WRITING EDITING

PUBLISHING
A MEMoir

Ram Krishna Singh

WRITING EDITING PUBLISHING

A MEMOIR
LETTERS FROM POET PROFESSOR
CRITIC AND EDITOR FRIENDS

LYLE GLAZIER, RUTH WILDES SCHULER,

SUMMER BREEZE, UNCLE RIVER, H.F. NOYES,
BILL WEST, KEVIN BAILEY, SAM CUCCHIARA,
PATRICIA PRIME, NORMAN SIMMS, LORNA
ANKER, ROSEMARY MENZIES, ANNEKE BUYS,
CARLO COPPOLA, JAMES SWAN, BRAJ B.
KACHRU & OTHERS

--Ram Krishna Singh

PREFACE

I kept in files almost every letter I received during the last fifty
years, but at the time of my retirement in December 2015, I
realized most of the letters had become too dated and irrelevant
to be preserved. I destroyed hundreds of them.
Some letters, however, appeared interesting and worth keeping
for memories to sharepersonal, professional, academic, and
poeticpart interesting, part casual. Its memory of not I, who
wrote, but others who wrote me: together they could make up a
memoir, providing the life experiences that might be of some
value in contrast to what we experience now, or what was
otherwise drab and dull in my own life.
I sensed in them a nostalgic hangover, and a possible document
of the past and the new in the making, useful to literary
historians, researchers, scholars, and fellow poets and critics
interested in my poetry and other writings of my correspondents.
I also thought by publishing them, I can celebrate some of my
contacts from post graduation onwards, reveal their minds from
the fringe, and communicate not only my own passion and
aspiration quietly but also offer a sort of creative self-criticism.
The letters, handwritten or typed and airmailed, make my own
echoes: my own likes, dislikes, ambitions, interests, efforts,
concerns, frustrations, anxieties, discouragements,
disappointments, dissatisfaction, restlessness, isolation, as also
thrills of successes and search for meaning and purpose of doing
what I had been doing in a mutually negating, intellectually
sterile, and terribly restricted environment in places of work in
Pulgaon (Maharastra), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), New Delhi, and

Dhanbad (Bihar/Jharkhand). I needed a lot of fresh air which was

missing. Thanks to the company of my poet, writer, editor, and
academic correspondents, I was saved from turning negative.
They told something more than themselves; they provided a
world view and in-look to my writing and academic efforts besides
shedding light on the support I received from people I personally
never met. Interestingly, they took no time to understand that I
had not been in the right place, that I didnt belong, that I
searched for my identity, that I needed change to survive.
They were sympathetic to me for my preferences to read and
reflect on new/less known poets and authors rather than the
established ones; for my dissatisfaction with the places I worked
in; for my desire to accomplish or self-improve; for my successful
haiku, tanka, book reviews, and research articles. They were
enlightening and supportive in my literary, professional, and
personal endeavours.
They recorded some interesting episodespersonal, cultural,
social, political, and academicjust as they reflected on my
poems vis--vis our experiences with editors and publishers. They
brought out the limits they self-imposed while reflecting their own
passion, obsession, art, or creativity. Some were restrained, some
explicit, some profound, and some dark. They covered a lot of
territory just as they provided a perspective to what we shared
with each other long before the arrival of the computer, internet,
e-mail, e-zines, and e-journals.
Friends like Lyle Glazier, Uncle River, Norman Simms, Sam
Cuchhiara, H.F. Noyes, Kevin Bailey, Bill West, and Ruth Schuler
sound significant for their non-traditional scrutiny of norms,
certainties, and attitudes. Their discourse centres round general
truth rather than moral truth and seeks to project a human nature
that is timelessly universal. Others such as Patricia Prime,
Vivienne Plumb, Lorna Anker, Rosemary Menzies, Anneke Buys,

Sam, Sid, and others are collaborative in editing and publishing.

As fellow-travellers, they negotiate the reality of experiences with
mutual respect. They may be taken to be as part of a process to
arrive at a shared view to bring about some kind of change. They
talk freely and frankly, and appear one despite differences, just as
I seek to come to terms with myself, discovering a pattern in the
quilt of existence, threading different minds, contexts, and
experiences.
Readers can relate. They can piece together the various contexts
and views to make sense of time and events that are past but
meaningful. They can relate to plenty of insightful criticism in the
letters of Lyle Glazier, Uncle River, H.F. Noyes, Kevin Bailey,
Norman Simms, and others. They can also find empathetic
critical support for my creativity in the letters of Sam, Pat, Sid,
Bill, and Anneke. The letters from other editors and academics,
renowned in their own fields, underline different views besides
throwing light on my efforts in Indian Writing in English and
English Language Teaching, my chosen areas of writing, editing,
and publishing.
It is through their eyes that I try to look back and recall what is
forgotten in the fast pace of time and technology. I try to rediscover myself, and indulge in my own surrogate community. I
look back to events of the past and the past of my correspondents
to commemorate our cracks, struggles, and successes, and
appreciate what it was then, and what it is now. In fact they all
seem to add to an overview of myself in a small place where
smallness of mind troubled me most.

13 August 2016

--R.K. Singh

CONTENTS

Preface
I.

Letters from Lyle Glazier

Letters: 1972: 1 3
Letters: 1973: 4-- 9
Letters: 1974: 1012
Letters: 1975: 13 14
Letters: 1976: 1516
Letters: 1978: 17 20
Letters: 1981: 21 27
Letters: 1982: 28 30
Letters: 1983: 31 35
Letters: 1984: 36 39
Letters: 1985: 40 41
Letters: 1986: 42 43
Letters: 1987: 44 48
Letter: 1988: 49
Letters: 1989: 50 53
Letter: 1990: 54
Letter: 1992: 55
Letters: 1993: 56 58
Letter: 1994: 59
Letters: 2000: 60 62

II.
III.
IV.
V.

A Letter from Cid Corman

A Letter from Jerome E. Thornton
A Letter from John Ashbaugh
Letters from Ruth Wildes Schuler
Letter: 1993: 1
Letter: 1999: 1
Letter: 2005: 1

VI.
VII.
VIII.

A Letter from Rosemary C. Wilkinson

A Letter from Summer Breeze
Letters from Uncle River
Letter:
Letter:
Letter:
Letter:
Letter:
Letter:
Letter:

2000 : 1
2001: 1
2003: 1
2004: 1
2005: 1
2008: 1
2009: 1

IX.

Letters from Haikuist Mohammed H. Siddiqui

Letter: 1998: 1
Letters: 2000: 1

X.

Letters from H.F. Noyes

Letters: 1 4

XI.

Letters from Bill West

Letters: 1 4

XII.
XIII.
XIV.

A Letter from Kazuyosi Ikeda

A Letter from Frederico C. Peralta
Letters from Kevi Bailey
Letters: 1 2

XV.

Letters from Salvatore J. Cucchiara

Letter: 1997: 1
Letters: 1998: 2 10
Letters: 1999: 11 15
Letter: 2000: 16

XVI.

Letters from Patricia Prime

Letters: 1997: 1 2
Letters: 1998: 3 7
Letters: 2000: 8 11

XVII. Letters from Norman Simms

Letters: 1 3
XVIII. A Letter from Vivienne Plumb
XIX. Letters from Lorna S. Anker
Letters: 1 2
XX.

Letters from Rosemary Menzies

Letters: 1998: 12
Letters: 1999: 34

XXI.

A Letter from Peter Dane

XXII. A Letter from Zhang Zhi

XXIII. Letters from Anneke Buys
Letters: 1 4
XXIV. Letters from Carlo Coppola
Letters: 1 2
XXV. A Letter from William Riggan
XXVI. A Letter from Grace Stovall Mancill
XXVII.A Letter from Norman F. Davies
XXVIII. A Letter from W.R. Lee
XXIX. Letters from ELT Journal
Letters: 13
XXX. Letters from JALT
Letters: 1 2
XXXI. A Letter from TEAM
XXXII.Letters from Braj B. Kachru
Letters: 1 2

I.

LETTERS FROM LYLE GLAZIER

Lyle Glazier (May 8, 1911 October 21,

2004 ), who for years roamed the literary world
from the fringes, made his home in Bennington,
Vermont and worked and lived abroad in Turkey,
North Yemen and India. He had been in touch with
me from 1970s till his death. I wrote my M.A.
thesis on his poetry and shared my own poems
with him for several years. In a way, Glaziers
response from time to time, as his selected letters
would bear out, shaped my poetic sensibility.
Lyle Glaziers books of poems include Two
Continents, The Dervishes, Orchard Park and
Istanbul, You Too, Voices of the Dead, Azuba Nye,
Recalls, Prefatory Lyrics, and Searching for Amy,
while Summer for Joey and Stills from a Moving
Picture are his novels. Great Day Coming and
American Decadence and Rebirth are his works of
criticism. Besides being Professor of English and
Professor Emeritus at the State University of New
York at Buffalo, he was also a social activist, who
strongly believed that the United States path
toward war in the Middle East was paved with a
tragic lack of understanding of the tribal mentality
of the Arab world.
The letters provide a peep into history,
politics, literature, society, culture, and of course,
personal exchanges -- our families, profession,

concerns--, and our growing, and perhaps, ending!

These
also reveal Lyle Glazier's mind as a bisexual poet
and writer just as these help to gauze my own
poetic growth from the early 70s to the end of the
90s. Despite achievements to our credit, we both
remain unrecognized by the mainstream media
and academia.

LETTERS: 1972: 1 - 3

1.

May 19, 1972

Dear Mr. Singh,
Like many writers, I am flattered to think someone is interested enough in
my work to wish to write about it; however, if you believe as I do that poems
must speak for themselvesthat what is revealed in a poem should not be
manipulated from outsidethen a book of poems must become its own
witness. Like a composer of music, a poet is a creator; like a performer of
music, a reader is a re-creator. He may be helped through knowing
biographical and social backgroundfor example, my poems seem to me to
reflect quite clearly the context of experience from a foothold within the
United States. What I have written about my country and the world is
grounded in my life as an American, at home & abroad. Furthermore, I am a
teacher; the kind of poem I write reflects my reading, reflects my
experimentations with traditional verse forms (notably in Orchard Park) and
my experimentation with trying to discover a self-evolved esthetic, an
organic form expressing my own tone of voice (Istanbul & VD particularly).
But it is more complex than that, for every serious practitioner of traditional
forms tries to mould them into his own patternsby controlling rhythms,
language, images, and symbols. The Dervishes,
for example, imitates
Emily Dickinsons experiments with slant rhyme and with off-beat rhythms;
nevertheless, The Dervishes, I hope is my poem, not only in ideas that would
not have occurred
to Emily Dickinson, but in elements of texture that
are uniquely mine. So, although a reader can be helped some through inside
information about biography & social background, he must really look into
the poems themselves for the important revelations. Especially, a poem that
works must seem to the reader something he himself might have a share
in. Ankara and Banaras are not so different but what VD No. 40 should be
able to bridge the miles. You and I are not so different but what VD 169
should be able to remind us both of our deep longings. Even VD 117
although you have never been in New Englandmight be able to
communicate something to an Indian about encroachments on the beauty of
mans natural environment. No. 142 may be more difficult for a youthful
reader; yet you are male, and comprehend I am sure what it might be for a
much older man to realize that a necessary surgery has deprived him of the
power to eject sperm; how can he protect himself from despair except to
rationalize humorously, and try to make an advantage out of his tragedy?
Some weeks ago I sent to you through Dr. Pandeya some reviews of my
poems, some comments of my own, as well as copies of the four books. I

hope that by now you have received these materials. An important new
review of VD is about to appear in a magazine, and if I get it in time, I will
send you a copy.
I hardly know what to say about your desire to come here to read modern
poetry. At Buffalo, we have a great library of modern poetry and poetry
criticism. Yet it is not easy even to be admitted to our graduate school of
English. For next year there were 500 applications for 20 places; one of
those places went to a student at Banaras Hindu University. Even so, he must
somehow find the money to bring him here and support him after he arrives;
he cannot get a visa to come to the U.S. without proof of means of support.
My own connection with the university is being loosened, for I have chosen
to retire early, and beginning September 1, I will be Professor of English
Emeritus. My wife and I have already sold our home and are building a small
new one in southwestern Vermont, near Bennington.
I will look forward eagerly to reading your manuscript, and I will try to help
you in any way that I can. I suppose that it is unhappily true that most
Indian students of English or American literature will have to content
themselves with learning about that literature from Indian teachers & books
in Indian libraries, just as I had to study British literature under American
teachers and in American libraries.
If your advisors have faith in you, you should try to get a scholarship that will
take you to England or to the United States. I am sure that you have already
thought about applying for a Fulbright fellowship.
Please call on me for any help that seems to be within my province.
Cordially yours,
Lyle Glazier
Professor of English

I loved Banaras very much. It gives me great pleasure today to think that
what I now write on this page will, in a few days, be read by you, there. I
wish I were again at the Hotel de Paris, where you could come to see me.
LG

2.
November 8,
1972
Dear R.K. Singh,
The day I got your letter I wrote to Dr. P.S. Sastri at Nagpur and to Dr. Kamal
Wood at Bombay, sending also a shorter note to Mr. Ezekiel telling him I had
written to Dr. Wood about you. I think that Dr. Sastri would be your most
likely sponsor, if he has time. He is not far from you, is a poet himself, has
some of my poems as well as a collection of my essays on American novels.
I like particularly your poem The best poetry/that I can read/is a woman
A poets simplicity is also very nice. You seem to master in those poems
the different trick of writing a rhythm that any reader can catch without
going astray. That is the great difficulty with free rhythm; no one else can
quite catch what the poet had in his ear. Poems in a diary formthat seems
a good idea.
I am flattered to know that you circulated an article about my poems. Dr.
Pandeya has just sent a copy of his Memoirs as a Form of Poetry: F.T. Prince
and Lyle Glazier, Prajna, Banaras Hindu University Journal, Vol. XVII Part (I),
October 1971.
A young teacher at Tirupathi is also writing on my poems, as well as an
associate professor at State University College, Buffalo.
When you speak of my poems as confessionals, yes. But the confession is
sometimes wholly subjective, sometimes a looking out at experience.
Wordsworths spontaneous overflow lends itself to both kinds of poem. You
canborrowing from Joycecall them epiphanies; in Dubliners there are
subjective epiphanies (Araby) and objective epiphanies (Counterparts),
while in Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is the subjective, and Poldy and Molly
Bllom the objective. It is possible to confess to revelations from within or
revelations from without. Does that make sense?

# Ugandas Amin
slaughtering Christians
for a Moslem
Good is
Richard Nixon
underneath the skin

From PERSON, PLACE, AND THING

# 41 Walking the brown and gold
October swamp
in search of a stray he
stirs the curiosity
of a pastured bull
and come back laden
with orange ferns
and from a ruined wall
a lichened rock
suitably flat for one
more stepping stone
across the incipient lawn
#42 Deep in the swamp
maple and tamarack
birch and pine
give way to feathered ferns
above the glittering stream
speaks to no ear
year after year
till now
I come and stay
a moment
and as softly go
Person, Place, and Thing is only in progress, not published. Therefore, I cannot now
send it to you.
Cordially,
Lyle Glazier

3.
Nov 25 72
Dear friend R.K. Singh,
Your letter of Oct 19 reached me when I was just returned from a trip to
Iceland and New York City for two weeks with my friend Prim who came from
Bangkok to meet me for a reunion with a wealthy Icelandic businessman and
his wife, who paid for Prims travel. After that I went to Buffalo to talk to a
graduate class in literary criticism where VD was being used as one text, and
to give a poetry reading. That visit coincided with the publishing of three
chapters of STILLS in the magazine PAUNCH; I sent a copy to you. When I
got back home, I was abed two weeks with a virus flu, and then went to
NYCity for a week as consultant to a branch college of City Univ. of N.Y. Now I
am at last trying to catch up with a basketful of correspondence.
What you say about The Dervishes strikes me as exactly right; the whole
poem hinges on irony. I am not a scholar of 13th century Turkish mysticism,
but in 1962 at Christmas I went from Istanbul to Konya and saw the
dervishes whirling beautifully for an audience of Turks and tourists. Although
the Turkish government had outlawed the dance as a religious rite, it was
clear to me that the dancers still were trying to solve human problems by
whirling into a trance. However beautiful, such a spectacle seemed to me as
monstrously inadequate as the mumbo jumbo of Catholicism or
Protestantism, or, if you will pardon me, of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or
Shintoism, or another religious ism, and as inadequate as the bogus
Democracy of the West, or the bogus Communism of the Soviet. Everywhere
in religion and in politics there is an occult search for salvation by means of
an elite, and no real respect for a non-competitive egalitarianism.
In 1968, when my wife and I were spending a year in Ankara, we planned to
go to Konya to see the dervishes again; in fact, we had bought our tickets
for the bus and the dance. However, Amy became ill and we couldnt go. At
that time, December 4, 1968, the English language DAILY NEWS, published in
Ankara, had a front page article on the Dervishes, and I read it carefully.

Later when I was invited to speak to an Ankara linguistics club, I started to

write The Dervishes, partly to illustrate the way symbolismthat basic
instrument of language spreads from culture to culture. The stanzas on
Mevlana and ems i Tebrizi were taken straight from the article: The climax
of Mevlanas mystic poetry didnt come about until he met a companion
Sems i Tebrizi, who is considered an iconoclast from an orthodox Islamic
point of view. He brought music to Mevlanas life and to this day music has
an essential place in the Mevlevi order. Their conversations over the
Absolute, the Creator, and the Beloved are reported to have lasted for hours
without a break. ems left Konya just as quietly as he had appeared in
Mevlanas life because of the rumors spread about town about their
infatuation with each other. Mevlanas most touching poetry was written
after ems departure
When I returned to Buffalo in the fall of 1969, I brought with me copies of my
book YOU TOO, which had been printed in Istanbul. A young teacher at
Buffalo State College, a friend and former graduate student of mine, read the
book and decided to use it as a text in his American literature course in
Spring 70. He came to see me to talk about the book in December 69 or
January 70 when I was getting ready to go back to Ankara for a semester as
visiting professor. He made two tapes, one devoted to readings and
comments for poems in YOU TOO, and the other a reconstruction of my
lecture to the Ankara linguistics club, including a reading of The Dervishes.
This second tape was later typed up and made into an article for STRAIT,Vol
1, No 3, 27 October-November 9 1971, New York State University College at
Buffalo. I think I sent you a copy; this is my completest statement on the
poem; if you have lost your copy, I think perhaps I can scout up another one
for you.
In the spring of 1971, when I returned again to Ankara, I arranged with the
editor of the press at the university where I was visiting professor to have
The Dervishes printed by the press and dedicated to the Head of the English
department of Hacettepe University, where I was teaching. Unfortunately,
between 69 & 71, Turkish politics had shifted Right, student rebels had been
jaoiled, and a government under Prime Minister Erim reflected the wish of
the United States to see political leftism wiped out. Meanwhile, the head of
the English department & I had a falling out over another matter. The editor
of the press reported that he could not print the poem because someone (I
presume theHead) had read it and was shocked by my irreverence for one of
the great Turkish Heroes, that business about his love affair with ems I
Tebrizi. So I withdrew the poem, and sent it to Istanbul Maatbasi, which was

already at work on a publication of VD. When the Ankara editor told me that
The Dervishes would be considered seditious by the official censor, who had
to pass judgment on every book printed in Turkey, I waited until my trunk
containing 450 copies of VD and the same number of The Dervishes had
cleared the customs in Istanbul and was on a vessel bound for New York.
Then I gave a copy of The Dervishes to the surprised editor. It was my last
invitation to visit Hacettepe University as visiting professor.
I still have an early draft of the poem, handwritten into the front of a diary I
kept during that 1968-9 year in Ankara, and I have a whole folder full of
revisions of the poem. Almost the last revision was the first line, changing
Roused from no motion to the simpler Out of no motion but the whole
poem was much gone over, considerably more than I remembered till just
now when I got out the folder again.
I am sorry to hear that you have troubles of communication with your father.
Does he think you should be contributing more to the support of your
family? What a terribly unjust world we live in, where good, intelligent,
worthy people do not have enough to keep body and soul together! I
suppose I was lucky (what a terrible thing to say!) in that my father and
mother committed suicide when I was 22, and I had then only one younger
brother to support. It was in the early Depression, and my father lost his job.
Please excuse my delay. Has Mrs. Petrosky sent you a copy of Rapport?
Yrs,
Lyle G

LETTERS: 1973: 4 - 9

4.
January 4, 1973
Dear Friend Singh,
I write chiefly to send you the following excerpts from letters mentioning
you:
From Dr Kamal Wood, Head, Department of English, University of Bombay
It was nice hearing from you again and I have taken all this time to reply to
you because I was waiting for the young man, Mr. R.K. Singh, to write to
me. He has not done so, nor did Mr. S.M. Pandeya speak to me about him
when he was in Bombay during October-November participating in an all
Indian Conference which we had organized. We discussed American,
English and Indian Poetry in English from 1940-1970. Dr. Pandeyas
paper, as you may have heard, dealt with your poems along with those of
Updike and F.T. Prince. I shall indeed do what I can for Mr. Singh but I am
beginning to give up hope in his interest in the University of Bombay

From Dr. P.S. Sastri, Head, Department of English, University of Nagpur

Your kind letters. Mr. Singh wrote to me also. Later Dr S.M. Pandeya of
Varanasi spoke to me about him. Surely I will take him and give him a
subject. I think a study of confessional poetry from 1930 to 1960 might
be a good subject for him. This will really pose problems of critical
approach.
I trust that you may have found a new university post and one more to your
pleasure. The one at Pulgaon indeed seemed grim. But,then, I think that
you, like me, may never find teaching quite what you wish to do. I found
most of my university work, except the months abroad, very grim, so grim
that I sometimes buckled. But, as a married man with three growing
daughters, I could not afford to cater to my whims. Never quite breaking into
trade publication enough to make a living that way, it was for me teach and
pretend to like it.
Right now I am really enjoying myself. I can write what I please without other
duties to impose upon my time, and without fear of harming my professional
status. This is important to me, because the fiction I am writing hews close to
actual experience. Without requiring strict literal adherence to any mans
life, I am requiring strict accuracy in interpreting a part of experience that
has come into my vantage point of viewing. When the details are not pretty, I
still can find a kind of beauty in the accurate description of events. Like
Goethe in his Dichtung und Varheit (Truth and Poetry), I can hew to the spirit
of a life-stream without being fenced in by the need to record facts exactly in
the order they occurred. Such is the advantage of fiction.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier
I am planning ahead, hoping to be in India in May 1974, a long time ahead; I
hope to see you if I come.

5.
May 23, 1973
Dear R.K. Singh,
When I wrote last, I was much aware of having delayed a reply to your letter,
because I had been working hard to get my novel done before June 25, when
I return to Buffalo for 6 weeks to teach in the summer session there. For that
reason, I wrote so briefly.
As for my irritation at what you had said, I was irritated through a
misunderstanding. I see that now. In order to comprehend my feeling, you
must have in mind that what no one in the United States can endure, above
all, is the thought of ownership of another human beingI mean by this, the
buying and purchasing of another human being. Your phrase as if you
owned me seemed to imply that you were puckishly telling me that I had
behaved as if I had purchased you. I think now that you meant, as if I were
one of your ownmeaning one of my own sons, or one of my own brothers.
In that sense I am delighted to own you.

I doubt if my letters to you have given me more pleasure than your have
given me. It is flattering for me to think that a young man like you is
interested enough to keep writing to someone so far away whom he has
never seen. When I come to Varanasi next year, I am very anxious to meet
you. In hope that you will take me where you live. One of the disadvantages
of being an American in India is that I almost never had a chance to visit
people at homeI do not mean a ceremonial visit. I dont wish to have your
mother or sister or your wife spend hours and more money than your family
can afford to make me a large welcome. But I would like to be able to walk
into your house for a cup of tea, only a cup of tea. Then we could sit and
talk, and you could show me around the neighborhood. To see India only by
seeing large, luxurious hotels and the historical monuments is not to see
India. I am more interested seeing the people of todaymy VD poem #192
is a very genuine expression of what I really feel. So, please, when I come,
you must come to see me at the Hotel de Paris, and I will come to see you at
K 27/5 Bhairo Bazar.
Of the recent poems you sent me, I like very much #191 and #198. They are
absolutely right in word and sentiment. So very good I myself do not write
poems until I finish my novel. Then, next fall, perhaps, I will go back to my
poetry and my music. Since March 15, I have not practiced the piano.
Affectionately, your friend,
Lyle Glazier

6.
June 8, 1973
My dear R.K. Singh,
Your sisters remark that Glazier is far above our status was kindly
meant, but this is far from the truth. My origins were at least as humble as
yours. My father was a factory worker. He was a high school graduate who
never went to college; my mother did not go to high school. When I finished
high school, we were very poor. My older brother and I went to work in the
factory as common laborers. After a year I had saved enough to pay part of
my expenses for one year at college; by waiting on table in the freshman

dining hall, I survived that year. During the summer and for the next four
summers I was a bell hop in a hotel; every school year I worked in the
freshman dining hall as chefs helper, preparing fruit and vegetables for the
table, washing pots and pans, and helping to keep the kitchen clean. When I
finished my fourth year, I was $1000 in debt, a large amount at that time. It
was during the 1930s, when the economy in the United States was suffering
from what we call the Great Depression. I could not find a job teaching
school, so I became the custodian of a Community House, where I vacuumed
rugs, waxed floors, polished woodwork, and was, in general, a kind of
working housekeeper. In October that year my father lost his job in the
factory and committed suicide the day he learned that he was fired; in the
afternoon of the same day my mother walked out through the shallow water
of a river and let herself be carried away by the current; she was dead when
her body was recovered. My thirteen-year-old younger brother went to live
with me at the Community House, and for nearly 10 years I was his fatherbrother. I became a teacher in an elementary school, then for two years in a
boys high school, then I began to work summers for an MA, and the year I
got my degree, I found a job at a small college in Maine, where I remained
for five years, during that that time marrying and becoming a father. When
World War II broke out my wife and I moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to
another college, and I began to study part-time at Harvard. I became the
assistant in the Shakespeare course at Harvard, and began to study there full
time; then I taught freshman English there for 21/2 years. In 1947, now with a
second child and my wife pregnant with a third, I moved to Buffalo as
assistant professor, and after three years, finally, at the age of 39 got my
Ph.D. at Harvard in 1950. In 1961, I went abroad for the first time, as
Fulbright Chairman of American Literature at the University of Istanbul.
During the past 10 years, I spent four years in Turkey, with increasing
excursions into India. Now I am retired and professor emeritus. During the
years I have had time to write the poems you have read, a book of essay and
other essays, 7 novels, none of which has been published. Writing has been
my fulfillment. Also, I have a loving relationship continuing with many
students. Young people like you renew my life.
Your letter wrings my heart with what you say about your parents efforts in
behalf of their children, and your effort to find work. I know so well what
you suffer. But I believe that such suffering however agonizing is better than
remaining unschooled. I hope that in time you and your brothers and sisters
will have some of the same kind of good fortune that has been my lot.

