Meio = 3S G98

 

[ee is ror Nan ye a

 

3601 49th Street, N W Washington D C 20016 18 November 1965

My dear Red: Oh, nobody knows better than I all the reasons thagt

keep writers from writing letters... I have begun to hesitate to write to
my friends whose lives and energy I value and do not want to misuse, just
because they instantly get the idea €hat they must write to me in tumn.
Don't mistake this ffor generosity-- its just a alevel look at one of

the facts of life: and I love to write letters, and love to get them

frém my friends, but for a good while now- too long~ I have been living
in a snake pit between Hell and High Water, and that is not a restful place

to get bogged down in... 3 .

 

Two hours ago I had in my hand. the big envelope containing. your
poem: I mean to ‘point you out some lines that I loved at first sight, and¢
then second, but I cannot remember lines as I once did: (once I knew all
of Shakespeare's Sonnets by heart and in their right order- or what was
then taken for their right order. I was reading the other day some
critic who set out to prove that Shakespearewrote all those sonnets to
HIMSELF,and that if you jostle the sonnets‘ around in ertain order,
it. can be proved... I think that is what mdm he said. It was late at
night: and I was sleepy: and I long ago decided for myseff that I for
one didn't care who Shakespeare wrote those SODNE EER EO EL Wee suey glad
he wrote them: and much as I love John Crowe‘ poetry, and have and
will, I never paid: any more attention to his criticism after I read
his’ blast against Shakespeare's Sonnets..) Well, that poem has vanished
out of this little office, I have retraced my steps all over the “house
and I. cannot find it, sBubiateis not-lost. 1 bet. fepe; I must believe
that My beautiful and long~duffering Miss Miller has téted it down stair$&
and filed it away. When you all get well and come to see me, you will be
astonished at the operation we are carrying onnam in that basement. :

You remember? I had two nearly fatal rounds of pneumonia in ten
months last year, and here, just a year later, I am not well, add I take
care of myself, and follow docto-"s orders, and have refused about
thirty speaking engagmants- except one at the Library of Congress-~-

(stet!) |
and spend twelve or fourteen hours a day in bed, and try to eat properly,
and as a result I am apparently withering away. So you are now called
upon to rise up and assert. your authority as sole head of the house
under God, and restrain Eleanor for her good and everybody else's,
if this last crowd matters. Because you can get well from one case
of pneumonia in about a year, but not two... In answer to your timely
question as whether I have learned any sense, the reply could nearly
be ‘yes, but I. think a little too late... "So pledse remind Eleanor
not to waste herself because you can't afford it. Nor can -we, the Others.

Next day. I don't remember what interrupted me yesterday,
and can't forsee what will stop me this ttem- time, but anyway, I haven't
the poem, my Rosa has been in here again tidying up, but I love your ©
poetry, I have every one you ever published, you have always been to
me first of all a poet, best of all your works I am happy you are in the
vein again, if you were ever out of it. But I will read eagerly anything

you write.
Did you happen to notice that a reviewer on Time called
me "the grimmest misanthrope in the history of American literature" or
something like that,and an Irishman on the New York Review tried to
bulldoze me off the littery landscape altogether. The last phase in
life has set in. Butthey can't hurt me-- I have had and have: just the

friends I would have chosen, and now come the right enemies. LifeAs
Gort, ~4 & es t Vee Potts OPT Pek fwtk Rae hh HAs ke les gous