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Photograph by Robert Berg, 1954.
To JoAnn Low
Postmark: April 20, 1955
975 Sutter Street, Apartment C
San Francisco
Dear JoAnn,
I cognize conscionable what you mean. I consciousness it myself, of course, successful the bars and the schoolhouse and different places I live—more present adjacent than I did a fewer years ago. The reply (and a mediocre one) is this, I think—you tin lone pass with different quality being by a occurrence and you person to hold patiently for miracles and judge successful them a small too. Nonsense helps (but it has to beryllium the close benignant of nonsense), spot of content helps (but it has to beryllium the benignant that doesn’t curdle up wrong you and go dreams), and magic helps the astir (but it has to beryllium the benignant of magic that is not ventriloquism—the voices can’t beryllium your own). Everything that isn’t a occurrence isn’t important—and that includes the ego, the libido, and the atomic bomb.
But, you volition say, 3 o’clock successful the greeting comes truthful precise often—it lasts truthful agelong successful the nighttime and tugs astatine the borderline of you truthful overmuch of the day. That is existent and there’s thing 1 tin bash astir it. A occurrence doesn’t destruct the clock, it simply stops it. So, brethren, determination abideth these three—despair, diversion, and miracle—but the top of these is miracle.
Jack
To Graham Mackintosh
Saturday, November 27, 1954
975 Sutter Street, Apartment C
San Francisco
Dear Mac,
Although it’s alternatively improbable that you person message telephone connected Sunday, I’ve decided to support to the exigency docket of letters. This is conscionable astir the past of the shot Saturdays (it is the 1st 4th of the Army-Navy crippled arsenic I constitute this) truthful people this missive volition person footballs flying each implicit it.
I’ve mentioned earlier that the anticipation of accomplishment of what would look intolerable is champion demonstrated by what happens successful shot games. The aged 4th 4th story. What I mightiness notation contiguous is the science of the subordinate who has to respond to a 4th 4th 0-21 situation. I tin ideate that earlier the burst of vigor and assurance the prima subordinate has 1 done the crippled feeling that things are not real, doing what successful chess is called pushing wood. Then suddenly, I suppose, the tract stands retired successful crisp clarity; helium feels arsenic if helium had awakened from a abrupt sleep. That defender that was truthful hard to get by is abruptly nary obstacle; helium is similar the chromatic you were trying to propulsion distant successful your imagination that turns retired to beryllium a dense broad bunched astir your caput erstwhile you aftermath up. It does not look to him that helium is utilizing the past resources of vigor but alternatively that helium is the lone unrecorded antheral among dormant men, the lone waker among sleepwalkers.
But however does this waking come, however does the psyche awaken from the sluggish nightmare, the 0-21 obstacle? If I knew, I would springiness you directions. How does 1 spell astir waking up from a dream—the benignant of day fever imagination wherever you cognize you’re dormant but can’t look to marque yourself aftermath up. (Every clip you get up from wherever you’re sleeping you find that you’ve simply dreamed that you’ve gotten up.) I don’t cognize however it’s done but 1 does yet aftermath up. Homer ever attributes the waking up process successful his warriors to the gods. Perhaps that’s the mode with you. Bacchus is trying to forestall you from getting to India and Venus oregon Jupiter volition aftermath you up. From shot to the Portuguese Navy successful 2 paragraphs.
And that’s the extremity of this Saturday’s coaching. I can’t assistance getting a malicious pleasance retired of the information the Collected Letters of Jack Spicer are truthful afloat of football. The scholars who edit them volition hatred this. Which reminds me—I’ve been rereading each I person of the collected works of Graham Macintosh and they look amended than ever. You are going to beryllium a large athlete.
Navy conscionable made a past 2nd touchdown. The fractional ends 21-20.
Yours
Jack
To the editors of The Pound Newsletter
Ca. 1955
It seems to maine that the spirited but peripheral speech of insults betwixt Mr. Kenner and Mr. Parkinson successful your past contented tends to obfuscate the precise important question that Mr. Parkinson had antecedently raised. Anti-semitism, similar each different thought oregon crotchet of the poet’s mind, tin beryllium an unimportant biographical item oregon an indispensable captious issue. It each depends connected however it affects the mode his poetry, not he, sees the world.
No 1 gives a damn whether Wallace Stevens is simply a Republican oregon a Democrat, but a antheral would beryllium an idiot to effort to recognize the Divine Comedy without knowing what benignant of Ghibelline oregon Guelph Dante was. It is simply impolite to wonderment whether Cowper was an progressive homosexual, but it is of cardinal value to Whitman’s poesy to observe whether oregon not helium was. Was W. C. Fields a crypto-Stalinist? Who cares? Is Chaplin? Can 1 recognize his aboriginal movies without considering the question?
There were 3 hints of anti-semitism successful Pound’s Europe: the societal benignant (ranging from the however unusual of God cognition of our aunts and uncles to the much pretentious snobberies of, to sanction two, Mr. Waugh and Mr. Eliot), the economic-political benignant (which stems from the information that the Jews did power astir of the wealth and governments of Europe successful the precocious nineteenth century), and the mystical benignant (which saw successful the Jew a awesome and a scapegoat for the evils of the modern world). An investigation of Pound’s anti-semitism (a analyzable of each three) would look to beryllium 1 of the astir important problems that a Pound student (ugly phrase!) could effort to solve, and I tin lone property the lack of specified a dissertation to the information that determination are excessively galore Jews and excessively galore anti-semites connected astir English faculties for the taxable to beryllium harmless for the employed scholar.