In two weeks I will go to Buffalo to teach for 6 weeks, hoping to earn enough
money for a trip to India. However, today the American dollar is so
depressed on the world market that it may be that I will not have enough,
and will have to postpone my journey. If I come to Varanasi, I wish to see you
and your home, but please remember that I am one of you and no stranger.
It will disturb me very much if you go to any expense to entertain me. I will
come to see you, please, if you will entertain me with conversation and tea.
Some day when your family is wealthy we will talk of tea-drinking day and
remember it as a happy, loving time together.
I continue to read your poems with pleasure-- #103, #105. my journeying
joy on this road of life alone. For the epigraph of part III of my new novel, I
chose Wordsworths tribute to Sir Isaac Newton (Prelude III) a mind for
ever/Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.
Yours affectionately,
Lyle G

7.
August 11, 1973

Dear R.K. Singh,

Your last letter reached me in Buffalo, where I was too frantically busy
preparing lessons to have time to write. Not having done any systematic
reading during the months of my retirement, I had to work hard to keep
abreast of my two summer classes. Actually, the work went well, and I felt
rewarded with the results.
I am sorry not to have been able to comply with your request to look up
some bibliographical information on confessional poetry. Here, unfortunately,
I do not have access to a large library. Perhaps I will travel to Williamstown,
Massachusetts, sometime this fall; if I do, I will try to look up something for
you. I doubt very much that we will ever be working together as advisor and
candidate for your dissertation, much as I would enjoy the relationship. As
professor emeritus, I do sit on committees, but not as the major advisor, only
as a consultant. Two Buffalo candidates will be sending me their chapters this
coming fall; both are candidates in Black (Afro-American) literature. Last
year I sat on the committee for a candidate writing on Chaucer.
I cannot be very helpful, either, in advising you about placing your poems. By
all means, send some to Poet Magazine (Dr. Orville Miller); I do not know the
magazine or the editor, but you can be sure of a fair reading. I have not
been trying to place my own poems, but I was pleased to have an invitation
to submit a group to a small magazine being published by a Buffalo
colleague. He is not, however, looking for other poems, since he has little
space for poetry, and usually invites submissions.
I have been pleased to be invited to return to Buffalo next year for the 1974
summer session. Perhaps then I will not be quite so pressed for time, since I
will probably repeat at least one of the courses I taught this summer.
I am trying to make plans for my trip to India. I will perhaps come in late
February or early March. Would that be a good time? In Varanasi I will
probably stay at the Hotel de Paris, where I stayed last time.
I have recently reread your MA thesis, and marvel at some of your
trenchant comments,, particularly what you say beginning page 100, where
you really hit your stride. I am reminded of what Thoreau said of Whitman in
a letter to Harrison Blake: There are two or three places in the book which
are disagreeable, to say the least, simply sensual. He does not celebrate
love at all. It is as if the beasts spoke. Of course, I dont at all agree with
you or Thoreau, classifying you both as puritans. What do you make of my

pp. 17, 19, 37, 50, 52, 85 (Orchard Park & Istanbul ), pp. 5, 6, 14, 18, 35 ( You
Too) and no. 63, 67, 89, 103, 148, 166, 167, 168 (VD)? Is it possible that you
and Thoreau are over-responding to evidences of unorthodoxy? I sometimes
wonder by what rationalization some people reach the conclusion that their
biases represent the God-sanctioned only right behavior?
Please dont think that I wrote that last paragraph in heat or for self
protection. I was simply speculating on what my have lain behind your best
pages.
Do you have copies of all four of my books? If not, I can send you YOU TOO,
THE DERVISHES, and VD. I dont have extra copies of OP & ISTANBUL, which
is now out of print.
I look forward to seeing you in a few months. I will be deeply hurt if your
family entertains me lavishly, and as deeply hurt if I cannot come to meet
your family in order to talk, over a cup of tea.
Affectionately yours,
Lyle Glazier

8.
September 26, 1973
Dear R.K. Singh,
Your letter came today with the glad news that you have a job. I am very
glad for you. Even if the work is not quite what you would choose, it is better
for you to have work. I remember being unhappy when my first teaching
assignment sent me to be the principal of a small grammar school. Now that
I look back on that year, I realize that it could have been a happy year if I
had not been afraid that I was trapped for life, as, indeed, I was not. My 13
year old brother was living with me, for it was the year after my parents
deaths; I managed to save enough money for six weeks in summer school,
and the next fall I went to teach in a boys boarding school, where my
brother became a student. After two years in that school, the year I got my
MA, I went to teach in a small college, where I spent five years before moving
to Boston, where I started graduate work at Harvard, taking one course each
semester for five semesters, then becoming a full-time student. Looking
back one can imagine a pattern, but although there was effort and ambition,
there was also a great deal of happenstance. I wrote a sentence in my novel:
Theres Fatesomething your engineer so perfectly that theres no way for
it to turn out differently. We cannot exercise that kind of control over our
lives.
Now that you will be in Lucknow, I am wondering if it will be possible still for
us to meet. My plans are to go from Madras to Varanasi to Khajuraho to Agra
to New Delhi. Perhaps you can manage to come to one of those places to
see me. At Khajuraho or Agra, if you could come there, you could stay with
me as my guest. Please think about it. I shall probably stay at least two
nights in Khajuraho and one night in Agra. I think that I will be in India
during the last two weeks in February.
Your poems continue to flow and continue to show vitality. #291 has an
ending that reminds me of my mothers death. I like the two short ones-#258 & #249. #268 has the same theme of an article I have just finished:
Atheism as an Article of Faith yet I think you do not carry your premises to
the same length as I do. You seem to be condemning the malpractices in
religion, rather than condemning religion. When I was in Tirupathi in August

1971, I wrote a poem that was meant to be all ironic, at the same time it was
concealing its irony:
The steps to the temple are made of stones
The dome of the temple is made of gold.

It was meant to be a protest over the bloodstained footprints of pilgrims

sacrificing their pennies to religious zealots.
#303 I like very much. But it is #308 that moves me to the fullest comment.
Granting the subject (what Henry James called donn) the last stanza of this
poem is excellent. The last line of stanza 1 is too vague, I think, as if you shy
away from naming personsI would like better: the chastity of self, lover, or
sweetheart. The middle stanza troubles me, because your Puritanism
seems so grim. Although I am not a biologist, it offends me to have you
speak of the life-stream as filth; what is filthy about the liquid
manufactured by the prostate gland as a vehicle for conducting the sperm?
Far from being filthy, I should think that this liquid emission is one of the
purest as well as precious creations of our bodiesperhaps in a physical way
as pure and precious as our poems. What can be shameful about such an
abundant supply of the life source, so abundant that it must be expressed,
particularly when so little of it is needed for the mechanical business of
carrying on the race? Nature is very generous. Be glad of that, not ripped
apart by shame.
I am happy for your family that it turns out that your mother is not ill, as you
once thought. I hope that there will be good days for your family, for all of
India, for the U.S., and for all mankind.
Yrs.
Lyle G

9.
November 10, 1973
Dear Mr. Singh,
Your last letter gave me much to think about, particularly that stirring #310
in your poetry series. Like you, I despair over the new democracy, which
seems hardly more humane than the old colonialism. What the nations of
the world require is nearly impossible to achievesince a corrupt system can
corrupt good leaders, we require a benevolent system; since corrupt leaders
can corrupt a benevolent system, we require benevolent leaders. What we
require, therefore, is nearly impossibleat the same time a benevolent
system and benevolent leaders. Where and when on earth have men been
fortunate enough to have both? Your poem makes me think of all of this,
with sadness more than with hope.
I am continuing to plan my journey. I think you must know that wherever I
travel in India, there will be old friends whom I wish to see, so that my time is
not really free. I am glad that you would like to see me. The question is
where and when. I think it is particularly important that no effort to come to
see me should interfere with your work, for it seems to me very important
that you have a job. My plan now is to travel, probably by bus, from Varanasi
to Khajuraho, on Monday, February 25. Several possible opportunities for a
visit with you occur to me. Saturday or Sunday, February 23-4, except to be
free at the Hotel de Paris in Varanasi. That would be a good time for us to
meet and talk. Or, if you wish and are free, you may wish to travel with me
to Khajuraho and help me on that difficult journey. I think that there is a
government house in Khajuraho where we could stay. Please think about

this. On Wednesday, February 27, I will be going on to Agra to stay

overnight, before flying to New Delhi on Thursday, February 28.
Please do not think of me as a guru, by no means. I am an ordinary person
who likes to write poetry. Dont embarrass me by overestimating me.
Yrs.
Lyle G.

LETTERS: 1974 : 10 12

10.
April 6, 1974
Dear R.K. Singh,
It is very good news that you have gone back to teaching, for I am sure you
are a born teacher. In New Delhi I felt that you were not at all happy in your
work with the Press Bureau.
I am glad you like Black Boy. It is one of the books I will use next summer in
my course in Richard Wright and Herman Melville.
I have been trying to work out a way for you to submit some poems to an
American magazine, and keep running up against the problem of how you
can have manuscripts returned, since you do not have US postage. Why
didnt I think of this before? I am enclosing an airmail stamp. If you wish you
can submit two or three poems to RAPPORT, Patricia Petrosky, 95 Rand
Street, Buffalo, New York, USA 14216, and include a self-addressed stamped
envelope, using this stamp. Betternot include more than two (at the most)

sheets of paper; otherwise the stamp will not be enough. Although it is

conventional to type only one poem on a page and to double space, I am
sure that Mrs. Petrosky will excuse you if you type two or three short poems
on one sheet, explaining to her the cost of postage. The magazine is
respected, though not one of the great ones. I submitted two poems there
last week.
No words about STILLS (my novel) except that Ive heard rumors that the
editing for magazine publication has been progressing. The NY literary agent
sent back the manuscript unread, with the printed notice that the agent is
too busy to read unsolicited manuscripts. So you see how difficult it is to
win the attention of a good agent.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

Feb 1, Tokyo to Bangkok JAL

On TV
the face of the slaughtered
Indonesian child
is pure and innocent
as if she were resting
in her fathers arms,
yet the distant viewers,
suppliers of weapons,
do not cradle
the supple frail body
or kiss the petulant mouth,
they are like the Old Testament
Jehovah who took the firstborn
of Egypt for his lawful fee,
and unlike the Hebrews
who as beneficiaries
were bereaved in sharing
the common doom of mankind
the American watchers
see the young face fade from their channel
and do not mind going to dinner
hungry, in fact, as hell

11.
May 6, 1974
Dear friend R.K. Singh,
It continues to give me pleasure to think of you there in East Bhutan
teaching poetry, instead of back there in Delhi as a rewrite man for the
National Press of India.
Dont be too disturbed over your problem with the C. Rosetti poem. Part of
what is involved is the conventional ambiguity of poetry, isnt it? I often
could not fully comprehend the poems I was supposed to explicate, and took
refuge in the thought that much of poetry is not absolutely explicable: that is
its virtue. More than one person, more than one interpretation. I take it that
nearly all readers can agree on the interpretation of the first two of the last
four lines of When I am dead The title itself seems to tell us that the
person speaking will by then be dead, and in the everlasting twilight of death
(That doth not rise nor set). She apparently addresses her remarks to an
earthly lover in an (unhappy?) earthly lover affair. At the end of the poems
first stanza, she magnanimously (dead people can afford to be magnanimous
toward the living) grants her still-living earthly lover the privilege of
remembering her, or forgetting her (after all, what difference will it make to
her). At the end of the second stanza, she shifts the thought to her own

situation in the limbo of death, imagining her good fortune (haply) in

being able to remember, or to forget her earthly lover, and now the net
result will be the same. I suppose that part of the force of the poem is in the
contrast between the dead persons fortunate fortitude, and the living
persons irritation that leads to writing the poem about how nice it will be
when the pangs of lover are over. Im not by any means confident that Im
not misinterpreting the poem, nor am I much troubled if I am. Poems that
are written moodily can be interpreted moodily. The recreator has nearly as
much right to his idiosyncrasies and the creator had in hers.
When I go to Buffalo in June to teach in the summer session, I expect to meet
Patricia Petrosky for the first time, and no doubt we will mention you and
your poems. I hope that by then she will have accepted something from you.
But, at any rate, dont be discouraged if she doesnt take any poem in the
first batch. She sent back all my first submissions before finally accepting
one.
I liked very much your #428 The flame swallows the creeping road and
hope that it may be one you submitted to Rapport. Have you submitted to
Nissim Ezekiel, The Illustrated Weekly of India, C/o Department of English,
Mithibai College, Bombay University, Vile Parle, Bombay?
You asked about my tour beyond New Delhi. I went regretfully to Turkey, but
became glad I had gone. Everywhere there were friends to welcome me.
From TRAGIC AMERICA 1974
#47 Ankara, Mar 4
What frightens him is
that after three years
he is so torturously alive
#50 Istanbul, Mar 6
Last night greeting with Guzin
erased their years
in a moment,
once he had been humble
to know that this woman
knew his dark secret;
now there is no need
for humility, love
is taken for granted;
they kiss and he does not see
the fading of her beauty,

and she remarks

not on his thinning
but on his ungreyed hair
#59 Istanbul, Mar 12
Can he possibly
return to Vermont
or should he get a divorce
at his age and
live in Bangkok
or Delhi or Istanbul
renting a room
on his pension
and somewhere in a few years
be found in a gutter
knocked out by some
freak irked
at the pittance
in the old fools pocket?

12.
July 20, 1974
Dear R.K. Singh,

I have had a meeting with Toni Petrosky, when we talked about you and your
poems. She is interested in what you write, but feels that you havent yet
sent her a poem that works quite to her taste. However, she hopes that you
will continue to try Rapport. I gave her $5 bill to pay for a copy of the
magazine, which she will send you, and for return postage for some poems
you may send her.
My summer courses here are at the 2/3 point this weekend, with my most
strenuous efforts now behind me. This weekend for the first time I have
breathing space. From Friday till Monday last weekend I returned to Vermont
for a 35th wedding anniversary celebration with my wife. Amys sister, who
lives in the old farmhouse where Amy was born (across the road from our
new retirement house) prepared the anniversary dinner. Only one of our

daughters (and her husband) could be with us. Our oldest daughter Laura, a
pianist, is in Fontainebleau, France at a summer music school, from where
she called us long distance. And the youngest started to join us, but partway
on the trip from Boston, her boyfriend became seriously ill from a kidney
stone passing into his bladder, so they had to turn back, and we had only a
phone call from her. But it was a good weekend, and I returned here
refreshed.
My classes conclude on August 2. I send two poems:
(July 1, 1974)
How like a greek shepherd boy
in her blue tunic and
long trousers with a
chased silver belt about
her hips, she walks into
my room and my heart
leaps because I guess
how clever she is with the
clever intuition of love
matching my cleverness, for
I know I have entered
her heart by pretending
to be invulnerable
to a woman, I have made
her so curious, so eager
that in spite of impropriety
and the warnings of pride
which would not risk
offending family and good
neighbors, she is entering
my room now in her blue
tunic to level me with her
gaze and strip me of defences
while my fingers tease off
her linked silver chain
(from TRAGIC AMERICA 1974
Amsterdam, Mar 22)
Acres of crocuses
--purple, yellow, and white
erections gently
stroked by the sun

Yrs. as ever,

Lyle G

LETTERS: 1975 : 13 14

13.
Jan 1 75
Dear Mr. Singh:
I am glad to hear from you again, and particularly glad to have your report
on the way your Principal responded to PAUNCH/STILLS. It is typical that he
should think that the novel is nave and weak because it does not draw a
caricature of a homosexual so that he could recognize one when he meets
one on the street. I am extremely flattered by this response, because it
suggests that I suggested well in my objective to convey the impression that
there is no stereotype homosexual like the one your friend imagines, or if

there is (I suppose that the flagrant QUEEN is what he is thinking about, and
such people do exist and are easily spotted). But over and above that
obvious type there is a whole range of persons who engage in sex with their
own gender. Many of them are respectable family men like Jim Gordon in
my novel. Many of them have distinguished careers. They dress
conservatively, talk without a falsetto, walk without a feminine gait and in all
surface ways seem entirely normal. If your friend can learn that much from
my book, he has learned a great deal, no matter how annoyed he may be to
have it pointed out to him. The differences between the great majority of
such men and Jim Gordon is that they never write a book exposing
themselves. However, I am willing to guess that even there in East Bhutan
there are many decent respectable men, some unmarried, others with wives
and children, who enjoy a romp on a mattress with another man. They would
be no threat to your friend or to you.
I am much disappointed with Mrs. Petrosky that she should accept my $5 and
not send you a copy of RAPPORT or reply to your letters. I will write her. I
have been holding off from doing so, hoping that you will hear from her. I will
ask her to send Rapport #7, which contains two of my poems.
Please give my good wishes to your family, and convey again my
disappointment that I spent so little time in Varanasi that I couldnt come to
see them.
I am quite busy now revising Book II of STILLS. I have one rejection which
begins: Your book is an extraordinary piece of work, but I am afraid it is just
plain not for us. I just dont feel that it is strong enough in its meaning to
permit it to carry off the enormously explicit and erotic sexual scenes. I am
afraid it would be read for all the wrong reasons and the right ones would be
hidden
Thanks for #487 and #520. Good, good.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

14.
May 24 75
Dear R.K. Singh,
Thank you for the letter and poetry enclosures. I am glad to hear that Mrs.
Petrosky sent you some copies of Rapport . Did she send #7 (Vol.3 #1) with
two of my poems?
I am happy to be able to supply you with some airmail stamps for return
postage. I think it is best for you to submit your poems. Its never a very
good policy for anybody else to submit. I hope that Patrick Ellingham will
accept some of yours. He has one of my poems in his last booklet.

It pleased me very much to hear that you have used Hurt and dismayed
for your reading list. I began my October poetry reading at State Univ. of N.Y.
at Buffalo with that poem. In 1945 it was awarded second prize at Harvard in
an international poetry competition; the judges were two famous Harvard
scholarsF.O. Mathiesson (author of American Renaissance) and Theodore
Spencer (Shakespeare and the Nature of Man). As a result of that award, I
was invited to become a teacher of freshman English at Harvard and
Radcliffe, a position held for two and a half years, before coming to Buffalo in
the fall of 1947.
I am trying to find a market for my novel. Vol. III is now done. The New
Yorker magazine sent me a note (they usually send only form rejection slips)
for a chapter about Jim Gordon and Crispus Atticus Bronson (James Baldwin);
now they have had the very last chapter in the book for about two weeks. I
dread opening the mail box. Their usual return time is about one week.
I go to New York City June 2-7 for a week of consulting for a program at one
of the branches of City University of New York. While there, I hope to see one
or two plays, and one or two movies (The Day of the Locust & Deliverance)
and at least one ballet.
Our oldest daughter comes tomorrow for overnight before she leaves for
France where she will study piano at a school at Fontainbleaur. While she is
here, our second daughter and her husband will drive up for brunch and
dinner. That same day a professor from Buffalo will arrive for a three day
visit. He is collecting material for a critical biography growing out of my
poems. Last semester he taught all sex of my poetry books in his course in
Four Buffalo Poets. I was there twice to take his classes, and in April I
returned to give a reading with two of the other poets
From Tragic America 1974
Amsterdam
March 22
Acres of crocuses
purple and yellow and white
gently stroked
by the sun

Yrs.
Lyle G

LETTERS : 1976 : 15-16

15.

Feb 26 76

Dear R.K. Singh,

I am not in the least indifferent to you, not changed a whit, glad as ever to
have a letter, and hope you received all mine, though I suppose there is
some chance that a letter to you in East Bhutan may not have been
forwarded.
Your M.A. thesis lies here on a side table in my study. Only last Sunday, the
wife of a faculty member from the University of Massachusetts, pointed it out
to her husband, when they were here on an overnight visit.
Please tell me where Dhanbad is. I havent located it on a map, but I gather
it is somewhere about 100 miles from Gaya towards Calcutta. Im really in
the dark. I know you are much nearer home in Banaras than you were in
East Bhutan. I hope you will enjoy your work.
You ask for help in selecting a Contemporary American poet for your
dissertation. I think at once of William Carlos Williams as your kind of poet,
and Ive asked my bookstore to order his selected poems and in about two
weeks when it comes, Ill send the book on to youregretfully, perhaps, for I
dont have a copy myself. But your needs are prior to mine, for Id be
keeping the book only for my pleasure, while you will combine pleasure and
scholarship, if you decide that Williams is to your taste.
Your other considerationthe Savitriseems very good, but I have no
knowledge of the epic and obviously, therefore, no measure of its worth.
My new book of poems you ask me to send you has not yet been published,
is slated for around the end of April. I have had no final word from the novel,
which still languishes at Viking Press after having been there nine months.
My life is very quiet. Monday evenings I sing with a chorus that is preparing a
new patriotic chorale written for the Bicentennial by a Bennington composer,
the director of the chorus. The music is enharmonic, sort of Bartok, whose
music I particularly enjoy.
All good wishes.
Yrs.
Lyle Glazier

16.
June 4 76
Dear R.K. Singh,
How can I thank you for going to the trouble and the expense of sending me
SAVITRI? It is an extraordinary book, an extraordinary document in social
history, even though there is no poetry in it. I ask myself what kind of man
encrusts himself with such a protective shell of illusion to shield himself from
everything that is visible in his teeming India. There is more poetry in any
one of your little lyrics than in that whole grandiose volume of make believe.
To be sure, he wears the mantle of mystic and protects himself again by

claiming that anyone who doesnt vibrate in tune with his revelation is out of
touch with the GREAT TRUTHS THE TIMELESS TRUTHS OF ETERNITY. I found
his letters fully as revealing as his cantos, and was not surprised to come
upon long passages venerating Milton. What he does not seem to
comprehend is that Milton s vision, like Dantes , pulses with human being.
Satan, gargantuan vision, is all too much a man, and behind the creation of
Satan is Miltons own Restoration England, which to the poet, Protestant that
he was, was Hell, in which he had to believe he had the power to construct a
new heaven and earth in the own place of his mind.
I doubt if you will agree with what I am saying. I suspect that it will seem to
you another instance of the remoteness of Occidentals from the Oriental
Mind. However, since you send me the book, in the context of trying to
reach a decision on a subject for a dissertation, I can only tell you that in my
opinion you will be deluding yourself if you believe that you are writing about
a poem if you write about SAVITRI. All the other things you mention the
lengthiest epic in English an opportunity to exploit the tools of
archetypal/mythical contextual criticism may be there to some extent. But
the rhythm is flattering, the imagery is cloud cuckooland, and the language
is that of an evangelist who does not dare look out at the world surrounding
him, so he pulls down that tawdry curtain of imagined absolutes.
If I seem to be hard on Sri Aurobindo, it is because I think you are too good a
poet to be taken in by his nonsense. He is a waste of time as a poet, and
worse than that, unwittingly a social commentator, he illustrates how a
weakling can run away into the Heaven of mysticism and ignore every social
gangrenous sore that cries out for redemption.
Please forgive me.
Your good friend,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1978: 17 20

17.

