. The thing is over, though as a father I think you may understand that against my better judgment I sometimes long for Adam. I haven't seen him since August nor have I heard about him. In October I got a wire from Sondra-SEND MONEY AT ONCE-giving me the new address. I had sent it to the old because I didn't have the new. The money goes out regularly, and so do requests for one word of news about the child. I ask also for my recorders, one of them a gift from Isaac which I have kept and used for twenty years. No answer. Jonas, is it criminal of me that she decided to divorce me? Is it nothing that I'm the child's father? Do I have to be slandered and smeared in Minneapolis? I know that you [ . . . ] think she's a darling girl. I happen to think differently. But I don't want to win an argument with you, vindicate myself or d.a.m.n her. I want to make a deal to send the checks regularly on the 1st provided I get one postcard a month about Adam. I see no point in being unilaterally obliging. So the answer to your generous proposal is no, until such time as my feelings towards Adam are recognized. I am something more than an automatic source of checks. I am a mensch mensch. I tried to be a husband to that poor castrating girl-an odd desire, but I had it. Now that I've lost it I am, on that side at least, a happier man. All right, no more infancy, no more self-pitying grief, but for every concession I make there'll have to be a concession traded from here on in.

I'm glad your children are doing so well. They're good girls, both of them, and do you [ . . . ] credit. Don't worry about Berryman. He's the soul of honor in everything that involves his responsibilities as a teacher, and I can a.s.sure you that Miriam [Schwartz's daughter] will be treated fairly. Poets are a strange breed. Greet the bourgeoisie of Minneapolis for me. They all come to your cellar to drink your whiskey and enjoy your emotional outbursts.

I have arthritis of the cervical spine, and headaches, but apart from that I am in good heart and working well. I see Greg often. Last week he told me he had Sondra's word for it that I am a rat but he loves me just the same.

Yours in Christ,

To Richard Stern [n.d.] [Tivoli]

Dear d.i.c.k: Herzog has got me down. As sometimes happens by the hundredth page, my lack of planning, or the subconscious cunning, catch up with me, and so I'm back in Montreal in 1922, trying to get a drunk to bed and I'm not sure I'll know what to do once he's sleeping. G.o.d will provide. Consider the lilies of the field-do they write books? [ . . . ] has got me down. As sometimes happens by the hundredth page, my lack of planning, or the subconscious cunning, catch up with me, and so I'm back in Montreal in 1922, trying to get a drunk to bed and I'm not sure I'll know what to do once he's sleeping. G.o.d will provide. Consider the lilies of the field-do they write books? [ . . . ]

Suddenly Greg, who is a junior, says he'd like to attend the U[niversity] of C[hicago]. He's got good grades in everything except trigonometry, he tells me. As soon as the Bellows have learned to add a check at Walgreen's they lose interest in mathematics. Are there any scholars.h.i.+ps he could put in for? [ . . . ]

Yours from the perihelion of his...o...b..t,

To Gertrude Buckman October 22, 1960 Tivoli Dear Gertrude, I'm no longer in a position to give you much news of Delmore, because he now has me in his subversive files. He accuses me of slandering him and, when last heard from, was threatening me with a lawsuit. I had asked a friend of mine from the Payne Whitney Clinic to visit him at Bellevue and although Delmore received this man without hostility, he seems later to have worked it out in his mind that I had meant to railroad him. Dr. Hatterer's opinion was that Delmore was not in need of extended treatment and what he mainly needed was a period of rest. There was no need therefore for Delmore to enter Payne Whitney which never accepts patients for periods shorter than three months. Anyhow no one had authority to intervene for Delmore and he was, and so far as I know still is, at the mercy of the lawyers and detectives he has hired, and the creeps whose good offices are always free and always available. I hope with all my heart that they won't hurt him, that he will not hurt himself. He seems to have devised for himself a system for survival in the midst of crises he generates himself-the eye of the cyclone or the brink of disaster. That's a very crowded brink. My own life is usefully quiet. I suppose that means that I am out of things. I couldn't be gladder. Thanks for the book you sent; one of these days I shall certainly read it, but just now I am writing one myself which I hope you will have the charity to read when it comes out.

Best wishes,

To John Berryman [Postmarked Tivoli, N.Y., 23 November 1960]

Dear John, Wouldn't you like to sing an aria or two in the next Savage Savage? That department is the weakest; it needs your strengthening voice. I'm contributing several pieces. The other editors are in drydock. But I myself, more barnacles than hull, go on. The younger generation rates zero; we aging writers are the whole hope of the future.

Give out.

Saw your old pal [R. P.] Blackmur at Yale last week, and he is even older. He drops lighted cigarettes in the furniture and slowly searches for them. This made good sport for the sober watchers. I was one.

Rispondi, amico! [ [63].

We have two weeks.

To Susan Gla.s.sman November 30, 1960 [Tivoli] Carissima! Carissima! Was.h.i.+ngton, Wed Dec 21st at 8:40. What-what-what? Yours in frenzied speed, Was.h.i.+ngton, Wed Dec 21st at 8:40. What-what-what? Yours in frenzied speed, Bellow the Rocket, with a rocket's love!

To Richard Stern December 10, 1960 Tivoli Dear d.i.c.k- This is very good news, all of it. Congratulations! And congratulate Gay for me (if she knows that I know). I belong to the increase-and-multiply school myself, sons-of-Abraham division. As for the books, they'll give you a fixed place on the map, and in these backward times that's not so easy to obtain.

Herzog is like Old Man River, he don't say nothing. You and me we sweat and strain but he empties into the Gulf. We're close to the halfway mark. And I'm getting ready to take off for Puerto Rico. [ . . . ]

All the best,

To the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 27 December 1960 Tivoli, N.Y.

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ON FELLOWs.h.i.+P CANDIDATE.

Name of Candidate: Mrs. Grace Paley An excellent writer, fresh, original, independent, clear in her aims. She's written some stunning stories. In speaking of ”fresh news” Mrs. Paley does not exaggerate. I have published one chapter from her novel in the magazine I edit. If I were a publisher I'd like to publish her book. I hope the Foundation will help her to finish it.