To Donald Allen
September 30, 1957
Dear Don,
I person immoderate caller poems, a rash, and a lover. I’ll nonstop them (the poems that is) to you successful a mates of days. They see a alternatively fantastic Buster Keaton Rides Again, a mates of translations, and immoderate poems that don’t look to beryllium successful After Lorca.
The Art Festival was ghastly. It kept raining (even a thunderstorm) and I refused to spell to immoderate of the poesy readings which annoyed everybody. I did spot a precise comic puppet play that Jack Gilbert and Gerd Stern wrote astir The Place. There was a marvelous puppet of Rexroth. If each this sounds a spot inbred—it was.
This is the archetypal time of my authoritative searching for a job. I’ve decided not to constitute immoderate poems portion I’m looking due to the fact that if I bash constitute poems past I don’t consciousness blameworthy for not looking and this, portion it volition enrich the lit of the American people, volition permission maine successful Aquatic Park stealing nutrient from the seagulls who, aft all, bash not work poetry.
Do you cognize the paperback radical (the ones you got Harvey a banal occupation with) good capable to constitute them a missive telling them that they ought to find a spot for maine successful their organization? Wouldn’t they request radical to marque spot checks connected however the books are displayed connected the stands etc.? You cognize each this overmuch amended than I and I should person talked to you astir it earnestly erstwhile I was inactive successful town—but I was acrophobic that adjacent readying would interrupt the poetry. Anyway, delight archer maine the champion mode to attack them. This begins to dependable similar a Hart Crane letter.
I miss you a large woody some arsenic a writer and a friend. Write.
Love
Jack
To Robin Blaser
1958
2208 Parker Street
Berkeley, CA
Dear Robin,
Except for the impropriety of the title, the poem you sent maine seems surely the champion happening you person done since The Hunger of Sound and, uncertainly, the champion happening you person done. What is indispensable present is to acceptable it somewhere, marque it (with each its rattling parts) a portion of something—as Ginsberg ne'er did and Whitman-Olson-Duncan ever do, to constitute poesy that volition enactment it (even by subversion) marque it what it is but tin ne'er beryllium (no poem tin ever be) by itself.
It is not a “shit-sheet” but you could marque it into a “shit sheet” by not teaching the eagles however to speak, by surrendering into soundlessness oregon reediting your ain silence, by letting the poem basal by itself or, worse, judging it not successful the airy of the poems that you haven’t written.
I cognize you. You volition person suspicions of it (CLEVER READER) and you volition impeach it of lies which are lone (would beryllium only) lies due to the fact that the different poems bash not beryllium that you would garbage to write. Thus Ginsberg and Wieners popular similar firecrackers portion a large writer (Blake, Rimbaud, Yeats) wherefore his full beingness of penning is 1 immense soundless explosion.
I exhort you—accept it (UNCHANGED) and hatch it arsenic an eagle would a basilisk’s egg. Do not change, shift, transverse retired sections but fto them change, shift, transverse retired themselves arsenic you rise (the ovum raises) a full household of human-tongued basilisks. The tribunal of the gods lies successful the poem decently extended into poetry.
And the starfish raping the full aquarium. How wonderful!
Love,
Jack
To Russell Fitzgerald
1958
Dear Russ,
Is it emotion (yet oregon not yet) emotion you privation oregon thing for the scrapbook? I mean scrapbook successful the eventual sense.
When I archetypal work the missive I imagined a full caller sentence—“I don’t mean a caller paediea.”
Eating fabric fills your rima with cotton.
I deliberation we were similar planets that passed person to each different than immoderate astronomer could ideate erstwhile successful an intergalactic twelvemonth and present occasionally interaction (relatively) successful outer orbits. I americium acrophobic of you.
Fill your rima with fabric and I volition capable excavation with words.
Why don’t you overgarment and unopen your rima and I’ll buss it.
Jack
To Stan Persky
March 8, 1959
Dear Stan,
Letters are a trap for maine arsenic a idiosyncratic and, I suspect, for maine arsenic a poet. They’re impure. I’d springiness a large woody (have fixed a large deal) not to person written the Alexander ones. Warnings to myself, mostly.
Oddly capable (for the fig of times I americium there) your shade fills up Mike’s often successful spite of the information that it was lone 2 (or three?) times that we talked and you ever had a atrocious effect connected my pinball.
I don’t deliberation it would person made immoderate quality if you’d hugged maine oregon gone to furniture with me. We thin (I tend) to confuse what isn’t understood with emotion though we ne'er bash (I ne'er do) erstwhile we person emotion straight to look astatine arsenic a comparison. There should beryllium astir 5 words for those feelings alternatively of conscionable one. Baseball players bash not marque emotion to each different erstwhile passing 3rd base. But connected the aforesaid team?!
K and others can’t spend artistically to beryllium honorable astir lad for boy, antheral for antheral love. No enactment of creation tin spend to beryllium honorable astir everything. There are ever things successful the imaginativeness of your ain oculus that you can’t see. Like that array implicit the borderline of this missive you’re reading. Can’t spend to see.
One of the 5 different words astir those feelings,
Jack
From Even Strange Ghosts Can beryllium Shared: The Collected Letters of Jack Spicer, edited by Kevin Killian, Kelly Holt, and Daniel Benjamin, to beryllium published by Wesleyan University Press this September.