April 22 78

Dear R.K. Singh,

I wondered why I had no answer to my last letter to you, and now that I have
your report of recent activities, I can well comprehend why you have not had
time for foreign correspondence.
It is with the greatest happiness for you that I read of your marriage and of
the baby in progress. If getting a baby is fun, having a baby is even more
funa great responsibility, too. You speak in your letter of my daughter.
Actually I have three daughters, all of them so much loved that it would be
impossible to single out one of them to be preferred for the one you mention.
I loved them from the time they were conceived. When they were small, I
loved helping care for themfeeding them with the bottle by night or day,
changing their diapers, washing their shitty bottom I hope my language
wont seem objectionable to you, but babies are real little animals as well as
spiritual human beings. They require the kind of attentions any other animal
requires along with the special attention needed by human beings.
Sometimes, I feel that parents fail most when they ignore the animal nature
of their children, who are spiritual, but not pure spirit.
Your report on the progress of your research interests me too, even though,
as you know, I am not particularly inspired by Savitri . As I write this letter,
however, I am looking at a small poetry journal ORIGIN, fourth series,
October 1977, and a second one ORIGIN, fourth series #2, January 1978,
edited by the American poet Cid Corman, living now in Kyoto, Japan, and the
little books printed, as I find on the inside back page, at Pondicherry 605002
by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. Your news that you will visit Pondicherry
makes another meaningful circle in the many overlapping circles in my life.
I will be happy to read your 17 page paper on Sri Aurobindos poetics, but I
would not be able to help you find a magazine for it, I fear. I cannot find
magazines to publish my own writing, and at my age, I cannot take on the
chore of trying to place someone elses. Please understand that this does
not mean I have no interest in you. I continue to be interested in what you
are doing, thinking, writing, but at 67 years, swamped with my own
unpublished writings, I feel frustrated enough when one of my own poems,
stories, or articles is rejected. I can give you one possible address: Shantih:

A Journal of International Writing and Art, C/o Brian Swann, The Cooper
Union (Liberal Arts), Cooper Square, New York, N.Y. 10003. I dont know Mr.
Swann nor does he know me; I found this address in a current listing for
writers. It will be best for you to send your article direct to him.
You ask about your students situation here if he fails to have the $1500
required, whether he will have any trouble from official sources if he has
less? I really have no way of knowing. I do know that today $1500 is a lot of
money. It is,in fact, of my retirement pension for a whole year. Most
Americans in my position have much larger pensions. Mine is small partly
because when I taught abroad in Turkey or India, my university did not pay
into the pension fund for me. I dont complain about this, because my whole
life was changed by my visits to Turkey and India. Think of it, without those
trips I would not have had the inspiration of your acquaintance.
I am adding for your curious inspection a rejection just received from a
national foundation that gives grants to poets. (1627 poets applied.) I
submitted 10 poems about my responses to travel. Informing me that I was
not one of the poets to receive a grant, the Director of the competition
wrote:
Dear Lyle Glazier: One of the readers, Michael Palmer, made these
comments on your work: This is fine work, a succession of images from
travel with the power, often, of summation. Glaziers art is as much in the
selection of the scene as in the language, which is (almost) transparent.
May I express my loving good will to both you and your wife. And please
dont be offended by this further comment. You wrote she is extremely
nice and is rearing in her womb my seed. Too early, but what to do? I am
reminded of 40 years ago, when my wife and I decided that we would wait at
least 5 yearsuntil I could finish graduate schoolbefore having a child.
Then almost immediately Amy became pregnant, and Laura was born within
the first year. It was difficult for us, but Ive never had any real regrets. It
does become important to take precautions lest you have more children than
you can well support. We managed to hold off five years for the second, and
another two years for the third.
With my warmest wishes to you both,
Lyle Glazier

18.
May 19 78
My dear R.K. Singh,
It is a pleasure to have your letter from there in the heat of India. I loved the
heat of India. It was as if, when I was there, my vital center uncurled. Even
in Madras, when it was 44 degrees C, I luxuriated in the heat, but of course I
kept out of the sun at mid day, except one noon when I walked from the US
Consulate on Mount Road to my Savera Hotel partway down Edward Elliott
Road, and that day I wilted even though Indian workmen and women were
busy building a new bed for the road.
You speak of working in the house when your wife is pregnant. I have always
helped out with such work. I can cook and dust and sweep, and during the
years when our children were in school, when Amy and I both worked, I came
home to help with the sweeping and helped get dinner at night. As each
child was born, I pitched in and prepared bottles for feeding. When the baby
wet itself or dirtied itself, I changed the diapers. This (house husbandry) is
much more common in the States than in a European or Asiatic country,
where the social custom still makes it important for a male to protect his
reputation for virility by never doing a womans work. One of my brothers is
like that. He prides himself on never having lifted a finger to help with the
dishes or washing or ironing. He believes that such an exclusion makes him
a better man. As for me, I always enjoyed taking care of the children, never
minding if I washed a shitty bottom, anointed it with fragrant oil, and covered
it with a clean diaper. It was always a labor of love.
This year when my wife has been crippled with arthritis, for several months I
did nearly all the housework. Now she begins to feel better so I can come
down to my study to write. She talks of selling this house, but I love it too
much ever to leave it. I would like to die from this house.
Last month for a few hours we had a visitor from Madras, one of my students
from my seminar there in 70. She has been in Kansas City for two years,
earning a Masters degree. She must have done very well. Two of her
papers were accepted for American journals, quite a record, I think. But it
was hard for her to be away from her husband and three children for two

years. She works at a Catholic College (Stella Maris) and the Church
probably helped her get a scholarship here. I felt homesick for India when
she left.
Dont fear that your creativity will dry up. I always have had such a fear, but
the impulse keeps coming back. The poems you sent me seemed fresh and
clean cut, but in #801, if I were you, I wouldnt use the poetic word
swainnot even lightlybecause the rest of the poem is very direct and
immediate, and I cant believe that the word really conveys a current
impression of Indian young men on the street.
5/26/78
After midnight
across far meadows
a fragrance of apple trees
punctures the windless air
leaking from an old orchard
this year over blown

Love to you both,

Lyle G.

19.
July 24 78
Dear R.K. Singh,
Your last letter was filled with such contrasts. I am as deeply moved by what
you said about your great love for your wife, compelling you to take an early
departure from Pondicherry. The happiness of a young man in his wife and
her for him can be matched only by the deep spiritual sympathy between an
old husband and wife who have lived and loved together many years. I hope
that you can have the added happiness of children. Amy and I knew what it
was not to bring a child to full term; in fact, we lost one child almost at the
very end of a pregnancy. It is sad to have this happen, but in due time we
had three healthy daughters. Please tell your good wife for me that I wish
her good health and happy, healthy children.
Your news about Pondicherry and the deterioration of spiritual values in the
Aurobindo community was very depressing. As you know, I am not a great
admirer of Savitri as a poem but I have tried to believe it could be a great
spiritual social document. Your account of the rivalry or bad feeling at
Pondicherry is a real blow. I can believe that all this increases the burden of
your progress toward a doctorate.
What you said about your family troubles back home also depresses me. It is
sad to see our parents grow old and the family coherence break up. I never
knew this to happen as you have, because both my parents died the same
day when I was 22, the fall of the year after I got my bachelors degree. My
youngest brother was thirteen and came to live with me, and for several
years, until he went into service in WW II, I was in loco parentis to him. We
are still good friends.
Please, in all your troubles, do not lose sight of your compensating gift for
poetry. Let your poems express your feelings. You have a talent that must
not be allowed to shrivel up from disuse.
I write on the back of a notice for my poetry reading next Sunday.
My love to you & your wife,

Lyle G

20.
Sept 7 78
Dear friend R.K. Singh,
If you wish to, please send a half dozen of your short lyrics to David Henson,
Ed., Applecart, 12201 N. Woodcrest Dr., Dunlap, Illinois 61525, USA
Henson wrote me recently asking if I know any poets who write transparent
poems, and I thought of your short lyrics.
If you decide to try Applecart, please write to me at the same time, and I will
send Mr. Henson an envelope made out with your name and address and
stamped with US postage for returning the MS to you. I know that you
cannot send him US postage for the return.
Im writing Mr. Henson to tell him that he may have some poems from you.
Dont despair of the times when the poetic madness seems to have fled. It
will come back, if you really court it.
Love to you and your wife.
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1981 : 21 27

21.
February 1981
Dear R.K. Singh,
I am delighted to have your gift of a copy of INDO-ENGLISH POETRY, printing
10 of your lyrics.
The poems are deft and readable, with clean insights. I think that they are
from a craft that has been improving over the past few years. A poem like
the one on page 154 with its winter/spring antithesis means something
different to me from what it would have meant forty years ago when I
believed 70 is so old that there can be no passion enduring so long. I am not
sure that I get from the poem what you wanted me to get. Are the lovers
happy in their passion or are they jinxed by it? Rains throws me off,
because rain is passion, as are jungles and warmth and vigor all of
them seeming affirmative to me, where calamity nemesis jinx
empaled & end we detest must be negative. I wonder a bit if Im thrown
off because, like Whitman, I am hedonistic and physical, whereas the poem
baffles me with a hint that I ought to be looking for pure spirit. You see how
you stirred me.
My problem is different from what I imagine yours to be. Your poems seem
always internalized, while mine have a tendency to grow from externals, so
that I wonder if I make a transition from reporting on an experience to living
an experience. How to get there inside where the real life of the psyche goes
on?
I spent the last part of October, all of November, and early December as
visiting professor at Sanaa University in Yemen Arab Republic, where S.M.
Pandeya has been visitor for two years. It was a great pleasure to be near

him for occasional talks, though we did not meet as often as I would have
liked. He came to some of my classes. I think that he plans to return to
Banaras next year. I dont know whether or not I will ever visit Sanaa again.
I am invited.
We have had a hard time because of my wifes arthritis, and last year she
had four operations for cataract. Her vision is better with new glasses,
otherwise Id not have been able to leave her for two months.
I am enclosing the lyrics on Sanaa I am working on now. I find it very hard
to create an impression to share with a reader. It is necessary to believe that
he has no signposts except the ones you give him, and yet he carries all
sorts of taboos and faiths that can lead him away from where you want him
to go.
Please write to me again, and please give my good wishes to your wife.
Yrs.,
Lyle
Glazier

Sanaa
When night abruptly stabs
into the crater
of this extinct volcano
windows of ancient houses
shudder with primary lesions
blue, green, yellow
clotted red
A visitor from the West
plots the lie of the land, explores
thoroughfares two days perhaps, then dares
strike into dust-deep alleys
across from Sam City Hotel, enters
a lane trusting it leads to souks
Standing in shadow encounters
crazy layers of housefrounts

handcrafted, four/six/eight storied

Babylonian skyscrapers corniced
off plumb, a rattled cubism designed
by whim just right for the eye
Eyes accustomed to dark
in a streetlevel well
he makes outdoorknobs handforged
and latches handhammered, above
him warpjointed windows embroidered
fantastically in mortar over blocks
of handtooled granite or brick
The stranger imagines entering
a ground floor, windowslitted
for storage and stalls
donkeys, a camel? goats
imagines climbing stairs
to a dark door opening
on stained glass
prisoning light
to splash on a tiled floor

22.
March 12 81
My dear R.K. Singh,
Your generous and detailed letter has many passages to fascinate me.
I am glad to know that I didnt completely misinterpret your complex of
emotions, in the anti-romantic poem on page 154. What you say about
the origin of the emotion in one of those universal downsinkings of
communication when a wife and a husband fall out of tunefor a trifle,
maybesharpens the edge of my understanding and rings true to my own
married experience. The ironic tear of emotions is particularly shattering
when the attempt to communicate is sexual. How small an incident can
throw one or the other partner out of tune. Maybe the baby cries for a
change of diaper. Or the husband remembers an unhappy experience with a
student. How rare and wonderfulalmost a miraclewhen both partners are
perfectly in tune. During the honeymoon joy is possible, for then every
discovery is new, but after sex becomes a familiar routine, how can the
miracle be sustained? Not every time, perhaps, but again and again, the
wonder will be revived. But your poem, I think you are telling me, is about
one of those unhappy occasions in between the crests.
May I comment about #875. I like the first stanza very much for its simple
naturalness. Would I like it better if in the second line by were changed to
in? Autumn, a season, cannot, perhaps be personified now, as it once was
personified by Keats. In the second stanza, I think you stray far from poetic

voice when you use the word Jupiter. Jupiter is not your god nor mine, and
we do an injustice to our deepest inspiration when we become allusive to a
tradition that is not ours. Perhaps if there were a cutting edge of intellectual
comment, the allusion would have power, but here arent you simply drawing
on a clich that has no force in your world? For a similar reason, I cannot use
Christian symbolism, except with an intellectual comment, because I am not
a Christian, but an agnostic.

The season confers

through soft grey clouds
a growing freshness on naked trees

Not good, but perhaps I make my point.

I like your including the paragraph about the fourth year of your marriage,
and your wifes inquiry about me, and the gentle naughtiness of your one
and a half year old son. You draw me close. If I could afford it and had the
power, and it werent so hard on my wife, I would always like to have a child
in the house, and indeed
to discover the joy of having a son. I may have
told you that our three are all daughters, three beautiful girls living away
from home. My wife suffers pain from arthritis, but after four operations for
cataract last year, she can now read again, and after an operation on her hip,
she can walk, but not easily nor far. She no longer moves with the speed
of light right out straight as she used to say.
Thank you for informing me about your having completed your dissertation
six months ago. I had no idea, and I am very happy for you, and wish you a
favorable verdict. I recall my own waiting from September till January in
1949-50, and how glad I was to have it over after my oral examination in
May. Please tell me whether you submitted it at Banaras Hindu University,
and who was your advisor. In Sanaa I renewed my friendship with Dr. S.M.
Pandeya, whom I regard as one of my best friends anywhere. We seem to
share a common critical spirit. I remember from 1971, when I was traveling
around India lecturing for USIS, Pandeya reported to me that somebody,
some Indian scholar, had spoken witheringly about my pairing Henry Jamess
Daisy Miller and Melvilles Billy Budd in one of my proposals for a lecture,
but, Pandeya said, I knew at once you had in mind how both Daisy and Billy
are victims of a corrupt Establishment.

You speak of spirit of dissatisfaction in my series of Sanaa poems, and of

course you are right, but there was also vicarious joy in my envy of their
pleasure in the beauty of stained glass.
I do hope that your Ph.D. degree will lead to a happier location for you. I
dont know how old you are. I am sure that financially and intellectually my
situation in Buffalo was probably better than yoursin the U.S. a Ph.D. is the
terminal degree and therefore used to reward the successful candidate,
though now there are so many that doctors have trouble finding positions. In
my case, I had the good position, but I was psychically profoundly unsettled,
and my professional life became ruinednot wrecked because I was on
tenure. I began writing fiction and poetry (as well as literary criticism) to vent
my need to rebel. It is only now, recently, that I have the satisfaction near
the end of my life to feel that I begin to fulfill my visions.
For the past three years Ive been writing short fiction that has sometimes
appeared in gay magazines, and a major work of non fiction, a sexual
autobiography, telling how married gays are not uncommon but legion. The
title of my new book comes from my recent discovery that my family springs
from the very first English settlers in New England, the ones who came on
the Mayflower to New Plimoth. WESTWARD FROM PLIMOTH has been at one
of the great publishing houses, being read by the vice president of Holt,
Rinehart & Winston. When I phoned the office last week, his secretary said,
Dick is reading your book now. He likes it very much, but he is very busy
and may not get to write to you at once. Then she added, Perhaps I
shouldnt have said so much. I hope I havent been indiscreet. I submitted
the book the day before I left for Sanaa October 22and still I wait. The
same editor has had the MS of STILLS FROM A MOVING PICTURE (my novel
that you looked at) since 1976, holding it, hoping the time will come ripe for
a novel about a married homosexual. I trust that your wife will not be
revolted to learn this fact about me. I only begin to realize that I have been
a good husband and father and have nothing to be ashamed of. I begin to be
more comfortable with myself. I was not a threat to someone who did not
seek me out.
Affectionate greetings to you both,
Lyle Glazier

23.
April 14 81
My dear R.K. Singh,
It is hard to advise anybody, but I sympathize with your predicament there in
Dhanbad. When I was 30, at the outbreak of World War II (i.e. World War
according to the Western view), I lost my job at a small college in Maine,
after being there 5 years. It was a blow, but turned out to be good. I went
from thereto Boston to teach at Tufts College, about 5 miles from Harvard
University. At Tufts I was a teacher of freshman English only. This meant that I

had four classes, each with 30 students, each of whom had to write at least
one 500 word composition every week. This meant that every week I read
and corrected 60,000 words of student writing. I taught summers as well as
winters. At the end of two and a half years I got sick to my stomach when I
would pick up another pile of those papers.
Then I was offered as much money to be an assistant in the Harvard
Shakespeare course, so I left my job at Tufts, and went on to get my Ph.D. in
1950 when I was 39, and by then the father of three daughters, and by then
teaching in Buffalo, where my load was one class in American literature, one
in British poetry, and 7 more students preparing for comprehensive
examinations, and each of them meeting me once a week for a half hour. I
thought I had landed in heaven.
I dont know what there is in this for you, except that sometimes no one can
foresee a better outcome. Not that I was ever a great success in the
university. I rebelled too much against the administration, never attended
social functions, never became administratively ambitious.
My new book WESTWARD FROM PLIMOTH is an autobiography. I have tried
to make it as frank as my poems and my novel. I am afraid I may have been
over optimistic when I last wrote you. I have had no further word from the
publisher, and begin to think I was hoodwinked, and that my book isnt being
seriously considered. I called the office again, and this time got no news at
all. In June, if not before, I will travel to New York and bring my manuscript
home, and try also to bring STILLS FROM A MOVING PICTURE which the
same editor has been holding now for five years.
To return once more to your poem # 154, which I consider a most interesting
poem, what you say about fear of sexual failureself-generatedtakes
me back to the words of my psychiatrist when I was trying to come out
candid about being gay: he said, Sex is symbolic. For somebody like you it
doesnt help much, however, to be told that success or failure is a product of
your own illusions. Sensitive people become hypersensitive when they try to
comprehend themselves. Poetry helpswriting poetrybecause no matter
what the trauma, there is some help in comprehending what it means to be
humanand mortal, and your Greeks believed, for to them only the gods
were immortal.
When I saw Dr. Pandeya in Sanaa last October, we talked about you and
about Savitri. I trust his judgment so much that he strengthened my own
somewhat guilty conscience over having taken such a dislike to a poem to

which you devoted so much time. But then, soon after writing my thesis, I
lost my devotion to Spencers The Faerie Queene.
I will gladly give you the address of the editor of Origin but I hardly
encourage you to submit. The man is extremely rigorous, and I never
expected that he would print some of my poems. I knew him frist in Boston
in 1945, when I was teaching at Tufts from which he had just graduated. He
went on to the Black Mountain College, and then traveled in Italy and spent
many years in Kyoto and married a Japanese wife. Now he is back in Boston.
His masthead informs poets desiring to submit: Unsolicited manuscripts will
not be returned. The sender must assume all risks. Response will occur
within 24 hours may nof receipt or not at all.
Cid was not in the least encouraging about my first submissions. As he says,
he never sends poems back, but he will let you know if he likes what he
reads, and sometimes may accept something.
If he doesnt like what he reads, he may never reply, very hard on the poet.
And right now is a particularly bad time, because Cid and his Japanese wife
have just opened an ice cream shop in Boston, and after great effort and
expense are working hard to make the shop a success.
I am sure that if I hadnt befriended Cid when he was a young man, I would
never have persevered to the point where he accepted my twelve poems.
Nobody could have been more surprised than I.
Origin
Cid Corman, Editor
87 Dartmouth Street
Boston, Massachusetts
USA 02116

I have started a new novel O MY SON, imagining a married homosexual who

has a son who is homosexual. I begin with an account of my experience in
Madras with a massageman who commercialized sensuality, nearly
managing to sublimate sex even when merchandizing it. There was no
personal involvement with his client, only his marvelous hands. You no
doubt know about this, may have read about it in The Kama Sutra. Very
curious, very different from hustlers in parks in Istanbul, New Delhi, London,
New Yorkall over the world, where the hustler justifies his sexuality
because he never engages in it without pay. The massageman also is paid,
but he is an artist, whose artistry justifies the payment.

What you say about your youngest brother makes me think of young artists
all over the world, who seem to know what they are doing, and when they
are young succeed beyond the hopes of older people looking on. How do
they do it? What is their intuition?
O MY SON: He was a solid young man, not massive, but with a solid trunk
nearly hipless, where the cloth of his dhoti hugged. Above the hips he was
bare, having flung off his upper garment. He was bare but not naked, for
there was no sensual invitation in his having partly disrobed. His manner
was disengaged except for the skill of his hands. The trick was to seduce the
client into yielding to pure sensuality. To have offered his own body, to have
thrust, to have erected, to have pushed his own cock into play would have
been to cheapen professionalism with the currency of commitment. Only by
being absolute for merchandize could Ganga sublimate commerce into
spiritual consent. A ten-rupee note lay on the table, but money was only
symbolic.
Cordially yours,
Lyle Glazier

24.
June 13 81
Dear R.K. Singh,
I did get your letter of March 30 and recall replying to it, responding
particularly to your unhappiness there in your position and your anxiety over
your thesis and desire for a new post, as well as remarking on how
remarkable it is that your brother has been able to launch himself
successfully so young.
I agree that it is time for you to publish a book, and Ill gladly write an
introduction, and try to make editorial suggestions, but not quite (if you
please) what you had in mind. I think it an important part of creative
expression to arrange the poems in an order, so I think you ought to do that
yourselfchronological order of creation, if you will, but you should make the
decision. Above all, I would say, dont arrange the poems by common
elements of content. Every poetWordsworth, Whitman, to name twowho
has tried to do that has failed. I would suggest chronology from the time of
writing. Also, for an 80-page book, I would suggest you curb your sure-to-be
greedy desire to crowd a great deal in. Limit yourself, rather, to only one
poem to a page, even if the poem is short. I havent always done that, but in
VD I was trying to get in all the poems written over a 4-month period of time.
Your time span will be much broader. Give each poem room to breathe.
This, I suggest. Select perhaps one hundred poems. Arrange them in the
order you like. Then send them to me, and I will select out the number you
have room to print.
Find your own title for your book.
It will be a pleasure to read what you send, but dont expect a miracle of
editing like that of Ezra Pound on THE WASTE LAND. In general, I would want
to accept your vocabulary, your imagery, your concepts, and only exercise a
critical voice in selecting out the final 80 poems for your collection.You ask
for Dr. Pandeyas address. By the time my letter reaches you, he will be back
in Banaras, and I assume you have that address.

I have no real influence in academia to exert pressure to help you find a new
place. I know that Sanaa, like most places in the Middle East requires a
doctorate in hand, and in addition, Sanaa specifies that the candidate have
taught at least 5 years after having earned the degree. Believe me, I know
from my own early experience the drudgery of teaching English report
writing.
The only thing I have to enclose is a short commemorative series for my
uncles and aunts 50th wedding anniversary.
Affectionate greetings to you and your wife,
Lyle Glazier

No word from my book sent 10/22/80

25.
July 10 81
Dear R.K. Singh,
By now I hope you have my letter of June 13, in which I offer to help what I
can to select and arrange poems for a volume. I suggest that you make your
own selection and organization of 100 poems and send them to me for my
cutting the group to 80. In order to make your communication easy, you
should keep your own carbon list, so that I wont have to send back the
poems but can make short comments that you will be able to refer to your
copy. Somebody did this for me when I was collecting VD, and I found it
immensely helpful, even though only a few poems were omitted.
Today I got your letter and bundle of enclosures for June 26. Everything
interested me. The abstract of your thesis makes much more sense of
SAVITRI than I would ever have made by myself, and I can see how hard you
worked. The sociological implications still excite me more than the poetic for
that epic.
Before proceeding further, I must congratulate you for having your thesis
accepted. The viva voce I am sure will be a formality, for you will know more
about the poem than any of your examiners. Yet, you will be on your mettle,
happily discovering as you go on in the hour, that the climate is in your favor.
I recall even now from 1950 how that realization dawned on me somewhere
along in the examination on my thesis for Spensers imagery.
I wish I could believe I would have success in placing the article on The
Mythical Construction of Death but it would be foolish for me to engage to
market your chapter, since I never know how to market my own, and wait for
the inevitable rejection with a growing intuition of doom. I will, therefore, as
you suggest, keep the copy in your file along with other papers. In my own
case, with my thesis, I managed to salvage two articles that appeared in
journals, but the thesis has lain on the shelf, quite dead from 1950 to 1971,
when it was disinterred from the Harvard library for a brief mention in J.E.
Hankins SOURCE AND MEANING IN SPENSERS ALLEGORY (Oxford).

The three published articles all found my ear receptive. What you say about
teaching poetry mirrors what I have been saying for a long time. At Sanaa
last November, at the first class I told the students that we must find some
way for them to be activeit was not important what I did unless they were
being active. Your analysis is more systematic and thorough than anything I
have tried. Is there a danger in systematization, as if a poem can be
exhausted? Is there a virtue in leaving analysis opentempting the student
always to come back to the poem? I like to let the students take the initiative
with a comment on one elementa word, an image, a formal construction,
an allusion to another poemjust anything that gives evidence that the
students mind is alert as he reads the poem. Then I pick up from there with
my own comments, usually first enlarging on what the students have said,
and trying to reach the heart of the poem without in any sense finishing it
off. Do you see what I mean? But I did like your essay, particularly the first
paragraphs, which match my own experience both as to students and many
academics.
The article on technical institutions carried me back to 1942-45, when part of
my teaching load was one class for Engineers at Tufts Universitya smitch of
literature, and more than a smitch of technical writing: a screw driver is a
means of turning (the acting part), a means of applying force to the turner (a
handle) and a connector between the other two (a shank).

The acting part is made up of

A
B
C

The handle is made of

The shank is made of
Always accompanied with a diagram/drawing.
The problem of effective writing is omnipresent in all universities. The
greatest problem is probably that most teachers are not ready to read papers
and give detailed comments.
I must not fail to mention how much I like your poem #895. I think it is
nearly perfect.
Best wishes to you & your wife,

Lyle Glazier

The boy comes into a clearing

strips and sprawls in the sun
curves fingers
cannot control
the freshening
the leap
the out-thrust
calls his dog
reaches under
both streaming
the dog (hind legs spread) continuing
a long time squirting
on leaves
the boy watching
watched by the eye of the sun
tries to cram into its sheath
the tough nut above the shudder
failing, hides in trees
the dog joins him
they run in a team through the woods

26.
September 28 81
Dear R.K. Singh,
I hope you will not be disturbed if I have cut words from your poems in the
same way Cid Corman, a superlative critic, cut words from some of mine. In
fact, I sent him copies of five of these poems to the University of Iowa,
where he is spending six weeks as a critic for Paul Engels seminar for poets
from the Orient and Africa.
You can put the words back if you choose. I have especially cut out
abstractions and adjectives that seem to obscure your essential meaning.
My numbering does not conform to yours in the small book you sent me, but
it does follow the order of the poems, and I think you will have little trouble
following along in your copy.
I am sorry that I dont like your title, not at all, because it is slackly
sentimental, but the poems are tightly realistic like the bits of life you record.
I have decided to carry my copy to the library to make a Xerox in case
something happens that my letter does not reach you. In that case, I will
send you another when I hear from you next that you worry over not having
heard from me.
My introduction should be very short, not to take attention from the poems.
Something like this, I think.
R.K. Singh writes with the directness of an overheard whisper, or a
wind through trees, a ripple in a stream, or a cry in the street after
dark.

Yes, I think that that is about what I would like to say about the poems that
have moved me powerfully. Dont be afraid to give a small poem its full
force by publishing it alone on its page.
You can ignore all my notations if you choose. I am flattered that you invited
me.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier
Would MY SILENCE do for a title?
See poem #3 (my numbering)

27.
November 9 81
Dear R.K. Singh,
I opened your envelope fearfully, afraid I may have offended you with my
suggestions for emendation. Nothing is more private and personal than a
poem.
About the title: as I told you, I have no very clear thoughts. MY SILENCE was
a reaction against FLAMING ROSES, which seemed florid for your poems.
Cid Corman is not a professor, but a deservedly celebrated poet/editor. I
sent numbers 1, 9, 11, and two others I did not mark. Corman has not
chosen to comment. Dont feel bad. He is a very special editor with
extremely strong biases about the nature of poetry.
When I came to read the poems, I found many more than 80 that seemed
publishable. Those marked OK are as acceptable to me as those in the first
column. Many of them are longer, and I was trying to save space to save
postage.
What you could do, if you choose, is to print the very short poems two on
each page, and have room to fit in the longer ones, taking them in turn as
they appear in the manuscript. I like some of the ones marked OK fully as
much as the others. In fact, it seemed that as I approached the end of the

script, the newer poems became very interesting, yet I didnt wish to cut out
any of the earlier ones. In spite of my warning not to print too many poems,
theres no reason why you shouldnt have more than 80.
If I were you, I would keep the dates in your private manuscript and not
publish them. Unlike my book VD, yours is not a log of a specific, limited
journey, and except for, possibly, chronological order, theres no need to
supply dates.
Like you, I am poor at titles, and believe that many poets would better omit
titles.
In 16b, by all means keep methodically concealed, as you should keep
everything that strikes you as right and important. Did you consider keeping
hidden rather than methodically concealed, which seems, perhaps,
rather heavy?
In #55, my slant room was typographical. Sorry. Shd. be moon.
I intended the red circles for the word no, then found on turning the page
that my red marker had come through to the back-up page. P. 21,
messianic was only for spelling, e not a, as you had it.
From now on, for your book, you should be on your own, and should make
decisions without consulting further with me. Anything you decide on is
right.
As for me, please dont let me into the book at all except as you wish to
acknowledge my foreword if you use it. This must be your book, the final
decisions all yours.
I hope you find a new job more to your liking and ability.
I do like the new poems, clean and crisp. Save them for your second volume.
Cordially,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1982: 28 30

28.
January 7 82
My dear friend,
With every year our ages in years pull toward each other; though they will
never coincide, our differentials diminish, because youth is ephemeral and
age is not, and you now grow older at a faster pace than I do.
Therefore, if you can do so without harming your psyche, I suggest that it is
time now that man with a Ph.D. and a Readership in an Indian college should
stop addressing me as Respected Sir and use the name of friend. I recall
so well, years ago, when I was young in Buffalo, being summoned to the
chairmans office to hear him say, This will come harder for you than for me,
but I would like it if from now on you will use my first name and I yours.

So, please, my dear R.K. Singh, whom I very likely will not again see in the
flesh, please do me the honor of brushing away on paper that pallid fence of
deference and accept me as your friend.
I like your new poems, and it does seem to me that you catch the trick of
diminishing the adjectives, though as to that eisonophillic is quite
mouthful.
I look forward to hearing that you progress in finding a publisher for your
poems. For me it was a long courtship before my first was published by Alan
Swallow.
I wonder, did you ever feel, as I do, that in a sense each lyric is a kind of
ejaculation thrown into the teeth of fiscal social determinism? Each of the
little poems comes out with a certain formlessness as if it is important to
keep from being academic.

At the telephone pole

knees define
boneshift past prime
Day tips to dark
year to freeze
road tips from climb
Next year I
will drift with
snow on that
saddle beyond the
saphouse, it doesnt matter
who owns the woods

That group of three poems-in-one called Haying Season, is as you guessed,

difficult only in particularity of allusion. A Bullrake is a tall rake, 6-feet tall,
very wide at base, whose two handles are bent till they join above the head
of the small boy who usually mans this rake meant for a grown man. The
image is visual and refers to a real thing, a farm implement. The men, too,
are real. Perry was my fathers brother. Erwin, my grandfathers brother.
Rowen is a second or third crop of hay. The grindstone is mounted over a
trough filled with water to keep the stone cool and moist for cutting &
sharpening the scythe edge. The boy has to turn the handle that turns the
stone. His great uncle steps in to relieve him. Mowing away means to

unload the hay in the barn loft. The lumbar of the hayrack rides on the hay
wagon floor.
When you write next, please give me more news about your wife and small
boy. What a wonder it is to have a child and how often the parents are too
busy to enjoy to the full their privilege. Sexual love followed by conception
followed by childbirth must be the chief, perhaps the only miracles, and yet
they are all explainable by interlinking natural laws.
Affectionate greetings to your tripartite family
Yrs.
Lyle Glazier

29.

January 28 82
My dear friend,
Thank you for the salutation, which removes a load of undeserved false
distinction. Among the waysin spite of your disclaimerthat young man
catches up with the an old oneis that as he masters his mtier, he
becomes the older mans peer; as he superlatively masters his mtier, he
can surpass his elder.

I enjoyed so much your open conversation about Bikku and Bulli. You know
that it is a great honor to have an Indian confide his wifes name. I recall my
thrilling astonishment when Pandeya invited me to his house, where, after he
and I lunched alone, he called his wife from the kitchen and made us known
to each other. That kind of distinction is prized because it can be conferred,
never merely earned. I like to believe that if I came to your house, you
would confer the same honor, and Bulli would be happy to have it so. And
that, as when I visited G. Nageswara Rao in Tirupathi, your son might climb
in my lap and win the heart of the visitor as Raos smallest son conferred
that pleasure.
It is not important that we meet again in the flesh. Our meeting through
letters is closer than many friends get.
I hope that indeed, as I triggered your doctorate, I may have triggered your
readership. I can partly conceive of your suffering at the hands of your
chairman, who is obviously a jealous man. For years at Buffalo, I felt the
animus of my chairman, after having for a half dozen years basked in the
affection of an earlier chairman who admired me. Survival requires holding a
job until we have another. This becomes more critical for a man with wife
and child. As Ben Jonson remarked, He who has a wife and child has given
hostages to fortune. Ive just had occasion to review my years from 1942 to
1947, at 31 years until 36, when we were living in Boston, and I taught at
Tufts University, then moved to Harvard for fulltime graduate work and
teaching freshman English. We brought with us a small daughter of 2, and
my wife during 5 years was pregnant three times, once ending in miscarriage
and twice brought to term, so that in Buffalo in fall 47, we had our full family
of three daughters. I had finished my Harvard courses, and my language
examinations in Latin, French, and German, but I had not passed my oral
examination till May 48, and didnt begin to write my dissertation till early
summer of 49, getting my degree in May 50. Looking back now in fiction
and poetry, I try to master those experiences.
I enclose a review of the poems of Genet, a result of considerable labor,
because as I read the two translations, I discovered that neither was getting
near the full import of the French text, so I had to make my own translation
in order to make a judgment. I have read several other reviews, all
ecstatically praising the translators, and I wonder if any of the reviewers
know French.
Cordially to all,

Lyle Glazier

Thank you for explaining eisonophillic, for me an unknown word, and even
more confiding the intimate context, a context I comprehend from situations
that were similar in their difference.

30.
December 9, 1982
My dear Singh,
I havent heard from you in a long time and fear that you are in a blue mood,
something that I understand very well from my own frequent melancholia.
You have been an active presence here during the visits of some poet
friends, who have admired your book on my poems. What you said is very
discerning.

I am trying to make a difficult decision. A young, and very intelligent scholar

in Buffalo, has been working for some time on what he calls a critical
biography drawn from my poems. Next year he intends to be on sabbatical
for the whole year. The rather famous Poetry Room in the library of the State
University of Buffalo has agreed to accept my books and papers for their
archives, so that they will be where this young mana good friend of the
curator of the collectioncan have access to them.
In some ways I am glad about this, because it means that my writings will
have a safe haven, but I do fear I will miss themand among them your
cherished thesiswhich has consoled me many times when my spirits have
been depressed. I have had your work prominently laid on a small console at
the door of my study, and many people notice it when they enter. Most of
the other books and papers have been set up on the third shelf of my
bookcase, conveniently at my elbow when I work at the typewriter. I can
reach from my chair and pull out whatever book or magazine or offprint I
need.
But if they go to Buffalo, I will be lacking them. For example, yesterday I was
preparing a group of 10 poems to enter in a contest for a chapbook, and I
could lean over to the shelf and find the magazine that had published the
poems.
On the other hand, at my age of 71, I must begin to think of a final resting
place for these papers. I may not have such a good chance again to place
them in a library. They could conceivably be burned someday to get them
out of the way. At the Poetry Room they will be cared for. I think I have made
my decision. I have taken them down and stacked them ready for putting
into boxes. There are many more of them than I thought. Standing up on the
shelf, they make nearly a yard of occupied shelfspace. The most recent is a
festschrift THE LAUREL BOUGH, published at S.V. University in honor of the
retiring chairman of the English department, who has become Vice
Chancellor. My contribution is the first passus of Langlands PIERS PLOWMAN
translated. Dr. Sarma was a Milton scholar, and the Middle English PIERS
PLOWMAN has a passage on the fall of Lucifer and his legions. One line in it
can be literally translated Nine days they fell, as in PARADISE LOST VI, 871,
so my translation could be a tribute to the Milton scholar.
That book of essays was published in Tirupathi in August. Also just come is a
review of James Baldwins last novel JUST ABOVE MY HEAD, printed in the
datalog of Giovannis Room Bookstore. And there are my this years poems in

ORIGIN and COUNTRY JOURNAL. If I send all this stuff I may have no
convenient copy of some of it.
You see the problem. When you receive an honor, it can turn into a hardship
as well. So, when you were invited to Birmingham, the invitation was an
honor, but you were lonely without your son and your wife, and the seminars
or lectures turned out to be of small merit. In your letter describing your visit
to England, what seems to have given you most pleasure was your stopover
in Amsterdam. Even there, you were thinking, How much happier for me if
my darling Bulli were with me.
Please forgive me if I have already sent you copies of the three lyrics, my
most recent publications, in a magazine called THE COUNTRY JOURNAL,
September, 1982, where the poetry editor is famousDonald Hall.
The Shanties (1916-1918)
1
West window looks to the river
beyond houses
strung on the valley road
east window looks to the mountain
We hear the drag of the saw
a long time before
we see the dustcloud
A team is unloading in the bay
Perry snags logs with a canthook
Maurice is sawing
Pop brings Mayflowers in April
swamp pinks in June
wild honeysuckle in July

2
Schoolnights early to bed
from the upper bunk
we boys hear voices
above the ping of horsehoes:
Keep your eyes on this one, Harry,
my ringer will slip

between the legs of your leaner

without touching a hair
3
Dead level
under apple boughs
April to June is muddy,
Mel & I carry lard pails
to the spring box,
the slope
spongy with bluets

A shanty is a one-room shack, like the one I lived in when I was 5, 6, 7.

A canthook is a pole with a hinged hook for catching hold of a log.
The bay is the area in a sawmill where logs are piled before sawing.
Horsehoes are used for playing quoits, throwing them at a stake. If one of
them surrounds the stake, it becomes a ringer, worth 5 points. If it leans
against the stake so that you can get three ringers between the top and the
ground, it becomes a leaner, worth 3 points. If a new player slips a ringer
between the legs of a leaner without knocking it down, he gets the sum of
the points, or 8.
The spring box is a wooden box set into the ground where there is a spring of
water gushing.
Bluets are tiny blue flowers with white centers. They grow in dense clusters,
very fragile, close to the ground.
Love to you three dear friends,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1983: 31- 35

31.
January 28, 1983
Dear R.K. Singh,
I have not done justice to your September letter in which you announce your
wifes second pregnancy, and now I have the January letter telling me that
Bulli and your son have gone to your mother in Patna, where they will stay till
the baby is born. I am not sure of your age, but these letters carry me back
to the 40s when we were having our children, and I was beginning my
graduate work, first at the Bread Loaf School of English in the summer of
1941, and then from 1942 to 1950 at Harvard, when I went up to teach at
Tufts College in Somerville (greater Boston) and was only five miles from
Cambridge, where I went to teach in 1945.
I was 29 years old in 1940 when Laura was born in Lewiston, Maine, where I
was teaching at a small college, and where Amy came after two years in
1939. We had planned not to have children till I finished paying my college
bills, which had remained unpaid, partly because from 1933when both of
my parents committed suicide (my father having lost his job in the
Depression) and from then on I had the care and support of my youngest
brother, 13 in 1933, who came then to live with me. He was with me for a
year in Middlebury, where I had stayed after graduation from college, and
was janitor of a community house. In 1934-5, he went with me to Northfield,
Massachusetts, where I was principal of a grammar school in my home town.
Then, in the fall of 1935, I went across the river to become housemaster in
Mount Hermon School for Boys, and Larry came with me and got tuition free
because I was a teacher. He remained there another year and I went to teach
at Bates College in Lewiston, then he went to Middlebury, where I helped pay
his tuition. He was drafted into the air force in 1942, and when he came
back from the Pacific war against Japan, he had saved most of his pay for 3
years (no place to spend it in the islands) and also had the G.I. Bill funds for
veterans to pay for his college.
I hadnt intended to go in to all that about Larry, but it had to do with our
marriage and feelings about the first baby, because it explains why we were

so determined not to have children for a few years. But in spite of the advice
of a pediatrician, Amys protection against pregnancy didnt work, and very
soon after our marriage she was pregnant. She was very unhappy about it,
and tried by pounding herself to abort, but fetuses are hard to dislodge. I
suppose I was grudgingly glad to know I would become a father. By 1943-4,
when Laura was 3/4 we were well enough settled in Boston to decide
consciously to have a second child and set out to have one. Susan was born
in April 1944. Three years later in Buffalo, where we had just moved from
Boston, and still 3 years before I got my degree, we had the third daughter
Alice. I was 29, 33, and 36 when our daughters were born, and 39 when I got
my degree.
In one way we differed from you. Amy did not go from home to her mothers
for any of the births, but remained always with me to the end. Even so, it
was before the days of father participation in childbirth, so I was firmly
excluded from seeing the child born or having to do with it till we got it
home.
I had had a good deal of experience helping with babies at home, and taking
care of small cousins, so as soon as the baby came home, I helped with its
care, able to do more because Amy never had milk enough to feed the child,
so it was put on formula from the start. I could even get up for night
feedings.
From all this you see why your last two letters about Bullis pregnancy were
especially interesting for me. Please, if you dont mind, tell me in your next
letter how old you are, and how old you were when your son was born. And
please, if you dont mind, instead of writing my son, always when writing to
me, mention his name. I want to have you print his name on my mind
through your letters, and your wifes name, and the name in timeof the
new baby. They must not remain abstract.
I read your three new poems with interest (996, 991, 990). In 991, did it
occur to you to say is within me? That would be simpler and more direct,
less poetic in the wrong sense of what poetry ought to be. #990 is
altogether perfect, very transparently simple and therefore profound. One
small thought: You could even leave out the word through in the second
line.
This moment
visits the dark
alleys of my body

as a guest sleeps

Beautiful, and the two lines about your son make exactly the right turn.
I work here in the basement study nearly every day and usually find
something to work on. I am still working on short stories, also working once
more on the novel, this time having decided to go back to the original six
chapters that I had with me when we met in New Delhi in 1974. This means
that the five chapters set in between each of the other pairs can be revised
as short stories. One of my friends, a professional editor for scholarly
criticism, has objected because, he says that I have tried to combine two
elements that wont coalesce. In his fieldSpanish literaturethere are
domestic novels (about family life, of course) and picaresque novels
(rebellious and neurotic), and I made the mistake, he said, of trying to
include both in one book. He could show me how to make two novels, two
successful novelsone domestic, one picaresque-- out of my one failure. I
tell him that the story of a married homosexual who truly loves his wife and
children, yet is driven by compulsive homosexuality, is exactly the
combination of domestic and picaresque, and I would rather fail with my
ground than succeed with his simplified texts. My hero engages in neurotic
homosexuality, then returns home to feed the baby and have sex with his
wife. Nobody, I think, has yet published such a novel, yet it doesnt mean
that there are no married homosexuals.
Yrs,
Lyle Glazier

32.

March 25 83
Dear R.K. Singh,
When your letter came, I went to the typewriter to answer, but something
interfered ( Ive forgotten what) and it is delayed far too long.
Your mothers death makes me think how inevitable death is for all of us. I
have been anticipating mine without grief in the thought. It is merely an
inevitable Passover as I think of itfrom life as a human being to life as
part of the larger world , no longer conscious of myself, but in the great
stream of nature. Perhaps I sent you my poem written when I thought about
my death:
Stopping in woods
Next year I
will drift with
snow on that
saddle beyond the
saphouse, it doesnt matter
who owns the woods

A saphouse is a house for boiling down sap from maple trees to make maple
syrup, the sweet syrup North American Indians taught Europeans how to
make. We have such a house in the pasture and behind it a woods with a
road winding through it, and along that road is a place where Mayflowers
grow in early spring. This is where Amy and I have instructed our family to

scatter our ashes after we have been cremated. There will be no burial rites,
but if sometimes later, the family wants to meet for a loving memorial
service, we are happy to tell them now that the thought pleases us.
The title of my poem comes from the title of a well known poem by Robert
Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:

Whose woods there are I think I know

his house is in the village, though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of myself to send Bulli at the moment,

but perhaps I will have one by the next letter.
By now I suppose you may have another son or daughter. I recall so well the
strain of childcarrying and childbirth when you are young and poor, as we
were when Laura was born. Amy had planned not to have a child till I was
through graduate school. Then we had Laura the first year, and Amy had to
stop teaching in order to bear her. It was difficult for Amy, but as for me I
was happy in a way to have a baby. All fathers, perhaps, are glad to know
they are fertile.
I think when you have the baby home with you, you will be happy to have
(him/her). Babies are so enchanting it they are well. They make us forget
our anxieties for ourselves and transfer the anxieties into love and planning
and hoping for the happier life for the baby. Bikku will like to have a young
brother or sister, if he is not jealous. Even if he is, he will learn. Jealousy is
natural for the first child when the second comes. Please tell me whether
Bikku is a formal name or a nickname. It sounds loving and intimate.
I cannot suggest a name for you. Ours are so different from yours. Our
youngest daughter Alice, changed her name to Alis when were in Turkey in
1961-2, because that was the way Turks spelled it, and with an accent on the
second syllable, where the British/American accent is on the first.
I like your two poems about the train moving until the thief steals the tracks,
and now that will it do? Also the one about the monkey with snakes in the
lining of his coat.
I will copy you one of my recent ones:

Saw River Bottom

Bare under overalls
my cousin and I
are skipping stones
in the shallows beyond the coalkiln.
You have a better
arm, your muscle is
better. Let me feel
your muscle.
The trick is the stone,
find a flat one,
lay it flat, it ought
to kiss the water.
Kiss, kiss, kiss.
Let the stone kiss
the water. Lookit,
like this.
Like this?
lips parted. Lookit.
My flat stone is skipping,
skipping

Affectionate greetings to you all.

Your friend
Lyle Glazier

33.

May 7
83
Dear R.K. Singh,
If there is a book on revising a thesis for publication, I dont know it. The
most important hurdle is to get a publisher to accept the script and to find
somebody to pay the bill, and you have achieved these goals.
Congratulations. I never was able to change my Spenser thesis enough to
get it published, though two chapters did get published, revised. My revisions
for those chapters involved absorbing as many footnotes as possible into the
text, and omitting some others that would not be needed by a general
reader. That is probably the chief change that can be madeto adapt a
scholarly book for a general audience. The bibliography at the end can
provide the scholarly look. I dont think that you will need to make major
changes. The object should probably be to make the book more readable,
less a compendium for scholars to consult. Not having had your success in
finding a publisher, I am not the one to advise you. A short time ago I
received from K.S. Misra his TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGLISH POETIC DRAMA,
Vikas, New Delhi, 1981. It is quite heavily footnoted, and I doubt if there
were many changes from thesis to book. If you are planning to omit one
chapter, you are already making a major change which may be sufficient to
persuade your publisher that you have done your publishing homework.
I have been reading about pirated publications in Indiahow some
publishers reprint foreign books changing only the name of the author. Does
much of that go on? K.S. Misra asked me to send him a script of my

unpublished GREAT DAY COMINGon Black American experience in books by

both Black and White authorsand I sent the script two years ago, but have
never heard it has been published. My script was accepted by a reader at
the Univ. of Massachusetts Press but then turned down by a faculty
committee as controversial, then at Yale University Press, it was liked by
the editor but turned down by a scholar, who felt it was publishable but not
at that time at Yale. Hacettepe University Press in Turkey would have
published it in 1971, but I never submitted it there.
So much for academese.
I loved your letter with all its talk about little Winny and Bikku and Bulli, and I
like to have your formal names, and your won nickname even if I never use
them. The story about Bikkus jealousy at the thought of a brother and
delight to have a sisterhow charming it is, and so humanly universal. I like
to hear about the children, about Bikkus starting to go to school. What a
cycle we families go through. I read about Bikku going to school and I
remember my first day in school, when I was five years old. At recess I
walked down the road with other children, feeling very grown up. When I
passed a small playmate, in his dooryard, not yet old enough to be a
scholar (our word for school children), I patted him on the head. One of
the older girls ran back and told the teacher that I had struck Kenneth Leach,
a I was afraid and ran over the hills toward the shanty (the loggers hut)
where we were then living while my father worked in a travelling sawmill.
One of the big Polish boys followed me and brought me back on his
shoulders. The teacher understood that the big girl was a tattler, and I was
not punished until I got home, where older brother Melvin (two years older)
who had not seen the incident but only heard the tale-bearer, told my
mother who told my father how cruel I had been to the little boy. When my
father came home, I was spanked even though I was crying already, I didnt
do it! I didnt do it! Melvin was jealous of me, the second boy, in the same
way Bikku would have been jealous of a little brother. Melvin would all my
childhood treat me like a slave. Last month I wrote a poem about it:
Baseball practice for Mel
from the time I was five
catching without a mitt
chasing wild pitches
down the dirt road
to the culvert
and expected, on the way back
to throw out my arm

I was Mels adoring slave until we went to Middlebury College as freshman

classmates and roommates in 1929. There we lived on the third floor in a
stone dormitory built in 1800. The shower was in the basement. If Mel forgot
to bring up his towel, he would say, Lyle, I left my shower towel downstairs,
and I would go get it. One day he said, Lyle, I left my towel downstairs. I
was studying and paid no attention. Lyle, my towel is still in the basement.
I didnt raise my eyes. Lyle, Ive already told you twice! I left my towel in the
basement! I dont recall what I said if I said anything, but at eighteen years
old that was my declaration of independence. Mel punished me for his
jealousy by making me his all too willing slave.
Your story about Winny at night She keeps us awake, for she wants
someone to talk tois exactly what we had with Alice, our third daughter,
who was born in Buffalo in 1947. We were living in a tiny house with two
small bedrooms, in one of which Laura (then 7) and Susan 3 slept. Alice had
to sleep in a crib crowded close to our bed and every night she would wake
after midnight and start talking and laughing and singing, until finally we
would get up and carry our bedclothes to the living room couch. After two
years, when I knew I had tenure, we bought a house in the suburbsa very
large house with an upstairs which had a large hall and four bedrooms one
for each daughter and one for us. It was a lovely place for children, an acre
of ground, with a good garden and flowers and trees, so different from the
shanty I lived in when a child and the rickety house we then moved into
though as for that, although we were poor and my clothes were ragged, we
lived in wonderful mountainous country, with troutstreams and a river a half
mile awaythe ideal world for a small boy. I was a good boy when I was
watched, and a hedonist when I was not. As for that, I am sure my mother
saw more than she mentioned, living by the rule, have em, love em, and
leave em be. She was a little woman, small enough to stand under my
shoulder:
Running home for lunch
crossing the little bridge
beyond Frank Howes
visualizing, on the rise,
Moms eyes at the windowjog
facing northeast along the barn door
so short shed be looking under
the double middle joint
between top bottom sashes

Im writing on back of a Xeroxed copy of a childhood poem, the Xerox made

so the inmates would have a copy when I gave a poetry workshop last month
at Franklin County Jail in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where Alice, that little
girl now 35 years old, is conducting classes to help inmates pass high school
equivalency examinations for high school diplomas. I was there on Good
Friday in April, and about 15 young men came to my workshop. I was
apprehensive, never before having read poems to prisoners, but they were
very well behaved, attentive and interested (asked good questions, as
intelligent as any good high school or college freshmen class). Of course,
they knew that if they misbehaved they would be locked in their cellblock.
Most of them were in jail for petty crimes like Driving while Drunk, or
possession of Marijuana, or perhaps violence in the family. All of them, Im
sure, thought they were guiltless and blamed society for arresting them.
Anti-Establishment, myself, I could identify with them more than they
realized.
Last week I drove two hundred miles to read from my new book AZUBAH NYE
at the Bellevue Press in Binghamton, New York, near the Pennsylvania line,
southwest of Albany. There I began with a first draft and a final draft of Saw
Mill River Bottom, that poem about skipping stones. It is supposed to be a
happy poem. The younger boy is admiring his older cousin. When he hears,
Kiss the water, he begins to come emotionally alive and thinks Kiss, kiss,
kiss as if reflecting Girls, girls, girls. I think something like that is happening.
You ask me to send the full poem Stopping in Woods You have it all. I
enclose the poetry postcard that was sent for an invitation to guests asked to
come to my reading.
I was much interested to read how your wife went home to her mother to
have the baby. So different from here. When Laura was born in 1940, we
were living in Lewiston, Maine, 300 miles from Amys home in Bennington,
Vermont. Amy went to the hospital in Lewiston on a hot day in mid July, and
there Laura was born in late night July 31. I brought them home after three
days, and after a week Amys mother came for a visit. Susan was born on
April 15, 1944 in the Boston Lying In Hospital, when I was teaching at
Harvard, and Alice was born on October 31 in Buffalo in mid afternoon. A
neighbor had come in to sit with Amy, and I had gone to my afternoon class.
Toward the end of the hour, the department secretary knocked on the door,
and whispered that I had a new daughter. I went to the blackboard and with
chalk wrote in tiny letters, too small for them to read, I have just become a

father. Then I collected my books and papers, and left, while behind me the
students gathered to read my message.
If the children were born today, I would be welcome in the delivery room,
invited to watch the birth. But thirty years ago, I was not welcome. In
Lewiston, in 1940, I was allowed to sit by Amys bed while she tried to drop
off to sleep. The nurse didnt think a father had a right to be there. She kept
coming in to check on me. Amy had just said, I think if only you would lie
on the edge of the bed and hold me, I could drop off to sleep, when the
nurse burst in like a hornet and ordered me off the bed and out of the room,
And I dont want to see your face again till after the baby is born! She
thought I had designs on my wife.
Affectionate greetings to you allyou, my friend & Bulli,
Bikku, & Winny
Lyle G

34.
June 29, 1983
My dear R.K. Singh:
Im sorry I got off my letter of June 24 before reading your SAVITRI: An
Overview and a Summing Up as it appeared THE CALL BEYOND. Your
Conclusion is so well written and such a good summary of Aurobindos
intentions and techniques (insofar as I comprehend them) that you make me

wonder why you need an occidental commentator to intrude with ill-digested

observations about a work, which, as you say, has brought to bear the
whole course of Vedic and Upanishadic mythology as well as the Eastern and
Western classical learning on the appreciation of its dense spiritual
texture.
Do you really comprehend how good that is, and how nearly impossible for
an American to do justice to it?
I have felt all along from my reading that your chapters are both descriptive
and informative, and that an Indian publisher ought to be alert to the
extraordinary merit of your thesis.
What you say about the plan of the epic, and its cogent execution is, in my
opinion, just right, and if what I am now saying can be of any service to you,
by all means make use of this letter.
All along, my criticism of Savitri has had to do with its poetic texture of
rhythm, imagery, and language, where, I feel, Aurobindo fails to persuade
me that he has mastered English idiom. Along with his effects of grandeur,
Milton (Aurobindos professed master) never forgotwhat he said in his essay
OF EDUCATION (written when he was 36) that poetry ought to be simple,
sensuous, and passionate. Those virtues are not SAVITRIs; yet, accepting
its dedication to the OVERMIND (or OVERHEAD), no one, I think, could do
fuller justice to the epic than you have.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier
Professor Emeritus (English)
State University of New York at Buffalo

35.

August 1, 1983

Dear R.K. Singh, my good friend,

Having received your letter of July 9, after you got mine of June 24, I waited
to hear whether the letter of June 29 reached you, because it was written
after I received the Conclusion of your book and wrote you how impressive I
found it. In that letter I hoped you would find an expression of admiration
that might help you negotiate with a publisher.
In many ways, your experience with SAVITRI matches mine with Spensers
FAERIE QUEENE. I needed a subject for a thesis, and had one started in
earlier papers on Spenser, andprompted by a remark of John Crowe
Ransom to get on with the doctorate no matter what you choose for a thesis
it doesnt matterjust get it over with so that you can have the degree
and go on to what you become interested in.
That is pretty much what happened to me. I had no sooner finished the
thesis and had a couple of articles from it published, than I got into American
Literature, and Spenser seemed a long way off. Furthermore, I had no
interest in writing any more about him, having exhausted what I had to say.
It was only years later that to my surprisemy thesis was rediscovered and
cited as a germinal study of Spensers treatment of the war between good
and evil for control over the human spirit in SOURCE AND MEANING IN
SPENSERS ALLEGORY by J.E. Hankins, Oxford U. Press, 1972.
With your interest in writing lyrics, I doubt if you will devote your scholarly
activities to becoming a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. I think you are too much
concerned with the day to day life in India to be diverted to that kind of elitist
propaganda for letting problems be solved by the Overhead. At the same
time, as a study of SAVITRI yours is excellent and deserves publication, and I
hope it will be published. What I tried to say in my last letter was that as
someone on the outside I could not pose as sharing the admiration for
Aurobindos poetics, that quite naturally in the course of your study, you
were indeed to promote. In the same way my chapter on Spensers
centripetal Imagery (published as an essay in Modern Language Quarterly
in Dec. 1955) is more flattering toward Spensers technique than I probably
could be today; it is something I would not even want to reconsider. And I
expect that you, too, having achieved a distinction with your thesis beyond
anything I achieved with mine, will someday look back on it as a stepping
stone toward achievements in other areas of research, and creative
expression. You would no more write a SAVITRI than I would write a FAERIE
QUEENE.

I am glad you included a lyric woodening housewhich I think is a good

sign, even though I dont think that this one is one your best, and I say that
realizing how, if you are like me, it is not easy to have some one say that the
last poem you written is not your best. I go through spells of weeks and
months when I hardly write anything worth salvaging, jotting down finger
exercises, hoping they may be better than I think they are. It is part of the
writing craft to turn out such practice pieces. But you have done much better
poems. The phrase tenebrous void is poetic in the worst sense. It doesnt
sound like something you would say to your wife or your friend, and poetry
has to come from the real language of talk between people. I think there is a
poem behind Woodening House that doesnt get written.
I doubt if you have suffered a great loss in not having Menke Katz for a
sponsor. Partly because I wished to do anything possible to support your
relationship with him, I sent him not a poem as a submission, but my book
TWO CONTINENTS, that I once sent you. In his note to me, he suggested
that we exchange publications, but I have not heard from him since, and
assume that he did not appreciate my kind of poetry. No more do I
appreciate his rather grandiose pose of being a seer or a Prophetic Voice. I
would have liked very much to have seen his poems about his childhood in
Lithuania if he had sent me a copy.

Recess
Scholars at Number Four schoolhouse
streaming into the road
scratching three lines in gravel
for pom pom pullaway
darting to cheat the jailor
faking to help a friend
big boys are last ones caught
At noontime boys gulp sandwiches
link hands, wheel in a line,
crack the whip on the endman
for ever thrown end
over end, girls
eat lunch with Miss Dalton
At half past twelve
everybody plays hide and seek
anybody hanging around my goal will be It!

Last minute activity behind outhouses

under brushpiles, on the top stairs
of the fire escape
Move over!
Find your own place!
Hes in there with a girl!
Miss Dalton rings the handbell
Gobble gobble in free!
Come on Frank, Elizabeth!
I know where you are!

Yours most cordially,

Lyle G

LETTERS: 1984: 36-39

36.
January 27, 1984
Dear R.K. Singh,
After several days delay and considerable thought, I decided to take your
suggestion to write Dr. V. Rai about my black literature manuscript. I would
have no objection, in fact would welcome it, if Dr Misra is able to have my
book published at Allied Publishers. My only frustration, as I told you, was
having so much time pass with no report on his negotiations. I am writing Dr.
Rai today telling him this. I would not do anything to interfere with a bona
fide offer for publication, if Misra is able to get one.
You had every right, after reading the last paragraph of my last letter, to
intercede in my behalf, yet on reflection, I realize that to withdraw the
manuscriptif Misra does succeed in getting a favorable receptionwould
cancel out my own effort to have the manuscript Xeroxed and sent to Misra
in the first place. If he can get a publisher for it, that is what I intended.
Please do not continue to press me to review your book. I will be happy to
have a copy if you send it, but I cannot review it. Reviewing is an art that
should be practiced from strength, and I have no strength as a reviewer. Nor
any prestige or claim to authority when it comes to judging Sri Aurobindo. I
realize this more and more as I read what you write about him.
I never had reviews for my books except rarelyone for ORCHARD PARK AND
ISTANBUL in the Buffalo newspaper, and another in a review at the
University; none at all for YOU TOO, VD, and THE DERVISHES; and two for
TWO CONTINENTS. None in influential publications. My feeling is that if
ever my work achieves sufficient substance to merit wide recognition, it may
get it. Or may not. There is a lot of luck in such matters. But my main job is
to promote my writing by writing. Let the reviews come as they may from
people who have enough interest to do the reviewing without prompting
from me. I have been surprised, always, and of course delighted to get

recognition, like your thesis, which came as a great surprise when I heard
what you were engaged in. I was flattered and pleased, but I would never
have suggested to Pandeya that he encourage one of his graduate students
to write a thesis on my poetry.
Speaking of Dr. Pandeya, you havent mentioned him in your letter. Was he
there when you visited Varanasi? The last you wrote me was disturbing, how
his students had repudiated him and his chairmanship was in danger of
being revoked. That seems such a miscarriage of justice, for from all that I
know of him, he is one of the best teachers and most thorough scholars I met
when I was in India. And I considered him my good friend. Yet, except for
your unhappy news, I have heard nothing from him in three years.
I continue to write anti-Reagan, and hope there is chance that he will not
succeed in being re-elected, but many Americans like him for his militarism,
believing that he is making the US strong and respected as a great Power.
After being an Independent for 50 years, I am now on the Bennington County
Democratic Committee, working to defeat Reagan, but I do not
underestimate his cleverness and the greed and skill of his cronies.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

37.

April 16, 1984

Dear R.K. Singh,
I have had a letter from your publisher that
two copies of your book are
being sent me. I will read them with interest, and if there is somewhere I can
review, I will. I have just renewed my subscription to BOSTON REVIEW,
thinking that perhaps that magazine would be interested in your work. I
have no doubt of the excellence of your interpretation. If the copies come by
overseas nonairmail it may be some time before I see them. It is a good
book. You must be happy at the thought of its being in print. I hope your
reviews will reflect your long and serious efforts, giving you the credit you
deserve. And, as I say, I will do what I can for you here.
As for your own reviewing, I think you are doing just right. You learn by
reviewing, particularly as a young scholar this is important. Only old fogeys
like me can reach a point where they can afford to be choosy, not wishing to
get up another new subject in order to review it. But in your case, I do feel
different, because, for one thing, you have been educating me on SAVITRI for
a long time, and took the trouble to send me a copy of the epic.
I become more and more disturbed at the thought of what may have
happened to Dr. Pandeya, an intelligent and humane scholar if ever I knew
one. I cannot comprehend what has happened. I do not ever hear from him
now, although I have written to him a number of times, only last February to
recommend a colleague of mine who was traveling from Buffalo to Banaras
to read poetry there. He wrote that he was unable to find Dr. Pandeya. Let
me ask you this. When I was at Sanaa University teaching American
literature, Dr. Pandeya attended my classes. I illustrated the American

imperical method of teaching, insisting that my students read the poems and
stories we were discussing. Every day I began with their criticisms before
branching out from what they said to what I myself had to say. Dr. Pandeya
seemed much struck with the method. Do you think there is a chance he
tried to introduce that method at BHU and his students revolted? I know
that in Turkey it was new for my students to have to read what was being
lectured on. I carried enough books so that everybody had a copy.
I am sure that at ISM you have the same problem scholars have all over
India, especially at the smaller institutions. There may be only one library in
all India, where, say all the novels of Thomas Hardy can be found. So the
director of a thesis, for example, may have to travel to that library if he
wishes to keep up with his student. Your choice of Aurobindo and of your
method proved to be excellent, because your chief resource was the epic
itself. Not that you didnt work hard to cover secondary research. But like
me, your interest was chiefly in your own first hand examination of a text. I
doubt if research of that kind will ever go out of style.
Yes, I am strongly anti-Reagan, for I think he believes that the rest of the
world ought to bow down and worship American business enterprise, and
that American ought chiefly to protect their own interests. He has no idea
that Hindus are people, or Moslems people, or Central Americans are people
in their own right, and deserving of their own privileges without the
assistance of US military force. Right now I am organizing supporters of Jesse
Jackson for our Vermont Caucus. Jackson is interested in people, people of all
ethnic backgrounds, all nationalities, rich and poor, particularly poor and
underprivileged. The US is not at the mercy of Republicans only.
Too
many Democrats support the upper class privileges. We are far from being
democracy except in our political structure, which has the trapping of
democracy without always having the spirit of sharing.
I always enjoy your poems, and enjoy the two in your last letter.
I understand #1941 without agreeing with it, except possibly with your
privilege of describing a particular homosexual couple, and understanding
that not all homosexual unions need be sterile. Though they will not have
children, homosexual lovers may be creative, as, for example, the union of
Walt Whitman and Peter Doyle was creative if it produced some of the
beautiful love poems of Whitman. I myself am critical of exclusive
homosexuals when they are only dilettantes, when they produce nothing.
But I would notas you domeasure them on whether they will get to

heaven. I have never yet read a description of Heaven (Christian, Moslem,

Buddhist, Hindu) that makes me want to go to such an exclusive, prestigious
gathering. I like better the thought of melting back into the soil and
becoming part of it.

What I remember
of the teenager
who seduced the
five year old
in the double bed
of the little chamber
at Grams
--eager,
and afterwards tyrannical
Dont you tell your Gram!
Was fear for himself only?
next spring
he was gone to his mother,
I spent hours
traveling roads
into woods
hoping to find anybody
anybody like him
ten years
until I was a teenager,
mind full of his phallos,
lept at the thought of him
readying for him

Lyle G

Yrs.

38.

July 5, 1984
Dear friend, R.K. Singh,
I apologize for not writing sooner. You cant imagine how busy Ive been. I
excused myself with the poor excuse that I had not received the copies of
your book promised in a letter from Prakash Book Depot, dated 3.4.84, and
returned to them for more postage. I begin to think they must have sent the
package by sea mail, and that can take forever.
I got involved in the Jesse Jackson campaign in the presidential election, and
finally became the author of a proposal by which Vermont became the first
state to grant him the delegates he has earned for the national convention at
San Francisco next week. Last summer Mondale and his supporters, knowing
they were the only candidate to have an organization in every state,
persuaded the Democratic National Rules Committee to pass a rule that a
candidate must receive at least 20% of the votes in a state primary in order
to win delegates to the national convention. I circulated a petition for a rules
change in Vermont, writing to every prominent democrat in the state, and
then making a speech at our state convention, resulting in our changing the
rule so that Jackson got 3 out of 17 delegates. A lot of other people worked
for it, so I dont deserve too much credit, but I am happy with the outcome of
my first year as a Party member, after 50 years of being an Independent. Its
not that I think Jackson should be President, he has given up hope for that,
but I want him to have firm support for influencing the Convention to a more

liberal stand on platform issues, and for his excursions into international
diplomacy. He is doing well. For the first time I begin to hope that there is a
chance Reagan can be defeated.
The second thing that has taken my time has been trying to work on my
poem AZUBAH NYE, which will now appear in ORIGIN magazine in early fall. I
will try to send you a copy. I gave a reading last June 21 at the little
schoolhouse in Massachusetts, where the events of the poem took place. All
my relatives were present as well as other friends I hadnt seen in 50 years.
Right now Im getting prepared to go back to teaching next fallto teach a
course in Richard Wright, the great Black American novelist, who spent his
last years in Paris. In organizing Bennington delegates for Jackson, I got
acquainted with students at a small college here, and learned that there
were no course sin Black authors at their school, and offered to give one,
and perhaps finish the book on Wright and Melville I started when I taught a
graduate course in those two authors in Buffalo in summer 1974.
On May 1, our youngest daughter Alis came back from Jamaica, West Indies,
where she had been teaching since December, and stayed with us while
preparing the introduction to her thesis on problems of teaching English to
Creole-speaking Jamaican children. On last Sunday she left to return for a
year.
Shes 35 years old, still very beautiful, intelligent, but lonely. She wants to
find a good man to marry. Men take advantage of her. Im afraid she will
take chances with one of the handsome dark skinned men who will make
trouble for her. You know, that dark skin does not trouble me, but poverty
can drive a man to take chances in order to get money from a woman, and
loneliness can make a good woman his prey. Neither at fault.
I was really pleased to have a copy of POETRY TIME with my translation of
Baudelaires invocation to the Reader for his book Les Fleurs du Mal. The
editor of a small magazine here has also written about his interest in having
these translations but I am happy to have the sign of an interest there, also.
It was a special pleasure to share space in the issue where your good poem
appeared, so that we are collaborators in the magazine.
By now your news in your April letter is so far back that you will have
covered it over with better news, I hope. It was painful to read how you had
to go through that arduous time of forced abortion. I hope that Bulli has fully
recovered, and that the children are both now in good health. I know what it

is to have an unexpected pregnancy, for besides out three daughters, Amy

carried one child to term (born dead) and another into several months before
miscarriage. Such things are difficult to endure.
This morning is the first I have had to begin to clear up a large backlog of
letters that have piled up since April. Yours is one of the first.
If your book does not arrive soon, I have thought of looking back over the
chapters you sent me to see whether there is enough there to furnish a clue.
I would rather see the whole, of course, before deciding whether I know
enough to review it.
Not one word from Dr. Pandeya. I fear he has suffered a great blow. I
respect him more than any other professor I met in India in the time I was
there (1970, 71). I cannot imagine what happened.
Cordial greetings,
Lyle Glazier

39.

August 30, 1984

Dear friend R.K. Singh,
After wracking my brains for a long time I have come up with a review of
sorts, thanks to your thesis, which for the first time made it possible for me
to follow the thread of the narrative and the theme. I am afraid that you will
find my review very simple and innocent of insights. I am not satisfied, but
rather surprised that I was able to get this much done.
I have sent a copy under separate cover, mailed this morning. As you will
see, I felt that Americans would need a double review of both the epic (and
the letters on the epic) and your thesis. I hope that you wont be
disappointed and that for you my admiration of your work will come through.
Yesterday I had an acceptance from a very good critic Donald Hall for the
Country Journal, which liked the lyric Sugaring off. Also Ive been invited
to State University of New York at Buffalo on October 2 to read my folk epic
(as I call it) Azubah Nye. They pay air flight & $200, not great but good.

Donald Halls magazine pays $50, enough for me to rent a car while in
Buffalo.
Please write me what you think about the review.
Yrs.
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1985: 40 41

40.
January 31, 1985

Dear R.K. Singh,

I am so glad to have your poems MY SILENCE. They seem as fresh and pure
as if I never saw them before. You give me far too much credit, for the
poems are fully yours. Even the title is in the poems, repeated several times.
I your friend Krishna Srinivas wrote a fine preface, and Im so glad he found a
way to incorporate my single sentence, which I had forgotten till I see it

again. How clever of somebody to have noticed that by rearranging it could

become a lyric. I am proud to appear on your back cover.
I have been silent so long because I wanted to send word that I have placed
my review of SAVITRI, but so far no such acceptance. I sent it first to
BOSTON REVIEW, from where it came back with a printed rejection, then to
AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW, where after two months it came back with a
generous letter that although they admired it, it seemed on final judgement
to be too specialized for them. It is now at U. Michigans JOURNAL OF
SOUTHEAST ASIAN LITERATURE, a suggestion of yours. It has been there
more than a month. Competition is fierce in the US; nothing moves fast.
By now you should have ORIGIN magazine Fifth Series #4, sent you at last 6
weeks ago airmail, with my narrative poem AZUBAH NYE (26 pages). There
are also 25 prefatory lyrics to the narrative, most of which have appeared in
earlier issues of ORIGIN, some in COUNTRY JOURNAL, one more in the
JOURNAL for March 85, arriving in yesterdays mail. A publisher/editor in
Brattleboro, Vermont40 miles from herehas written for permission to
print all these lyrics in a small booklet. The whole poemnarrative plus
lyricshas been sent at the suggestion of Cid Corman (editor of ORIGIN) to
his friend Allan Kornblum, publisher/editor of Coffee House Press, a very good
place. I wait for his decision.
Also a novel dealing with some of the material is being read by the publisher
of Millers River Press, with headquarters near the scene of action, the locality
where I grew up. And my short novel STILLS FROM A MOVING PICTURE is
being read by another publisher/editor, who is interested in it but not sure if
he can handle it.
Most of my time this past year was devoted to anti-Reagan campaign, and
lately to a Bennington squabble to get rid of a corrupt superintendent of
public schoolsmany letters to the BENNINGTON BANNER, and some very
bad feeling stirred up between those who attack and those who support the
superintendent, a lot of spent emotion, and I at the center of controversy,
which seems on the way of settlement, because just this week the man has
resigned as of June 30 next.
One more thing: It can remain a secret between us that the quotation from
your published thesis as quoted in K.S.s last paragraph, came from my
essay in STRAIT magazine. I spotted it when I first read the thesis.
Congratulations on your honorary title

Yrs. cordially,
Lyle Glazier

41.

May 8, 1985

Dear R.K. Singh:

Will write a short letter rather than wait for time to write a long one. Very
glad to have yours with your news, the last one from Vienna, where Amy and
I were for a week in early summer 1969. Im glad you can travel even to a
conference that does not wholly please you.

Thank you for several letters and all your news. Its so good to know you will
have a second book. Im happy for you.
My spring has been very busy. Teaching 4 tutorial students has taken time,
all four reading a different trackfeminist literature, classic novels of
American 19th century, Black authors, and Dantes INFERNO. The last,
especially has been a lot of work. I insisted on a bilingual edition with notes,
so that we could follow the Italian even though it is a language neither had
studied. But the prose translation close enough so that it was possible to
follow the original.
Thank you for finding a publication for my Baudelaire poem. I may have told
you that a publisher near here in Brattleboro will bring out my 25 prefatory
lyrics to AZUBAH NYE next January. Then I will hope to have a publisher for
the whole book, the narrative and the preface. Also, I go to Greenfield,
Massachusetts next week for a conference with another publisher who would
like to bring out my novel SUMMER WITH JOEY on the summer of an eleven
year old boy, 1920. I am not sure he can find funding.

Letter
Li Wang Chen to a Widow
Let us comfort
each other. I
believe you: My
husband would not
let me touch him,
I would lie awake
wanting to touch him.
Please write me.
My dear,
ten years ago
my wife dole me
Thats enough,
time to put
a stop to it.
How could I tell her
I cried because
I am grateful? Since,
all night I
lie wanting her
to touch me, I

lock the door like

a boy hiding what
he does from
his mother.
Write soon.

Best wishes to all.

I do hope that your many publications will soon help you find a university
more to your liking.
Yrs.
Lyle G.

LETTERS: 1986: 42 43

42.
April 7, 1986

Dear friend Singh,

Your letter of December 16 contained much of especial interest. At that time
you had no definite word from Nigeria but were having misgivings about the
advisibility of going there. As I wrote you, my Bennington friends spent two
years there in an outlying bush school and were miserable and came back no
richer than when they went. Furthermore, they were able to beg funding for
coming back only by pretending it would be a furlough, after which they
would return.
I deeply sympathize with your anti-Establishment attitude. I feel that the
Reagan administration is moving us faster and faster toward a world split
between Rich and Poor even more than in the past, and that to safeguard his
friends he has risked a military buildup that guarantees anti-Americanism
throughout the world, and will likely bring on the World War we have all been
fearing.
To write poetry has become a luxury that I can hardly afford. For two years,
Ive devoted most of my energies to exposing our Bennington grassroots
corruption. At my own expense I printed a 60-page booklet BENNINGTON
POLITICS AND THE SCHOOLS bringing the story up to December 7, 1985,
and this week will come out a 10page postscript. I sell the books at cost
through a local bookstore. Even so, I dont get back all I put in.
I enclose a Xerox of a letter from Raaj Prakashan that reached me in
February. Though I wrote back asking for a copy of my book, Ive not got
one. I was supposed to have gone to North Yemen this month to sit on a
committee for their first graduate school candidates in English, but I had to
withdraw my acceptance of their invitation when Amy had three slight
strokes beginning December 7. I would not wish to be away from her so
long.
If you know anything about Raaj Prakashan, and have any way of finding out
whether my book is actually issued, Id be grateful for information.
Our youngest daughter now in Jamaica, West Indies, has just married a
Jamaican (very black, she tells us). We have not seen him. She is having
trouble now persuading the American Embassy to issue a permit for him to
enter the U.S. He would like to become a citizen.
Our April weather has turned cold again after two weeks of summer weather.
Now we are back in March. Yesterday a blanket of snow. The birds coming
north were baffled. I threw out handfuls of corn.

I hope to have your news.

Your friend,
Lyle Glazier

43.
August 12, 1986
Dear friend R.K. Singh,

Your letter of April 21 has been reread and often in my mind. The two
photographs of your children and you and your wife are scotchtaped on my
study wall where I can always see them as I sit at my typewriter. I wish I
could have you for a visitor. After all my years of travel, I sit now here and
travel sometimes in my mind, or my dreamsas last night I was back in
Instanbul visiting friends, and for some reason making an elaborate play for
them to have a memorial dinner for me after I left to come home. Why
would I dream that? Has it become time to dream of memorials? I hope I
have some time left for traveling in my mind. As Thoreau said about his life a
hundred miles east of here, I do most of my traveling in Concord. I do
most of my traveling in Bennington, particularly the past two years when I
have devoted so much energy to the local scandal, which is a small capsule
condensation of the political scandals throughout the world. President
Reagan has had too much influence. I suppose he thinks of himself as a
Messiah sent to deliver the world from Communism. His deliverance is
terrorism, both domestic and foreign, for he has changed the United States
from a upward mobility society to a society where the masses of people are
worse and worse off. He has no sympathy for farmers who lose their farms
that have been in the family for years, for steel workers whose jobs are lost
because the owners want money more than production and merge with
some company making computers or farm out the raw ore to companies in
Asia, where common labor can be hired for $.50 an hour, instead of the $12
to $14 that our steelmakers used to enjoy. He has destroyed the labor
unions beyond the havoc they wreaked on themselves with their bosses who
became mobsters. And of all this Bennington is a microcosm.
My criticism has not been written without priceboth the effort required for
holding in my mind all the small events and going back to what happened
two years ago in order to comprehend what happened yesterday,-- both that
effort and the tension that comes from knowing that several times there has
been an effort to trap me. Enough people know about my bisexualism so
that there were two or perhaps three elaborate attempts to catch me in an
incriminating situation that could have been flaunted in the BANNER: Lyle
Glazier arrested at the corner of Bradford Extension and County Road and
accused of offering to commit an obscene act. There would have been no
chance for establishing innocence. By the time the case reached out, trial by
newspaper would have persuaded most readers of my guilt. Each time I saw
there the plot and outwitted it.
I sympathize with your desperation over being sentenced to teach there is
Dhanbad. I wish you could have some of the freedom I had from traveling to

Turkey and India and Yemen. I doubt if you are more miserable than I was for
years at Buffalo.
Meanwhile your children are growing up. They do. Mine, all three girls were
here two weeks ago. They are now 46 (Laura), 42 (Susan) and 39 (Alice).
Laura couldnt make a living from music, and is a computer programmer for
the Federal Reserve Bank on Wall Street, feeling herself a drone in one of
those heartless corporations. Susan, married, has a farm in the country, and
looms for weaving. Alis is an assistant next year in the Education
Department of the U. Massachusetts, trying to find work for her new
Jamaican husband, a shy man, gentle. They will be visiting us Saturday and
Sunday.
Over for a letter from a publisher about my novel SUMMER FOR JOEY.
All best wishes,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1987: 44 48

44.

August 22, 1987

Dear friend R.K. Singh,

I am glad to have your letter with the news that you got my novel SUMMER
FOR JOEY and that word has come of a review copy of GREAT DAY COMING
having been sent you.
My publisher made the mistake, against my instructions, to send your copy
of the novel by slow mail when I had specified airmail. Im sorry it was
delayed.
About GREAT DAY COMING, I cannot say much about the book until I have a
copy in hand. There have been so many delays. Please send my thanks to
your friend and publisher for his care in speeding the process by his frequent
phone calls.
I cannot at this time mail you an article. I would like, if you think it
appropriate, in due time, to write a short essay on GREAT DAY COMING as
historical criticism, written at the height of our civil rights militancy and
reflecting optimism that at that time there was a chance that we would have
a true revolution for Blacks and that such a turnabout might be an influence
on the entire social/economic structure of the US, promoting sympathy for
underprivileged minorities. But the aftermath of the rebellion has led, if
anything, to backlash and digging in to entrench reactionary pogroms. This
is shown by both Nixon and Reagan administrations, both moving toward
dictatorship by the corporate/Military bodies that use government for
beachheads.

My book, if it has merit, gets its force from being something reflecting the
hopefulness of a ferment for change that led to even greater repression, not
only against Blacks but against minorities in general and against the whole
laboring force, including the lower middle class Whites who have lost their
status and, with their children, are being pushed down and exploited for
greater profits for corporations and politicians and leisure-class investors in
stocks and bonds. I see little hope for improvement and could not today
muster the hope-for-the-future that sparked that book. What I am saying
you will not hear from the American diplomatic family in India, which has
always used its power to persuade foreign governments and citizens that the
US is much more democratic than it is. My lectures in India during my US
tour in summer 1971 were against the falsehoods being promoted by the
USIS that paid for my tour, expecting me to say what they wanted me to
say, as so many US lecturers abroad are glad to do in order to enjoy the
money and power that comes from their toeing the US party line.
I look forward to reading anything you write on either book.
Yrs.
Lyle G

45.

September 15,
1987
Dear friend Singh,
I have in succession your two letters of August 18 and September 2. No
copy of the book has yet reached me. I cant tell whether my whole text was
printed and whether the original preface and the 1981 Foreword are both
there.
I am glad you approve of my thesis. I trust it is clear that it is not simply my
idea but an idea drawn from the documents I have reviewed, and
legitimately so. The date of writing (1968-9) was during the Civil Rights
rebellion for Blacks. I had just returned to Buffalo from teaching during the
summer at Miles College, a Black college on the outskirts of Birmingham,
Alabama. The program was established by John Monro, former dean of
students at Harvard, who left the University and moved to Miles College, to
set up a course of studies that could help Black students overcome the
handicap caused by their having attended inferior separate but equal
elementary schools established by White folks for Blacks.
As I read and studied with those students, there was no doubt of their
intelligence and sensitivity and initiative. They were students of promise
who had suffered from schools that denied fulfillment of their potential.
Monros aim was to help overcome this handicap.
Back in Buffalo for the school year 1967-8, I started reading the books
mentioned in GREAT DAY COMING with a class of high school teachers in
downtown Buffalo, where a majority of students were Black. My class was
made up of both White teachers and Blacks. At first the Whites dominated
class discussion, as they always had, but at a certain point the Blacks woke
up to the fact that the material in this course was themselves and their

history, and they began to speak out. I learned from them, and so did their
colleagues, the White teachers. I had intended a one-semester class, but at
the end of the semester they asked to go on with more readings. Their
ideas, more than mine, dictated what I put into my book.
I cant write an article on Black literature since 1968. I visited Turkey and
India in 1968 through 1971, first as Fulbright professor at Hacettepe
University (1968-9), then as visiting professor there in spring terms 1970 and
1971, at which time I spent the month of May each year teaching American
literature to teachers from different campuses of the University of Madras.
During the fall terms, I returned to Buffalo and taught Black Literature at
SUNY-Buffalo, from where I retired in June 1972, at which time my wife and I
moved to Bennington, Vermont, my wifes birthplace. Since then Ive not
kept up with Black Literature but have devoted myself to writing fiction and
poetry and local politics.
You notice that in this letter I use the descriptive word Black and not
Negro, whereas in my book the word is more often Negro. I wrote my
book just at the watershed when Negro became offensive to Black
Americans because it conveyed to them all the demeaning connotations of
White supremacy concentrated in the epithet White people had coined. To
the extent that I have used Negro in my book, the language is obsolete,
and is bound to offend US Black readers. I am sorry for this but when I
learned of the possibility that the book would be published in India, I did not
wish at such a distance to undertake revising the vocabulary.
My dear friend, if you believe that any of the above paragraphs shed light on
my book, you have my permission to print them in any article, or as another
foreword to your review.
I welcome the thought of your reviewing my novel SUMMER FOR JOEY, which
continues to sell well. I have given many readings and continue.
I believe I sent you a copy of my book of poems RECALLS (Winter, 1986, Bob
and Susan Arnold, Green River, Vermont).
This is a limited edition for poets and libraries, and if you wish you have my
permission to reprint, mentioning indebtedness to the Arnolds. The lyrics in
this book are a preface for my narrative poem AZUBAH NYE (on my
grandfathers great grandmother and on family history). Azubah Nye was
featured in Cid Cormans ORIGIN magazine, Fifth Series #4, Fall 1984. Both
the narrative poem and the lyrics will be printed together for the first time by

White Pine Press, Dennis Maloney, Editor, Fredonia, New York, scheduled for
Fall 1988.
I enclose an editorial from the BANNER, summarizing the editors thought on
the present condition of American Blacks.
Also an announcement of my appointment to a Selectmens commission, my
first official recognition by the Bennington political establishment. This will
keep me busy for the next 15 months, till December 1988.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

46.
October 10,
1987
Dear friend Singh,
It is impossible for me to write for you an essay on recent Black literature, for
since 1968-9 when I wrote GREAT DAY COMING, I have gone on to different
work. It will be up to young Black authors to write the sort of essay you have
in mind. My student Dr. Jerome E. Thornton of Afro-American Institute at
State University of New York at Albany is now engaged in that sort of writing,
and inside the Black experience, as I could not be, he will achieve immensely
more valuable results than my novice book of nearly two decades ago.
In 1985, I did rewrite some fragments of GREAT DAY COMING, bringing them
more up to date, and under second cover I am mailing you a piece on Zora
Neale Hurston revising that essay in the book. You are welcome to use it.
I enclose also the poems called RECALLS. If you use them, I hope you will
acknowledge indebtedness to prior publication by LONGHOUSE (Bob Arnold,
Editor, Green River, Vermont) in a limited edition for poets and libraries.
These prefatory lyrics to my three-part narrative AZUBAH NYE are scheduled
for publication along with the narrative: Dennis Maloney, White Pine Press,
Fredonia, New York, September 1988.

If anything, I am flattered that my New Delhi publisher thinks I am Black, for

my interpretation coincides with the new evaluations now being made by
Jerome Thornton, and by the recent best-selling novel BELOVED by Toni
Morrison, who is vividly recapturing the spirit of books by Jean Tommer, Zora
Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka that proclaimed that Black writers should
not be persuaded to meld into White society as tokens but should continue
the struggle of Black folk to remain true to their heritage, and in so doing
(incidentally) they might perhaps redeem US materialistic society and
contribute to our achieving true Democracy.
As you asked, I am sending Teresinka Pereira $15 in your name for your entry
in her Directory.
Your many activities reflect a mind and spirit intensely alive.
Congratulations on your ability to flourish creatively even in the sterile
atmosphere where you dwell.
Yours,
Lyle G

47.
October 19, 1987
Dear friend Singh,
I have your remarkable review. Only two suggestions for you to consider. (1) I
meant not to be quite so hard on Dr. King, whose nonviolent direct action
was meant to bring out the covert violence in White society, so in his way he
was strong against the White supremacists, who hated him and made him
pay. In a sense he used the Christian middle class ethic to attack the
materialistic emphasis of White Christians who wanted both money and the
name of piety. (2) Your interpretation of my last chapter misses the irony.
The only ones who love a ghetto are money changers who profit from it.
Those who live there do not love it no matter how hard they struggle to make
a haven of love inside a nest of exploitation by moneychangers. The seeds
that are sucked up into the network of skyscrapers are the lifeblood of the
ghetto inhabitants who are being made to expend heart and soul (and the
blood of their children) for profit of landlords.

Otherwise your article is superb. I like very much, too, the way you put your
finger on the pulsebeat where my novel and Black literature book cross
fibers. Ive had seven or eight published review of SUMMER FOR JOEY, all of
them flattering, but nobody but you has pointed out the irony of the incident
where the boy watches in horrified glee as the darkies teeth are crammed
down his throat. That is good reading and good reporting on your part, and I
thank you.
Unfortunately, I sent the letter to the DIRECTORY CHECK ENCLOSED as soon
as I got your earlier letter. I hope they go through on granting you the
recognition they promised you.
I learn so late, also, that the price of GREAT DAY COMING probably exceeds
the amount in my check. Can you possibly get your Delhi friend to ask the
publisher if he can have a copy to mail me airmail if you will pay the postage
out of that fifteen dollars. I know nothing about the marketing arrangements
made for the book. Does somebody get paid for writing it or delivering it to
the publisher? I get nothing. Arrangements were made and then I was
informed. So it does seem that at least I should get a copy.
Hope my article on Zora Neale Hurston is worth something for you as worth
considering for your magazine. It shows how without changing major
promises, I would, if I were writing the book today, change details of my
criticism.
Yours,
Lyle

48.

November 21, 1987

Dear friend Singh,
I have your letter of Nov 9.

I did not submit my manuscript to RAAJ PRAKASHAN. It was submitted with

my permission by Dr. K S Misra, but I did not know where until I was
informed. I am happy to see the book in print.
The enclosed article from BENNINGTON BANNER will tell you a bit more about
my part in the publication.
I am glad to know that you intend to publish the article on Zora Neale
Hurston which will show one example of how the book might be revised
today, if I were to take on the task of revision as I do not intend to do. Since I
wrote the book in 1968-9, a wealth of books by Black authors have flooded
the US market. After retirement from Buffalo in 1972, I have been chiefly
engaged in writing fiction and poetry or engaging in politics in Bennington.
At my age, I have no reason to go back and catch up with what has
happened in a cultural phenomenon that was for a short time my concern.
This does not mean that I am no longer interested in the failure of US society
to accept Blacks into full partnership. As a writer, whether of poetry, fiction,
literary criticism, or Black experience, I have been most concerned with
looking at US society, its people and politics, to determine and record
scholarly or lyrical impressions of our failures and successes in realizing the
ideals announced in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,
and repeated in such documents as Lincolns Gettysburg Addressfor all the
people and from all the people, a government guaranteeing life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.
How far we fall short! How, in spite of discouragements, we should continue
the struggle!

Yours,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1988: 49

49.
January 3, 1988

Dear Friend Singh,

Thank you for your letter of Dec. 12.
The BANNER doesnt publish reviews these days, especially reviews of books
by local authors. Six months ago I called to ask if they would look at a
review by a Vermont poet who is quite well known, and the editor wouldnt
even consider it. My book never had an official BANNER review but did get a
good one by a librarian reporting on new books at Bennington Free Library.
Even though Reagan is on the way out, his policies are still active. It will take
years to pay back the deficit caused by his military buildup, and there has
been so much progress on his Star Wars initiativeso many contracts have
been let to corporations all over the US that it will be hard to ease offtoo
many jobs would be lost, too many executives already counting on that
money, too much research in progress at universities.
My book of poems AZUBAH NYE and its prefatory lyrics will be published by a
small press next April, and Im invited to read by an important cultural group
the Charles Burchfield (hes a Buffalo painter) Society in Buffalo on April
17. Youve probably seen both the narrative as it appeared in ORIGIN
magazine, and the lyrics I think I sent you not long ago.
My political life keeps me on edge and very active. Ill be glad when the
charter for Bennington has been reviewed, revised, and released to the
Selectmen for their approval and the approval of the voters.
Christmas was both difficult and lucky for us; our second daughter Susan had
surgery the morning of the 25, early, for a tubular pregnancythe egg and
sperm having met in the tube rather than in the womb. It was a narrow
escape for her. We are grateful to have her back home and recovering.
Yrs.
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1989: 50 53

50.

January 21, 1989

Dear friend Singh,
Thank you for your Christmas greeting, with good wishes for me and my
family. I saw all three daughterstraveling by train to Ohio to visit Alis, the
youngest and her husband, where she is for the first time teaching in a small
college; stopping over in New York to visit Laura (the eldest) and her
husband; and Susan (the middle one) and her husband drove here to see me
and Olive, Amys sister, who is living now at the farmhouse just down the
road from my house. We meet every evening for dinner, then watch the
news on TV and play a few hands of pitch. I am still busy on the political
committee to rewrite the charter of Bennington. My papers including your
important letters will be sent to the Poetry/Rare Books archives at the State
University of Buffalo to become part of my record. For me it has been a
rewarding experience to have known you over the years during which life has
changed much for us both.

Yrs.
Lyle G.

51.

February 20, 1989

Dear Friend Singh,
Thank you for publishing my Hurston article in Creative Forum. I am glad to
see it in print in your magazine. Dr. Thornton has telephoned from Albany to
express his pleasure, also. You went to a lot of trouble for us.
I am much better now than I was and hope to be traveling to see friends as
soon as our cold weather is over. I look out across frozen wetlands to
mountains not yet leafed out; they are called the Green Mountains and will in
a few months be as green as their name.
I am lucky to have my wifes sister living in the next house down the road
from me, in the great farmhouse where the two sisters were born. Olive,
Amys sister, is two years older than I. We have dinner together every night,
either at my house or at hers. Old people alone dont take as good care of
themselves as old people who have somebody else to be with. Our evenings
together are good for us both.
My good wishes to you and your family.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

52.

July 21, 1989

Dear friend Singh,
I am so glad to hear from you, and thank you for the offprints, mine and Jerry
Thorntons poems. It is good to know that CREATIVE FORUM still flourishes. I
once wrote a book, never published (1960-61) CHAOS AND FORM. Your title
rings for me a similar nuance.
I am finally free from Bennington politics, happily because in the end, the
chapter for the town reflects some of my thoughts: the Preamble: The
people of Bennington reaffirm faith in government of the people, by the
people, for the people, and describe this faith in a charter with provision to
review and amend; The charter of Bennington reflects concern to improve
the quality of life for all residents within limits taxpayers can afford.
This would be only a public relations gambit unless the charter itself reflects
the same commitment. It left the Commission with certain provisions that will
have to be revised by the Selectmen, who seem to be adopting my
suggestions for changes that will place the emphasis on serving all the
people, rich and poor, instead of as US government has been drifting,
nurturing chiefly the welfare of the well-to-do.
I have an invitation to write another series of poems and have started a
work-in-progress called for the moment Poetry is concealment, the first
line from VD #6.
Your friend,
Lyle Glazier

53.

December 29, 1989

Dear friend Singh,
Your August letter has been here on my table, waiting this long. I had a busy
September and October traveling to different places to read my poem
AZUBAH NYE. Not much energy left after preparing for the trips. I enjoy the
actual reading, but the prospectlooking ahead to ithas been taxing. I am
glad that is over.
I planned to be in Washington DC this week at the Modern Language
Association annual meeting, but a bad throat Tuesday night kept me from
going. Now I think I will travel to New York City for overnight tomorrow to
have New Years Eve dinner with my oldest daughter Laura and Roy. My
youngest Alis and Gerry were here for Christmas.
I am supposed to be writing a new book of poems, but dont get on with it. I
am glad as always to read your poems and know you are active and getting
favorable reviews.
Like you, I have news of close friends dying. I lost two very close friends
one in August, one in November. I could not get to Buffalo for the memorial
service for one, the otheronly 50 miles from hereI attended. Both
women, both dear.
My friend and young colleague at SUNY-Buffalo will be traveling throughout
India lecturing on American Literature sometime this spring. I enclose
Howard Wolfs itinerary, and perhaps you can find out from Delhi when he
will come to Banaras if you can manage to go hear him. He asks me to
inform my friends, so someone friendly will greet him, but you are the only
one who still corresponds with me from those days when we met in Banaras
& Delhi.
I send you best wishes for the New Year, and for your wife and children, who,
I realize, are getting less small every year.
Yours,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1990: 54

54.

August 9, 1990
Dear friend Singh,
Your letter with its enclosed article and interview gave me great pleasure. I
cannot tell you how pleased I am to have you trace back to me the
beginnings of your discovery of your own voice in poetry. It is the moment
when we find our own way of speaking when we are truly born as a poet. You
were well on your way before you read my poems, but I can now believe I
helped point you in your definitive direction. For an old man to hear this
from a young man is the highest tribute.
I have spent more than a year writing a poem that is too personal to be
published. Maybe it will be discovered from my papers and printed after my
death. Except for that I have in the offing only a small book of poems you
have already seen. I have asked the publisherCOFFEE HOUSE PRESSto
send you a copy.
Young people inside old
people crying to be
uncaged
With my friendship,
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1992 : 55

55.

January 10, 1992

My dear R.K. Singh,

Congratulations on your becoming Head of the Department of Humanities &
Social Sciences. I suppose it means responsibilities and nuisance chores,
especially committees. I was chairman of American Studies at the University
of Buffalo from 1952 to 1963, a department I created. It did well until the
English Department got jealous. I resigned in June 1963, when I came back
from two years of Chairman of American Studies at the University of
Istanbul. They wanted me to stay there for ever. Looking back, it seems
only a short time between 1963 and 1968 when I returned to Turkey, this
time as Fulbright Lecturer at Hacettepe in Ankara. From there I came to
India in 1970 (May) to teach American Literature to teachers at the
University of Madras, who were planning to teach American literature for the
first time. At the end of the month I went to Srinagar for an all-Asia
conference on American literature with representatives form all over Asia. I
was the representative from Hacettepe. It was there I met Pandeya (who
told me to call him Shiva), I saw him again in August 1971, when I traveled
all over India lecturing, and it was in that visit that I met you in New Delhi.
Our long friendship followed. I have been lucky to have you as my link to
India, and many friends I made there, of whom you are the last from whom I
have letters.
You are kind to send me pp. 69 & 70 of Creative Forum. For me a surprise
and a pleasure to see togetherseparate from the other lyrics printed with
themthose 6 from RECALLS. I enclose for you my latest SEARCHING

FORAMY published only a month agoand another chapbook printing some

of the other Prefatory lyrics. I am sure I sent you my longer book AZUBAH
NYE, where all the prefatory lyrics appeared, those once printed in RECALLS.
Bob & Sue Arnold, printers of RECALLS, also printed SEARCHING FOR AMY.
You will see that I am still plunging into the same mysteries of the human
psyche.
I am now 80, and very unhappy over the state of the worlds political
confusion. The United States seems falling apart, and the last society that
should set itself up for an example for the rest of the world to emulate.
I myself am lucky. I live in a beauty spot looking out over fields I love on the
farm where my wife Amy was born. The farmland is about to be sold to the
farmer who has been tilling the land twenty-five years since the death of
Amys father. Amys sister Olive, who kept the farm, died last year
(November, 1990), and my oldest daughter Laura and her Jamaican husband
Roald Reid, she 51 & he 64, have come to live in the farmhouse down the
road from me. I am teaching them to drive an automobile, because it is
impossible to live here 4 miles from Bennington without having a car to go to
market.
With best wishes from your friend
Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 1993: 56--58

56.
May 26, 1993
My dear Singh,
I am glad to have your letter. I missed having news of your family. Your
children must be teenagers, at least the oldest of them. How many do you
have?
.
.
Since my wife died in 1987, my sister-in-law, a widow and former
distinguished teacher (President of the International Reading Association)
came to live in the farmhouse, and died there of a stroke two years ago. We
took care of each other. I live by myself with 2 cats, continuing to write,
deeply involved in local politics, a career I have just put a stop to in order, I
hope, to get back to writing confessional poetry, fiction, and autobiography.
I was grateful for your effort to have me included in a British-published
Dictionary of International Biography, buthaving twenty years ago retired
from professional academic life, I did not choose to become listed, even
though appreciative of your effort.
A few of my poems, set to music by a Bennington composer were performed
recently. Also I have a short piece of fiction coming out soon in a book called

VERMONT VOICES, nothing important. I have been working on a 5-part book

of poems called SEARCHING FOR AMY, three of whose parts have been
printed.
Perhaps I have written so much about myself because I have been puzzled
how to give you any useful advice on your proposed book on the forms and
processes of anger. There is a lot of anger including irony, sarcasm, and
direct attackin my writing against Elitism in American Politics, but I have no
idea how to help you, beyond saying that I think the topic is a fine one & it
seems to me your letter to me shows you are organizing a number of subject
matter and stylistic categories that can provide useful focuses for collecting
examples. I would think that the business of collecting around such headings
would lead to further classifications. All I can advise is to start somewhere,
begin to collect material, and see where the topic takes you.
I cant refer you to any book or article that deals with this subject, but that
doesnt mean there may not be several or many. Satirists like Pope and Swift
might well have inspired critics to document their devices and satirical
categories. The Middle Ages was rich in curses. From what you write, I
assume you are aiming at contemporary writers of Indian English. I am
sure you are already far ahead of any random suggestions I can take off the
top of my head. In British Literature, the writings of Chaucer, Ben Jonson, the
later Byron, Oscar Wilde are rich in satire. In Ireland, Shaw, Joyce, Becket. In
America, Melville and Mark Twain. Far afield from your intended emphasis in
Indian writers, I stray and do not help you.
I have recently passed my eight-second birthday. I think of next fall taking a
course in computer word processing because it is no longer possible here to
buy good typewriter ribbons.
I think of writing an autobiographical memoir on a title taken from a Melville
letter to Hawthorne after he had finished MOBY DICK: I have written a
wicked book, and feel as spotless as the lamb.
Saturday, three days from now, I plan to drive to Middlebury for the 60th
reunion of my college class. After that, I hope to lead a quiet life, divorced
from local politics, and devoted to taking care of my house and plot of land,
and getting back to my own writing.
I think of you often and am very happy to have had your letter.

Your friend,
Lyle Glazier

57.
July 8, 1993
Dear friend Singh,
Has it indeed been more than 20 years we have been writing to each other,
since you began to write your MA thesis on my poems? You and my other
Indian friend Dr. Shiva Pandeya (who told me to address him as Shiva, and he
would address me as Lyle) have been in my thoughts so much, and now
Shiva is dead, who invited me to Sanaa, North Yemen, to teach, and
suddenly you gave me word he has gone.
I am so glad you wrote me your personal letter with news of Bikku (Vikram)
now 13 as I find it almost impossible to believe, and your little (as I
think) daughter Winny has by some magic sleight of hand of passing Time
become a young lady of 10. I have always prized news of your family.
What you say about your wife: Ever since I married (1978) I have not been
able to sleep in peace without my wife beside how that rings true. Amy
and I slept naked in that close confidential intimacy of the double bed (the
great boon to marriage). I think of my older friend Ben Amidon, who once

visited Amy and me in Buffalo, and talking about his wife Julia, dead 10
years, remarked, I still wake in the night and reach for her.
I enclose Part II of a poem I am writing. Have I sent any of it before? Part I
and V have been published by small presses. Amy has now been dead 6
years after a painful death from rheumatoid arthritis. She died in our
hospital, where during her last month of suffering, I was able to sleep on a
cot at her side and hurry to the nurses station to order morphine without
which she couldnt endure the pain. It was morphine, in the end, that carried
her away. I used to try to help her to let go and accept the final passing from
that great pain, centered in her brain at the last.
I cannot change what I was, what I became in early childhood, nothing to be
done about the moulding when I was molested at 6, or perhaps I was born
homosexual, but I needed a wife and children, and to devote much of my life
to trying to improve the quality of life for all people, especially the poor, the
racially oppressed, and the elderly, of whom I am not one but refuse to be
silenced not heroicly but stubbornly, as if my life depends on telling my
story and pleading the cause of people suffering unjustly, for handicaps over
which they have no control.
You are one of the few who comprehends and shares fully what I am trying to
sayin your poems enclosed in your letteryour white shirt black with the
coal dust from laborers bearing their deaths on their shoulders; & flickers of
peacelove in nudity (not afraid to proclaim it); and Love waves rise and
fallthe ultimate communication of lovers, drinking each others sea.
You continue to be unashamed of natures great gift to all who can receive it
without fear, without moral squeamishness. An old man perhaps can be
forgiven his jealousy of the young friend who still has his wife with him, and
his children still growing toward their own liberation. When I was 18, I left
my home forever when I went to college. When I was 22, I lost my father and
mother, and had to learn to live with that absolute taking away.
With love to you, your wife, and your children,
Lyle Glazier

I can no longer buy good cotton ribbons, so I placed a carbon paper on back
to make the print darker if you hold the page to the light.

58.

August 15, 1993

Dear Friend Singh,
Thank you for the heartwarming July 28 letter, with enclosed photograph of
your family, making you all seem close. You speak of aging as
degeneration but in the photo you look no older than when I last saw you
in 1971 in New Delhi when you were working for the Press, and I was
traveling for U.S.I.S., delivering throughout India a different opinion about the
United States corporate colonialism than my sponsors expected. It was an
important month in my life.
I remember in Delhi arriving at the radio station, where I had been invited to
give a talk on LeRoy Jones, the militant African-American poet (who has since
changed his name to Baraka). The Manager of the Radio Station met me in

the foyer and demanded to see my script. I showed him a few words jotted
on scrap paper, and he protested, Thats no script! We have to see a
written transcript of your speech, with everything moving along from
sentence to sentence with an introduction and a development and a
conclusion. I said, Dont worry. When I start talking it will move along just
as you describe it. You will be surprised how smoothly it goes. He still wasnt
satisfied, We cant let you go on the air like this! And I said, Well, I guess
youre going to. You just listen how I will piece it together. So he threw up
his hands and let me have a shot at it. In the booth listening with him was
my friend, a young American Black intern at U.S.I.S., and he told me
afterwards how the manager was muttering to himself when I began, and
how amazed he was to see how it all hung together.
A couple of weeks later, when I had travelled from Madras to Trivandrum,
back to Madras, then to Tirupathi, Madras again, Bombay, Nagpur, and
arrived at Calcutta, I found the baggage of that same young American Black
already in my hotel room. Unknown to me, we were to be roommates. I told
him our room was probably bugged so wed better be careful of our speech.
This was the height of Bangla Desh & US was valued way down on the scale.
The cultural affairs officer told me not to expect many to show up for my
talk on the Decline of the American Frontier (actually how we had used up
our Western frontier, and were now through imperialism trying to dominate
the world). But I had a good turnout, even a few poets, who got the Librarian
of the American Library in Calcutta to give a party for me. A young guru at
the party asked me why in my ignorance I had come to Calcutta to give such
speeches, and I said, I didnt come to give speeches. I came to visit again a
few Indian friends I made last year in Madras & Srinagar at an All-India
Conference of teachers of American Literature. Giving these speeches is
only my excuse for getting here again. They invited me and my Black friend
to join them at their bar where Calcutta poets hung out, but the American
Librarian begged us not to go because he was afraid we would be
Shanghaied. Against our will we agreed not to. But a couple of nights later
the Consul gave a party for me, and some of those new friends showed up,
among them a poet who ran all the way barefoot because he had vowed not
to travel by any kind of transport so long as so many Indians were so poor.
When I left a couple of days later, riding in the front seat of a U.S.I.S. car with
the driver, we were waylayed in a great square, where people spotted the
official car, and began to come at us from all sides, surrounding us. I was
excitedly trying to get my camera to take the picture. The driver gunned the
car and made our getaway through the crowd. You can probably tell me the

nameis it gherao or something like that where a crowd encircles a victim

as a protest, nonviolently opposing his political beliefs. I cant find the word
in a dictionary.
My love to you & your wife & son & daughter,
Lyle

LETTERS: 1994: 59

59.
September 3, 1994
Dear Friend R.K. Singh,
Im calling for help. After completing Book I of WICKEDand Spotless as
the Lamb, I learn from my friend Arthur Efron (who agreed to read the whole

manuscript) that after about 20 of the 40 chapters, my device of using first

tense for immediacy of impression becomes dreamy and cloudy as if I have
wandered into a sort of temporal void. Something to do with the readers
feeing hes being coerced into accepting the fiction that the viewpoint of the
author and the viewpoint of the younger person involved in the experience
are one and the same whereas certain giveaways in the incidents proclaim
that the overview of the author cannot successfully be ruled out. This may
be why the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly at a recent meeting of League of
Vermont Writers advised writers to steer clear of present tense for
autobiography. The Atlantic, he said, no longer reads such a manuscript, but
stuffs it into the enclosed SASE with a printed rejection. However, Arthur
also said that Dostoyevskys original Russian text of Crime and Punishment
shifts back and forth from past to present.
This reminded me that in writing my first chapter, in my first draft of the first
incident I began with past tense in the first sentence and in the second
shifted to present, as if trying to combine omniscient past and relative
present: I was sitting in the kitchen in Grampa Briggsslap, being rocked in
his rocker. Uncle Forrest is a big boy. He goes to the woodshed. He is
rummaging a barrel. He brought me back an animal cracker. Uncle Forrest
says, Eat. I thought I had to change it all into either past or present to
create the illusion of moving through a unified world.
At the same time, I have long thought content and form ought to reflect each
other, so why notin a book with a dense texture of ambiguity in political
and social climatetry to reflect such density by using a shifting tense,
creating the illusion of the past, yet shifting to the present when the interior
monologue becomes urgent?
I enclose one chapter of my book, where the child is being confronted with a
complex value system in his social life, learn some values he will have to
unlearn, and being so disturbed by this that in later life he will not be able to
erase the memory of these experiences but carry them with him through life.
If you can spare the time, will you read this excerpt, and jot down your
reaction whether or not the combination of past tense and present tense
works for you. In other words, if I hadnt drawn your attention to it, would
you be able to read this chapter almost without noticing the shift in tense?
I am writing a sort of family saga, supposedly reflecting attitudes toward
social behavior that will build the childs character while some times
disturbing him enough for him to have to abandon them in later life.

Yours in deep friendship,

Lyle Glazier

LETTERS: 2000 : 60 - 62

60.
January 31, 2000
Dear Friend Singh,

Your poems and letter dated January 3, 2000 have reached me. You have
taken a great leap forward in the two poems:
TIME TO BREAK OFF
WOES OF COLLAPSE
Not only is there great emotional depth but the rhythm and language seem

richer and purer. I wonder how you account for it. Its as if you have grown
into a new person with a much more sophisticated vision, but a language
that flows more naturally. Have you taken my suggestion and started reading
Walt Whitmans Song of Myself? I like these two poems more than anything
you have sent me over the years. Its as if the years have shaken you out of
an obsolete view of yourself and your world. I think you have the making of
a much greater poet.
I should congratulate you, also on the haiku
Shell-shocked or frozen
he stands in tears on a hilltop
craving nirvana

It is well deserving a Peace Museum Award in the 33rd A-Bomb Memorial Day
Haiku Meeting in Kyoto, which, as you know, is a southern city of great
dignity and learning. I am proud of you. I have no objection to an occasional
haiku as good as this one; even if wholesale books full of Haiku may seem
cut and dried, an occasional superb haiku like this one and the one of yours
that gave a title to one of the books you sent me may justify an occasional
venture into the form.
You are so much younger than I am that I can only praise this new vision of
yours. I look forward to more and greater poems in your new vein.
You would not like the deep snow that covers Vermont landscape this month.
This morning I got up at 6:30 and for two hours used my heavy duty new
snow remover to clear my driveway and then pushed it 300 yards down the
country road to my oldest daughters to clear the front dooryard so that
Laura and Roald can move their car into the roadway. This is a world you can
scarcely imagine. I and all three of my daughters and their husbands must
have an automobile to carry us to stores and libraries and banks and the
post office. We would be helpless without our car.
I wish it were possible for you to find a guided missile taking off from
Dhanbad and landing in front of my house. I have just spent a lot of money
having a Steinway piano reconditioned so that it will be of some good for my

youngest daughter who will have it when I am gone. To my surprise, I am

finding I enjoy sitting on the bench and trying to recover one small bit
of the skill I had many years ago. I will never play well, but music is
becoming important to me again. I am busy also writing my long book on
the computer, and will never reach the end of that story Im telling in
WICKEDand Spotless as the Lamb.
Yours,
Lyle G

61.

June 3, 2000

Dear Friend Singh,

I know well that feeling of ennui when Ive felt there was nothing to live for.
My first published book ORCHARD PARK AND ISTANBUL is full of those poems
where I express a depression so great that the only excuse for such poems is
that they may possibly be finger exercises for happier poems if I can ever
become happy. I was never more depressed than in the sonnet on page 15,
that was given the title Peeled in the Table of Contents:
Suddenly he was old: at forty-two
his bones pushed out through tissue and skin
(i.e. scared hollow) batted fear out of you
from their particular hell, what light shone through
from under the knotted eyebrows was too thin
to warm a friend; his eyeglance was an invitation to a dense macabre. Yet its not true
to say he was undone; hed had been undone
all through the latter yearsfrom sixteen on
he felt the skull bone lying there under the skin,
giving the lie to the skin, the set of bone
haggard under the childpink cheeks; now then
it was out, all out, no child, a terrible man.

My forty-second year would have been 1953, three years after I got my
Harvard doctorate. We had been living in Buffalo for six years, and in the
suburb of Orchard Park for three. I had become the chairman of an
independent program in American Studies that I created in 1952. On June 2
of that year I had been summoned before the UnAmerican Activities of the U
S Senate in Washington, and had turned the tables on the Communisthunting Senators by telling them I thought we were under great danger from
Communism. And when Senator Jenner, Chairman, jumped to his feet and
praised me, I repeated, I think we are under great danger from Communism.
We have little to fear from the American Communist Party, which is declining
under the efforts of committees like yours. What we have to fear is that well
meaning patriots like the members of this Committee will destroy us by
using the totalitarian methods of Stalinist Communism in order, as they think
to ferret out Communist membership where there is none.
Senator Jenner jumped to his feet, and shouted to clerk Strike it out! Strike
it out! We dont want that recorded in the minutes of this Committee!
I couldnt have been so brash, if I hadnt known they had no record of me as
a member of a Communist Cell, for, although I was a grassroots American

Socialists, I had already made a statement at the beginning that I was not a
Communist, had never been a member of the Party, and had no sympathy
with the aims and methods of International Communism.
I was, even so, taking a great chance, because I know I had been under
surveillance, and that the Committee had information I was a bisexual, which
they would have used with great joy if they could have found that I had in
the least committed perjury in my testimony.
Actually, when I got back to Buffalo, I learned that the Committee on
Promotions, having learned of my testimony before the Committee, had that
day promoted me from Assistant to Associate Professor.
I realized that my situation was completely different from yours, for I was
teaching at a firstrate university, and was famous for having created and
become chairman of an inventive new program.
However, three years later, under a new chairman, who hated me because
my Program was filtering away the best students from the English
Department under which my program existed, attacked me so openly that
for the first time I admitted my sexual orientation to my whife, who, instead
of helping me, exclaimed, I feel as if Id been cheated, and I went on and
confessed o my best friend faculty husband and wife team, who told the
chairman, and I had my first nervous breakdown, and for three months had
Electric Shock Treatment, and only by escaping into Fulbright grants to
Turkey and then India, did I salvage my life, and eventually was in a situation
to resign my Chair, and become an international traveler, to the envy of
most of my colleagues, who stayed at home and built their miserable
reputations within the moribund but better-paying and highly competitive
machinery of the University.
More than anything else, it was the discipline of Poetry that saved me, but
even there it is only recently that I have begun to have anything like artistic
recognition, for by publishing so many books abroad, I did not gain any
reputation in the New York City poetry establishment, catered to by the great
publishing houses.
I am lucky this year in having had a very successful series of public readings,
and on March 8, a reading of portions of SEARCHING FOR AMY at the
Poetry/Rare Book Abernethy Collection at Middlebury College and a number
of other lucky readings. I never expected to become recognized in this way,
and am not in the least a celebrity, except in the eyes of WHOs WHO in

America and WHOs WHO in the World, and that means nearly nothing to the
US Poetry Establishment. In my 89th years I have had this small triumph, but
Im still nobody worth talking about unless I can get some major publisher to
bring out one of my books.
Actually, although that would be nice, I hardly expect it, and must fall back
on the consolation that it was the actual writing of poems that gave me the
only success worth having.

Always your friend,

Lyle Glazier
A thought: Why not change your format by studying different stanza
patterns (illustrated in Orchard Park and Instanbul) for English and American
poetry & doing some finger exercises maintaining your subject matter, which
is unique?

62.

Seasons Greeting 2000

A Christmas Carol
From Lyle Glazier
After cremation and a long trip
these ashes will be cold
but take off the box top, dip
your finger, it will not be me
but earth, good enough for anybody

From VOICES OF THE DEAD

NY to London
PAN AM in flight
Feb 14 1970

II. A LETTER FROM CID CORMAN

Cid Corman (29 June 1924 12 March 2004)

was a poets poet, meticulous translator,
perfectionist editor (particularly Origin), and
internationally acclaimed haikuist. A
superlative critic, he translated works of
Matsuo Basho and Kusano Shimpei.

Utano
15th July 1978

dear Mr Singh
thank you for wanting me to see yr work.
Unfortunately it isnt up to the quality Im looking for.
You will know if you have looked at ORIGIN (and you should if you regard
inclusion in it seriously) that normally I dont answer at all if work is
rejected and mss. are never returned in any event.
But I feel there is genuine effort/feeling in your work and since you probably
are unfamiliar with ORIGIN my not answering wd be misunderstood.
I hope you will find other outlets for the workperhaps nearer home.

Sincerely
Cid Corman
Editor/ORIGIN

III. A LETTER FROM JEROME E.

THORNTON

A friend of Lyle Glazier, an African educator,

and contributor to Creative Forum (when I
used to edit it), Jerome E. Thornton was
Professor at State University of New York at
Albany, New York. He has been well aware of
the horrors of racism experienced by Black
students and teachers at predominantly White
colleges and universities. When Lyle Glazier
introduced me to him, they talked about the
Black students battle with racism in the USA.

1.

Albany, New York

30 November 1987

Dear Professor Singh:

I am delighted by your request to offer an essay on African American
writers for publication in Creative Forum. I think it appropriate to send
a brief essay (Eruptions of Funk: Towards A Definition of Black
Literary Criticism) and bibliography of current titles of African
American novels and poetry anthologies receiving critical attention
today. Moreover, I will submit my offerings towards the end of
December, 1987.
Professor Glazier is well. I enjoyed a fine day with him last week when I
travelled to his home in Vermont. Two of his dear friends from Ankara
were with him, along with two others from Buffalo. I mentioned to him
that I received your letter and he was happy that I would do the writing
for Creative Forum.
The material will arrive early January. Again, I am happy to co-operate
with your efforts in furthering the cause of excellent literature.

Sincerely,
Jerome E. Thornton

IV. A LETTER FROM JOHN ASHBAUGH

I dont remember the whereabouts of

John Ashbaugh now. But I did read one of
his books and interacted with him for some
time.

1.

Madison, Wisconsin
53701 U.S.A.

March 21, 1993

Dear Professor Singh,

Your letter has brought back a wealth of strong memories. I was stationed in
Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, just fifteen miles south of Pondicherry. I walked the
streets of that fair city many times, befriended first one ashramite and then
another, took tea over and again on a rooftop garden there, visited the then
budding Auroville, witnessed a darshan of the Mother, and discussed the
philosophies of Aurobindo and others as I have understood them. These
memories are closes to my heart, and I wish for the day when I may visit
again.
Surely my stay in India was a turning point in my literary life, as I learned of
the ancient writings in Sanskrit and Tamil. The aham and puram poetry of
ancient Tamil, with its interweaving of sets of symbols connected with
particular landscapes and emotions certainly influenced my thought. Living
near the sea, dawn became an important source of inspiration, and
continues to be wherever I am.
Besides traveling throughout Tamil Nadu, I visited Kerala, the Coorg district of
Mysore, Goa, the ancient city of Hampi, Tirupati in Andhra, and Hyderabad. I
traveled through the Bastar district of Madhya Pradesh, and went north to
the Kulu valley of Himachal Pradesh. I took the trek up the Kaligandaki river
valley from Pokhara to Jomsom in Nepal, a most memorable experience. I
also visited Agra, Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, and Calcutta.
I became very interested in Tibetan culture, particularly the art of the
mandala, and the imagery of Tara. I am a great lover of the Baratya Natyam
dance, as well as of the Indian classical music of both North and South.
Your commentary on my work conveys an extremely sensitive and insightful
talent for literary criticism and analysis. You have seen in what I have
written what I was trying to put into it. Through your observations, I have a
sense of accomplishment, that I have been able to communicate my

feelings. Clearly there is a fortuitous meeting of spirits here and I look

forward to what may develop.
I am not so gifted and trained with the methods, talents and vocabulary of
literary criticism as yourself. Nevertheless, I can say that the imagery and
feeling in your poetry peak clearly to my own heart.
For the time being, as the seed of a new friendship is planted, I am truly your
friend in poetry.

John Ashbaugh

V. LETTERS FROM RUTH WILDES

SCHULER

A long time friend, Ruth Wildes Schuler is a

competent poet,
writer and editor. We
frequently exchanged our views and greetings.
For a long time she edited and published
PROPHETIC VOICES from Novato, California. She
generously gave room to my poems in her journal
and supported my creativity always. She frequently
appears in poetry journals in India.

Letters: 1993 : 1 3

1.

September 10. 1993

Dear Dr. R.K. Singh,

I share your suffering about the state in Croatia and Bosnia. Such cruelty is
beyond my understanding. It is just like the Nazis all over again. Man has
learnt nothing.
I can understand your fears about India. The religious hatred there is
frightening. The Hindu and Muslim hate each other and hate the Sikhs in
turn. Will we ever have a real brotherhood among men?
I dont know how America can stop what the Serbs are doing when they
refuse to co-operate. The world had to go to war to stop the Nazis , as they
were monsters without reason. I fear the same is true of the power hungry
militant Serbs who continue with their torture, rape and murder.
I agree that politicians and power-hungry people have ruined the world, and
women have too long been the victims in most cultures. I know the Bahais
believe in the equality of the sexes. I used to correspond with Roger White
who worked many years in the Bahai publishing house in Israel. He sent me
some books and wrote many poems about the Bahai Faith, but he died
recently of lung cancer. Dr. Hugh McKinley in England was recently
converted to the Bahai faith. Though he is well educated, he is forced to sell
products door to door to survive during the economic crises in his country.
He says he accepts this though, as he is able to do missionary work for the
Bahai faith with this job.

I and all of my family suffer terrible allergies too. I live on allergy medicines.
However, I am fortunate that the air in my area is pretty good as there is no
heavy industry here. I refused to move into a polluted area when we were
searching for a home. Last night I saw a documentary on the oil fire in
Kuwait, and it said those fires polluted the skies as far away as India.
I hope that you will be able to find a job elsewhere. Many of our big cities
like Los Angeles are extremely polluted . Central and Southern Europe and
China are very badly polluted also. And then there is Chernobyl.
We took a sort trip to the Mediterranean area but I returned ill. Among other
things, I picked up a terrible fungus infection which has covered part of my
body. It is being treated, and eventually I will be cured.
Upon my return, I found a mountain of mail and it will be some time before I
can even begin the next PV. Thank you for your kind letter. I hope so much
that things will get better for you soon.

Best wishes
Ruth Wildes Schuler

2.
December 4, 1999
Dear R.K. Singh,
Besides reading the Bristol Banner 1999 Anthology of short stories, I read J.K.
Rowlings HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERERS STONE, which I borrowed
from my grandson, William. Since Rowlings three books have been at the
top of the best seller lists for so long, I thought it would be interesting to see
what their appeal was. I can see their attraction for children, especially
young boys. They are not anything I could ever write because I have never
been interested in wizards, dragons and magic. She also has a game in it
which would appeal especially to boys. It is called Quidditch, which the
children attending the wizard school play on broomsticks up in the sky. It
much like hockey played on the ground. Not being that fond of games
myself, I found it boring to read, but it would not be to most children. I think
she found a real market in the wizard theme. I bet there will be many copiers
soon.
Another agent wrote that he would read my manuscript but wants $175 for a
handling fee for a 6 months period. I perhaps could scrape up the money if I
felt he really would try to market my novel. However the last agent did
nothing, so I feel pretty discouraged. After the holidays I will try writing more
letters to agents or publishers but right now I am so far behind in
everything. I have not even started the cleaning to put up our tree and
Christmas decorations.
Last night on the history channel they had a 2-hour special on Custers Last
Stand from the viewpoint of the US Indian Scouts. The material was
gathered by the famous photographer Curtis and he presented the data to
Theodore Roosevelt. But like today, it was covered up as Roosevelt did not
want to tear down Custer who had become an American icon. The Indian
scouts claimed that Custer stood upon a hill about 6 minutes away from

where General Reno was battling thousands of Indians and he watched while
the Indians slaughtered his men without making any attempt to go to their
aid. No one can explain why he did this. The military people feel if he had
gone to Renos aid, he could had routed the Indians who were not yet
organized at that point and he might have won the battle. For certain it
would not have been the wholesale slaughter that it turned out to be. Of
course if Custer had waited originally for the troops coming from two other
states, there probably would have been very few deaths as the soldiers
would have out-numbered the Indians so. However Custer was such an
egoist that he wanted to claim all the glory for himselfthat he, by himself
defeated all the Indians in the last great battle of this country!

December 10, 1999

In spite of all the medications, my blood pressure continues to be high. It is
genetic but very frustrating.
I am so far behind in everything this year. I still havent been able to clean
yet to put up our Christmas tree.
Our nephew with the Thai wife just became the father of a second baby boy.
The first childs name is Owen and the new one is Marcel. My nephew says
they have to pick names that his wifes family can pronounce as no Thai can
say Kevin. I dont know why.
I have been ill with one thing after another. This week I have terrible chest
pains and my left arm is numb. Added to that I have my first cold of this
year and am miserable.
I am sorry about the damage from the cyclones in India. The last earthquake
pulled our bookcase out from the wall. It is dangerous as it is, but will
require major carpentry work to repair so we will have to wait. From the
previous earthquake to that one, we have a big crack in the wall running
down our family room and also another on our staircase. Eventually we will
have to have plastering and painting but do not have the money for any of
this now. During the real big earthquake years ago we had thousands of
dollars damage to our house and it took years to repair everything. Nature
can really be spiteful at times. On the East coast in September there was
major damage from a hurricane.
We are into our rainy season now and it is cold.

Congratulations on your prize winning Haiku.

Ah on the subject of critics! A famous person once wroteThose that can
write, do write. Those that cannot become critics! I have always found it
best to ignore critics. After all it is just one person. People who know the
excellence of your work are not going to pay attention to a bad review. They
are annoying to read, but I would never lower myself to respond to any
criticism of my work or that in my magazine. Literature should stand on its
own merit and your work does!
I never knew Ikkoku san but I am sorry to hear of his death.
No, I do not receive POET.
Most of the magazines that I used to publish my work in have folded either
due to an editors death, illness or a lack of finances to continue. Like you I
find all publishers want subsidy which I do not have either. I was going to
have a collection of my short stories published and the publisher now wants
twice what originally was sated, so I will have to withdraw my manuscript. I
have had no luck with my Russian novel either. Many agents will no longer
handle fiction because they say people get their fiction on the television
these days.
Happy Holidays! Love,
Ruth

3.
March 29, 2005
Dear Dr. R.K. Singh,
Thank you so much for your letter and beautiful photo. It was so nice
hearing from you again.
In regard to my poetry book, I did the lay out, typing and paste-up myself
and just had the printer run it off on the copy machine and stable it. It would
have been too expensive to have them do all the work, and fortunately I
learned how to do a lot because of my years of doing PROPHETIC VOICES.
Actually I wanted to put an oriental photo on the cover, but I found almost
all those I had of China were in black and white, as that is what I took at the
time, so I could use them for the magazine, as I didnt have a color computer
or printer. My printer never had a color printer before either, but now the
one I had retired and sold his business, and the new owner bought a color
copy machine. So for the first time, I was able to do a cover in color. Since I
loved that photo of my cat with the hat, I decided to use it.
In regard to the tsunami, I read on the computer that there would be many
more earthquakes in the region of Indonesia and some would probably cause
more tsunamis, although they might go in different directions. I would not
like to live anywhere near that area now.

I have given up on Giovanni Campisi. I think he has either died or become

incapacitated, or else just folded his publishing. If the last though, you think
he would have informed us and returned our manuscripts. Unfortunately
that is not the case.
I did not know Kazuo, but I am sorry to hear of his death. Too many of our
fine pets are dying. I miss them all.
Congratulations on your new books coming out.
I have made no further progress on my large poetry collection of writers,
artists and musicians due to not being able to use my new computer
properly yet. It is so difficult. My other one was so much simpler, but
collapsed, and the parts for it were no longer available, so I lost 12 years of
work, as it is not compatible with any of the new computers.
All the medications that I take keep me awake also. I am afraid to stop them
though, as they said I would have a stroke or heart attack. Such are the
burdens of old age.
I hope that your health improves.
Love,
Ruth Wildes Schuler

VI. A LETTER FROM

WILKINSON

ROSEMARY C.

Rosemary Wilkinson was a poet with

international presence as Secretary General, World
Congress of Poets/World Academy of Arts and Culture
at Buckeye Court, Placerville, CA 95667, USA. She too
supported my creativity and shared her poems and
books with me from time to time.

1.

April 17, 1990

Dear Dr. Singh:
Thank you for your book titled FLIGHT OF PHOENIX. I have been away for 4
weeks and leaving in 2 week for another 3 weeks. So I hasten to answer in
between all this.
Thank you for sending my poems on to Dr. Laxmi Narayan Mahapatra, Editor
of Poetry Time. I am honored to be recommended to him and thank you for
this singular blessing.
We meet in Istanbul Sept. 16-20 and hope to see many poets from India.
Invitations go out in mid-May.
You truly express your soulful intentions in No.3:

A poem is madness
unique fascination

liberating language
re-creates, resymbolises
disfiguring the known
secured norms
inverting the safe
existence
It is as the critics say: The poet sees the world as an extension of himself
his flesh and blood. It is this outlook on life which enables him to endow the
most unpoetic subjects with some poetic quality.
That says it all for you, truly. You have the unique gift to dissect others
works.

With respect,
Rosemary C. Wilkinson,
Sec. Gen.

VII.
A LETTER
FROM SUMMER BREEZE

Summer Breeze, editor Moongate

Internationale, has been publishing poetry

since 1988. She is now retired. She works

by candle light with her computer, having
an aversion for electric light. She sees a
world dream in which individuals
contribute to an overall healing effort by
living a low impact life style and sharing.
Her Mother Bird Books has published over
200 poets and novelists. Some of my
poems and other writings have appeared
in Moongate at artvilla.com

1.

10 October 2000

Dear R.K.,
It was good to hear from you again and receive your new poems. I have
published two of them on Moongate. Glad to hear you were able to access
your page on a computer. Sorry that you dont have access to the internet
as there is such a world of information there for all.

Sorry for the long delay in responding to your letter. My finances are such
that I no longer have the funds to send regular mail. Ive had to wait for my
monthly social security check to even have the postage to mail this letter.
Im sorry for this change in my finances and I hope you will be able to find a
way to email me your poetry.
Of course I will always consider your poetry when you send by regular mail
but forgive me for not being able to write you back.
By the way, I did receive poems from two people youve told to send me
poetry but they did not include return postage so I felt no obligation to
respond to them. Neither were as good a poet as you are. If it had been
knock my socks off good I would have gone without a lunch or something to
write them back.
Best wishes,
Summer

VIII.

LETTERS FROM UNCLE RIVER

Uncle River, who knows how to keep

the reader interested, is an American science

fiction writer. Trained in Jungian Analysis and

holding what he believes to be the worlds only
earned doctorate in Psychology of the
Unconscious, he has authored novels that
include Thunder Mountain, Ever Broten,
Prometheus: the autobiography, King Freedom
besides several short stories, essays and
critical pieces .His cultural Speculative Fiction
has appeared in Asimovs Science Fiction,
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing
Stories, Interzone, Absolute Magnitude,
Telebones, etc. He also edited a literary
journal, XIZQUIL . We came in touch with each
other through Summer Breeze and her
Moongate Internationale.

Letters: 2000: 1

1.
Blue Route, Box 90
Blue, AZ 85922, USA

Jan. 29, 2000

Dear Ram Krishna,
Your letter of Sept. 19, and interview from Poetcrit did indeed reach me
here in the Blue River Canyon, where I have been most of the time
since March. In fact, at present, I have only been out to pavement
once (for groceries and a visit to friends in a bookstore in Springville,
the nearest town of any size, 45 miles from here) since a two week trip
to Silver City in late Oct. early Nov. My apologies for being so slow to
reply to you. All my correspondence has gotten slow.
I have an odd opinion, half serious, half play: that we are experiencing
a period of time compression as a world out of balance spins faster
and faster in futile attempt to maintain, before some (probably messy)
shift that is simultaneous breakdown and breakthrough of the Aeon.
The time compression factor has everybody dashing about more and
more at a frenzy and accomplishing less and less by it. My response,
to a degree anyhow, is to slow down all the more, not to panic in face
of universal sense of directionless urgency, not to spin off energy in
frantic chaos. I find this difficult. Even here the world intrudes too
much. But I do find myself with the luxury of more opportunity for
quiet contemplation than most people have.
And that too is odd. You say in your letter that you are pleased my
stories sell well. Actually, mostly they dont. Editors I respect respond
with compliments on the quality of the writing and ideas but mostly
reject my work as not fitting their readership. Editors I dont respect
suggest I improve my work by eliminating what for me is the entire
reason to write all in favor of genre clich and adding a lot of
gratuitous violence. I do get treated with respect by editors and other
writers I respect, but I get very few sales. It gets exceedingly wearing.
And yet, with little worldly success and an income about 1/5th or less
of what in America is considered poverty level, I have a degree of
contemplative freedom that few today have, a good deal of the time.
And since I refrained from bringing children into the world, knowing I
had no means to support them, and from incurring debts I have no way

to pay, I can live in my out-of-the-way primitive conditions with a clear

conscience and at the moment plenty of good food, wood for the fire
to keep warm, and even enough money for electricity for light and to
run this computer that was my fathers which my family decided to
pass on to me last spring after I got back here.
I dont remember now what I said in my previous letter about William
Burroughs, and I dont know if you will remember what you said about
him in your letter last September. But I incline toad some further
thoughts. He seem to me to have been one of the people who made a
transition in American literature as to what respectable culture would
pay attention to. His first couple of books, straight narrative drawn
from his personal experiences as a homosexual heroin addict were in a
style and format largely ignored as literature. With Naked Lunch and
Nova Express, both of which I read over 30 years ago and have not
gone back to since, he bridged a gap, depicting a lot of fringe
degenerate behavior in a context that cast it in relation to the larger
society of which it was a fringe, and in a style of writing that got
treated as literature by respectable people and thus controversial.
(What he wrote thereafter, as as a successful cult figure,seems to me
have become increasingly self-indulgent and boring, and I never read
much of it.) What I mainly recall of Burroughs from reading his Nova
Express especially, in my late teens in the throes of the late 60s
American cultural upheaval, was how he depicted the downfall of
civilization in everyone being required to spend so much time running
about from one bureaucratic office to another that they had no time
left to do anything productive. Which, to a frightful degree, has
happened in the decades since.
But, as you respond to quite passionately, that sort of thing is not the
message most people took from Burroughs writing. Rather to my
amazement and thoroughly to my disgustoften despair, what people
mostly did was to shift from one extreme of pretending nasty facets of
human nature and our culture did not exist to the opposite extreme of:
Well, they do exist, so its all right to do anything you please all the
time. Insanity! And I think a peculiarly essential insanity of our times,
and perhaps especially (though by no means exclusively) of America.
Ill enclose a relevant poem, my most recent as it happens. (One line
that refers to a somewhat crude American colloquialism, I may need to
explain. When someone has a rigid personality, especially when that is

coupled with a pretence that the physical does not exist, people
sometimes say they have a broomstick up the ass. Thus my church
of the rectal broomstick to refer to one extremewhich all too often
people respond to not with increased consciousness, but with mere
flopping over to the opposite extreme, as with turning William
Burroughs personal way of life into a model.) One other American
colloquialism that may or may not be familiar to you: Honcho is
whatever individual is in charge (usually male) by force of personality
and/or social position.
I think, too, of how, growing up in the sort of thinking, caring,
responsible family I did, when the sexual revolution came along just
as I was getting old enough to take notice of such things, my parents
and others I knew thought that what it would mean was that people
would be free to share information and to express feelings and that
there would be a lot less people in miserable marriages because they
failed to get to know each other first, and that we could nearly abolish
people getting pregnant unintentionally solely through sexual
ignorance. Well, thats not what we got at all. On the one side, we
have had 40 years of sexual irresponsibility, and on the other side, we
have a reaction that wants to enforce ignorance sexual and every
other sort. More insanity!
And people dont see it. They would rather adopt one fanatical side or
the other of questions, and insist that everyone who doesnt adhere to
their position must be promoting the opposite fanatical position, and of
course each side defines the other as evil. All of which is all the more
odd as most people, when one gets to know them as individuals, are
really quite nice and human. Yet, they mostly also have little
concentration span, and react in an unconscious emotional way to
excitement of one fanatics creed or its oppositeas a sort of
psychic food. An addiction actually. Adrenaline.
And that relates for me to the difficulty I have with trying to publish my
writing. I largely am faced with the choice of commercial writing,
which feeds and feeds on this cultural adrenaline addiction, or
literary writing which disdains the popular in favor of faddish
affectation. And once again, I find an absurdity. Actually, I think
people would just as soon read something that is about something of
some substance written in a comprehensible style. But, when it comes

to publishing categories this is all but impossible even to address as

form all but eclipses content.
So, having failed utterly to find a place in a world that has allowed you
to have a family at the cost of your digestion and excluded me from
any sort of conventional position or living but afforded me some real
extended concentration, I try to use the peculiar opportunity I have
had in life as best as I can. To learn. To articulate what I learn. To
appreciate. What, if anything, I achieve, I dont know.
Most recently, I have been going through Ever Broten one more time.
Some people having read it and given me some feedback, I felt I
needed to do just a bit more work on the writing before I can lay it
down. In particular, I needed to make it more clear, places where Ever,
my protagonist/narrator whose chronicle it is, breaks his narrative to go
off on philosophical ruminations, why what sets him off does and how
his mental excursions lead to what he does next or learns by what
happens. Were my writing from 50, let alone 150 years ago or even
were I some other nationality, I think people would not find this facet of
my writing confusing. But it is something all but taboo in
contemporary American fiction, to combine straight-forward, eventful
narrative with extended philosophizing. Well, anyhow, Im doing what
I can to make Ever Broten read as well as I can. I started in on it again
Dec. 3, which was the 6th anniversary of beginning the writing of it. As
of today, I am through Chapter 106, of 150 chapters. And when Im
done this time, I really do intend to be done with it, until and unless I
get to work on it with an editor for publication. Which who knows?
And then, this enormous piece of work will no longer be the central
subject of my creative energies, after so long a time. And I dont know
what that will feel like, or what is to come next.
In the meantime, it is possible that a small publisher in Colorado will
bring out a collection of my stories within the next year. Also, I wrote a
short book length piece, a sort of meditation/rant on the history of
Western civilization and of the development of personality, in the voice
of Prometheus, which Roy Fairfield (whose work youve seen in both
Xizquil and Moongate and who was my doctoral advisor 30 years ago
and remained a friend ever since) liked a lot, and has recommended to
a publisher friend of his. But no response there, so I dont know if
anything will come of it or not.

As for Xizquil, it has been two and half years since I managed to bring
out an issue, and no energy to get out another yet, though I do still
hope to produce at least one more, to fulfil commitments I feel Ive
made. If so, I do plan to include your Tantra, but I have no idea
whenor I have to admit even if that will be.
Otherwise, the summer rains here were torrential, but since they
ended in September, it has been bone dry here except one slight rain
New Years Eve and a few inches of snow Jan. 2. I raise a big cloud dust
every time I chop wood.
It sounds like you are going through something a lot of people I know
our age are, of parents and a lot of the older generation in
deteriorating health or dying, and children about grown and leaving
home. An irony if I understand Indian tradition accurately at this
distance: Our age, as I understand it, in your country, was traditionally
seen as a time when, having fulfilled householder responsibilities to
raising children and doing productive work in the world, one was ready
to devote oneself to meditation and spiritual growth, but in our times,
economic and social structure largely turn that into a seeming
antiquated anachronism. And I believe that both the individual and
society suffer as a result. The individual oppressed by a world too
dense, and world becoming ever more unbalanced through eliminating
its own means to perspective. Oh well, we both know we are living in
a crazy time.
You ask if I would be interested in your suggesting that a few editor
friends of your contact me in regard to my poems or stories. By all
means. I would be honored.
Ill close for now. Its a quiet, clear. Somewhat chilly evening, with
bright stars, and will no doubt freeze fairly hard tonight, though dry as
it is, when no too windy, afternoons are quite warm. I see no other
manmade lights but my own, and the computer fan is the only
machine noise I hear at present. And saying that reminds me that I
have a lot to be thankful for in this odd life. I hope this finds you well.
All best
River

PSAlso enclosing a story on theme of cultural/religious selfrighteousness, a sad tale, but one you might find worthwhile.

LETTERS: 2001: 1

Uncle River
RR, Box 90
Blue, AZ 85922, USA

Feb. 15, 2001

Dear Ram Krishna,

Once again, I am all too slow a correspondent. Yours of July 31 has
been sitting in my current correspondence folder all this time, not
even the most overdue a reply.
At the moment, large clouds are breaking up after a bit of a stormy
spella lot of wind and clouds and some snow. There has been a lot
more snow this winter here than the past two. Quite beautiful, though
also messy as it melts and makes mud galore. But also much needed
to renew the thirsty ground after two drought winters. Between the

good moisture and longer hours to warm on sunny afternoons, grass is

beginning to show a little green.
I have not been out to pavement in over two months, and have
probably not been more than a mile from right here in a month and a
half. I need to make a supply run to town sometime in the next few
weeks. Im always a little afraid to go when I havent in a long time.
The world is so used to itselfthe endless mix of whatever enough
people know in common for any large society to function and madness
of collective beliefs that clearly are not true and individual reactions to
such a condition. I think the world always is a lot that way: The
inefficiency of having and collective way to do things so much bigger
than anyone to make sense of it. But we live in a time when it is all so
big and so fast and there are so many people
When I speak of simultaneous breakdown and breakthrough, I mostly
am not thinking on the scale of daily socio-economic doings, which are
largely a mess and likely to remain that way for some time. The recent
American election being a particularly odd example, the more by
comparison say to Mexicos election. Rather, what I thinks of is, on the
one hand, the individual learning process, and on the other, the
historical process of cultural transmutation, which I believe is presently
in the midst of one of its periodic major shifts. A process of longer than
a lifetime, by which one way of doing things, and more of perceiving
reality itself by which to determine what to do and how,
metamorphoses to some other which may be better or worse and
likely some of both, but which speaks to its own historical
circumstances in some different way than what came before.
When I came here, it is my place for extended concentration and the
creative work that come from it. Though I like my neighbors and like
seeing them occasionally, and am pleased to have company once in a
while, I mostly want to be completely alone, and become quite upset at
much intrusion. A neighbor say who wants company and somehow
gets me over there three times in as many weeks to a house where
television is always blaring and there is endless cigarette smoke and
boring chitchat. I become enormously upset, and then depressed
when this happens here, where if I can avoid it enough, I do write.
Yet when out in the world, I interact with people daily. Well, I still dont
like television, cigarette smoke, or chitchat. But I have much more

tolerance, regard nearly all interaction as something to learn from, and

enjoy some of it. Of course, I also dont get any writing done while out
most times.
My current stay here did follow another trip out, of a month and a half,
about two thirds of it with my family in the busy, populous Boston area.
My first such trip since the one two years ago for a last visit with my
father and then his death. This time, what occasioned the trip was that
a nephew had a Bar Mitzvah. I dont know if Ive ever mentioned that
my heritage is Jewish. Not practicing to speak of. The family tone was
in some ways set by a great grandfather of mine who ran away from
home in Russia as a boy to avoid becoming a rabbi and became a labor
organizer instead. But my family has been nominally Jewish along
with a few Christian ones that have permeated American culture in a
general (and grossly commercialized in the last two decades) way. I
have never married. Both my brothers wives are non-Jewish. One is
Quaker, and that brother and sister-in-law and their three children
attend Quaker Meeting fairly regularly, the only ones of my family to
participate in any regular public religious practice. They also light
candles at Hanukka and have a seder at Passover. But my sisters
husband is also Jewish. And their son decided to have a Bar Mitzvah.
They bought me a train ticket so I could come. And it was a wonderful
event with family and old friends, as well as an opportunity for me to
get in a visit.
Everyone I saw in that environment said their lives are too hectic, and
recently more so than ever.
I got home to discover that the printer of my computer was gummed
up enough that sitting while I was gone did it in. Two months later, I
still dont have a replacement though at last word, my neighbors 21year-old son is about to bring me one. A huge boon if so as he can find
me a much better deal than I could myself, in the thick of that world.
One of the ironies of my feelings about life here is that the very people
whose social life I can tolerate very little of are very kind and generous
to me and only mean well to want to include me in that very social
life! Anyhow, lack of a printer has somewhat cut into my sending out
submissions, including on Ever Broten, for which I have not yet found
a taker. I wonder what it says about our world that since 1987 when I
first got a computer I have been through three printers, while this
manual typewriter which I bought in 1968 still works.

In the mean time, I got another story accepted at Asimovs (perhaps

the worlds leading SF magazine it wins the most awards anyhow). I
also had an article on Solitude appear in the SFWA (Science Fiction
Writers of America) Bulletin. Also, the editors of BBR, the British
experimental SF magazine that included my Mogollon New, now
have discontinued the magazine and are shifting to special projects.
They asked me to send them a disk of 100,000 words worth of my
stories from which for them to select a collection to publish, which I
have done. Well see what comes of it. I think something is likely to.
And I have managed to get some new writing done.
Im glad you liked my Love of the True God. It was inspired by my
reading of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vegas Royal Commentaries of The
Incas and by C.G. Jungs comments following a visit to an area of
Africa at the time just recently converted to Christianity. Garcilaso was
the son of one of the conquistadores and an Inca princess of the
Huascar line which was losing the Inca civil war going on at the time of
the Conquest. Thus as close to a first hand account of the Incas as was
written. To Garcilaso, it was of great import that the king of Spain
granted him a license to use the word Royal in his title for
publication.
Heres another story. All best,
River

LETTERS: 2003: 1

HC 61, Box 408

Glenwood, NM 88039
USA

uncleriver17@yahoo.com
Aug. 16, 2003
Dear Ram Krishna,
I have owed you a letter for a long time. But my life has been very
disturbed for a long time, and I have been depressed a lot. And I dont
know what to say, at least partly because, with so much disruption, it is
hard to say I am doing anything as most energy just gets wasted in
things that turn out not to happen.
Well, some things do happen. And one which did that I am very
pleased with is that I did send my poem, Storm Time to U.S. Bahri as
you suggested. And he did publish it in Creative Forum. I was very
pleased, and honored too since it was the only piece in that issue by an
American.
It also was most interesting to me to read both the cultural views
generally in that issue, and also what others had to say of your work.
For you, of course, the cultural perspective of people in India is the
base you are used to in which for people to view your work. But for
me, I have seen more of it in context of other work here in America, or
of what Summer would say or others here. One of the points I found
especially notable was the discussion of your working on the issue of
the spiritual in the sensual. It is a subject, perhaps because there is an
ancestral relationship if one goes far enough back to Indo-European
origins, that seems to me to be difficult for both Western culture and
Indian in a way that it is not for many African or Native American
cultures. But the historical divergence also is long enough ago that
India and European cultures (and more recently American) have dealt
with the difficulty in very different ways.
I have never been to India, so all I know of it is at a distance. But I
have always tended to see the Indian version of the split as perhaps I
would say qieter, or gentler. Still there is a split, with at least one
tradition that I find troublesome, of middle aged men abandoning
families to go meditate. Not that Western men and more recently
women have not done the sameor abandoned families for far less
edifying reasons. But my feeling for the Indian tradition is that it is
about letting go of what binds us. While my feeling about the peculiar
Western ambiguity toward Spirit and our earthly life is that it is more

actively antagonistic: bizarre combinations of religious fanaticism and

a simultaneous materialist religion of shopping, apparently never
noticing the blatant self-contradiction. That is a recent American
example, but an example of a tension in the soul between Spirit and
our earthly life with each other that has a long history.
There are many people in the West now finding it important to their
own spiritual vision in these times to seek a reconciliation. That too
has a history. I think of a traditional Christmas carol I recall singing in
schools as a child with a line about, God and Nature reconciled. More
recently, in American at least with its mix, difficult but surely real, of
people from all over the world, there has been much attention by at
least part of the culture to views from other parts of our cultures
heritage than the predominant European and really, for all Americas
democratic concept of itself, upper class European as that is what long
set educational standards. There is much conflict now in America
about concepts such as multicultural and diversity in a lot of ways.
But part of what the conflict is about, I believe, is whether to base our
outlook in life on a split between Spirit and our daily life or to treat the
two as one continuous whole.
Thus it was interesting for me to see someone discuss your poetry in
terms of this subject of Spirit and earthly life in our bodies and
attempting to reconcile a split with historical tradition, in context of
India.
Again, I think of historical/cultural parallels. For instance, in Wolfram
von Eschenbachs Parzival, the Grail hero, Parzival, is married and a
father, and it is sight of a dead raven in the snow reminding him of his
love for his wife who he hasnt seen in so long that recalls him from
distracting confusion to complete his quest, and when he has, through
human compassion, his wife and children join him. But about the same
time that Wolfram wrote Parzival, a monk of the then-new Cistercian
monastic reform movement created the now-better-known Gallahad, in
an anonymous version of the story known simply as The Quest of the
Holy Grail. In that version of the story, Gallahads prime qualification to
be Grail Hero was his chastity!
Both these versions of the Grail story, which in many ways developed
to try to reconcile the standards of a warrior aristocracy with their
ostensible Christianity that told them their high-status profession as

warriors was intrinsically sinful, come from the High Middle Ages.
When growing population of a successful way of life exceeded its own
ability to live well and then climate and political dysfunction led to the
period of crash in Europe now known as the Black Death and Hundred
Years War, what, emerged from the farther end of the disaster was
Protestantism, which split Spirit and body even farther that Catholicism
had (or often still does) and the enormous materialist release of energy
in material ambitious cut loose from even seriously trying to reconcile
the conflict, which thus led to the huge success but also monstrous
effects of the colonial era and Industrial Revolution.
And now, once again, with the effects of success that has led to
unsustainable excess, this time worldwide affecting everyone at once, I
find it notable how people of various heritages are trying to reconcile
disparate elements of life into some coherent whole.
But at the same time, I find it difficult to pull myself together even to
think about such things as daily life is so discouraging. Both in personal
matters and on the world scale.
My personal situation is that too many things I try to do dont work. I
have never found a way to make anything resembling a living at my
work that allows me to live in any normal way in contemporary
America. And it gets endlessly tiresome and discouraging, as year
follows year, at least partly because what it means in all my
interactions is that I cannot afford to pay my share of what most
Americans consider normal ways to do things, which to me are
impossibly wasteful. All of this is at least tolerable when I have a
satisfactory place to live, where I can write, walk, garden, contemplate
peacefully. But I have not had that now since losing my spot in the
Blue River Canyon a year and a half ago.
My friend Steve Haury, on the back of whose land I am living here, and
my theater director friend Jack Ellis, who provided me a place to live in
Silver City all winter, both have been very kind in making a spot
available to me where I could live at all. Neither of them are well off,
and Steve Haury in fact has been in very precarious financial straits
himself. But I have not been able to concentrate in the way I need to
really to write consistently from the depth that seems to me to have
much point. And also have not found much else to do that either has
much point to it or would give me any other sort of useful place in the

world. This has gone on much too long now, and there has been much
too much futility and wasted effort.
Americas wealth and power and relatively sparser population means
that the many people American society shunts aside are still a lot
better off than people in the same situation in India, or most of the
world. But one cannot help but to fee the futility of so much of life just
wasted in being too marginalized to function.
Not to mention the moral consequences of what it has come to mean
for America to maintain its position of wealth and power. I am struck
by the contrast in how I feel now about Vietnam, the Gulf War of 1991,
and what the current American administration is doing. I opposed the
Vietnam war, and do so very young and very early, 1963-64, before
most Americans even knew that any such place as Vietnam existed.
But now, by contrast, I see Americas stance in Vietnam almost as
childishly innocent. America got involved in the first place as it
emerged from World War II the worlds greatest power, replacing the
French in colonial Empire. The U.S. set up a classic colonial puppet
government in the Diem regime in Vietnam and assumed, when the
Diem regime fell, that it could install a successor. But then, before that
could happen, our own President Kennedy was assassinated. His
successor, Lyndon Johnson, was a Texan who had staked his reputation
on what was, in the early 60s, a brave position for any politician from
Texas, of supporting Civil Rights. He was distracted by his domestic
programs, and America was entangled in Vietnam before the
administration realized that a mere colonial police action was not
going to work there.
Nasty, but still to a degree innocently so, like a bullying child who just
hasnt realized yet that he may be bigger than others but they still
might come to a point of putting up with him enough not to take any
more. The first President Bush, in the Gulf War of 1991, was much
more sophisticated, I believe, in his imperialism. The U.S. baited
Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait, and thereby won widespread
support in the Islamic world as well as the rest of the world for the U.S.
to beat him back, and the process for an American military presence
on Saudi Arabian soil. That was quite a trick! Imperialist, yes, but
brilliant.

This time, the U.S. went in when and as it did because the U.S. national
debt and trade deficit are so immense that the only reason the dollar
still is worth anything is that there is no replacement world currency;
and Saddam Hussein was selling oil to the French and Germans for
euros successfully enough for the euro and its economic base to begin
to become a real threat to the dollar, and thus to Americas
preeminence in the world. Also, the Saudi government is so corrupt
that their own people may bring them down, and an American
intervention in the country where Mecca is would be even less
tolerated by the Islamic world than in Iraq. So the U.S. administration
wanted to secure an alternative oil source as well. (It also is trying to
do the same now in Nigeria, and has done its best to overthrow the
Chavez regime in Venezuela because they were bartering oil and
thereby also evading trading in U.S. dollars.)
The senior Bush and Colin Powell argued against the attack on Iraq.
They wanted to work through the U.N. and international diplomacy,
using Americas enormous wealth and strength as reason for the rest
of the world to allow us to keep on top in more of a diplomatic and
economic community. But Bush, Jr., and his administration made the
same decision, I believe, that Hitler made in attacking the Soviet
Union: Act fast while the opportunity is available and you can conquer
the whole world right now. Move more slowly, and the opportunity
slips away. Were Saddam Husseins Iraq actually the object of the
attack, this might have worked, nasty as it was. The relative positions
of the U.S. and Iraq for size and power favor the U.S. in a way that
Germany never realistically could have had relative to the enormous
Soviet Union with its intense winters to match Iraqs desert summers.
But Iraq really is not the subject. World conquest is. And the result of
what that current U.S. administration has done, a blatant play for world
conquest, using the fact that the U.S. has half of the worlds military
budget to prop up an otherwise worthless dollar as the world currency,
looks to me not only nasty, but as doomed as Hitlers megalomania.
And that is the other part of the picture. When I write something such
as that line you liked in my Storm Time of, When Kalis dance
belongs to a previous generation, I am trying to look through what I
believe our current historical period is to the prospect that something
might come out the other side of a situation that I believe now is over
the edge and accelerating very rapidly to horrendous destruction on a
planetary scale. Partly, it is an attitude problem. And how quite a lot of

people all over the world are trying, from various heritages and their
contemporary interchange with each other, to address that problem
and to recognize our fellow humanity on this planet, is the most
interesting and positive aspect of the crisis of these times, as I see it.
And that really is happening. But the crisis itself, which has brought the
attitude problem to a head, is, in my belief, simply the fact that a
successful way of life has enabled human population to rise, as has
happened before on as much as a continental scale, to an
unsustainable level.
One of the few world leaders in recent history who I believe dealt with
this problem in a cold bloodedly realistic way was Stalin. To compete
with the West, he had to industrialize faster than he could and feed his
people too. So he arrested the most productive and disruptively
individualistic and worked millions of them to death as slave labor
building an industrial infrastructure. Hitler did much the same, more
efficiently. But Hitler believed his own ravings. Stalin was sane enough
to acknowledge that he was a monster! I do not know any humanly
acceptable way out of the world ecological crisis of our species
numbers. I do know ways I find morally acceptable to live and to
die in such a time. One can always do what constructive things one
can in whatever situation one is in as long as one does live. But what is
likely to resolve the crisis, to whatever it takes for the situation next to
stabilize, is monsters, madmen which is what I believe now mostly
commands the U.S. with its stupendous military might and Nature
itself. I heard recently that London, England recorded a temperature of
100 (farenheit) for the first ever! And this past month, I have been
watching forest fires burning up and down the mountainsides here.
Fire has always been part of the natural cycle in this area. But the last
two years have been pushing toward extreme.
Another development in my life, and an ambiguous one, is the
publication of my Prometheus, for which I am enclosing a flier and an
interview. The reason why this is ambiguous is that the publisher has
been less than together. There have been interminable delays and
endless complications. Now, at last, I have actually seen printed
books. But it remains unclear if any real distribution is ever going to
happen (not to mention enough ever to get paid to earn any fragment
of a living from my work). Still, I am pleased that at least a few people
get to read this work. I also will ask, might you or someone you know
be interested to review it? I think of this at least partly because of

some of the articles I read in the issue of Creative Forum. I was much
struck thinking how what the Western colonial powers did to others
through colonialism, the same attitude first did to that cultures own
populace. Some of what my Prometheus is about is the history of the
attitude and especially of the personality structure by which this
process, with its immense success and its equally immense alienation,
occurred. If you or someone you know there would be interested, I
would see if I can persuade the publisher to send a review copy.
You ask, in your email of way back in Feb. that I have filed to respond
to for so long, if I might consider doing a critique of your poetry. I dont
know if this is still at all relevant to publication plans you had that time.
I also dont know if I can do something useful to you or not. If some of
my thoughts in this letter about cultural/historical parallels are useful
to you, please feel free to quote them. Otherwise, I would consider
trying to write something of the sort more cohesive, though I am not
very clear what, or what to base it on. (The last is partly because my
living situation has been so disrupted for so long now that I have had
to get rid of most of my papers, including most books, and dont even
have access to most of what I have left, due to no place to put them.)
It has been cool and rainy the last two days here. A huge relief as
summer should have come a month and a half ago, but instead it has
been terribly hot and dry almost all the time (which is part of why the
fires, which usually come in early summer but end by early July, have
been so bad this year when they have gone on into mid August).
With all best wishes, despite discouraging times both here and there,
River

LETTERS: 2004: 1

HC 61, Box 408

Glenwood, NM 88039
U.S.A.

uncleriver17@yahoo.com
June 4, 2004
Dear R K,
Thanks for your e-mail of April 20.
I will be interested to learn if your friend does indeed include my little
article about your work in the book. In any event, I hope that the
publication of the book will go well for you. If my article is used, and if
it is affordable to do so, I would love to have a copy, and in any case
hope that you will send me publication information for my records if
the article is used.
Thank you, too, for planning to send a photocopy of relevant pages
when your critique of my Prometheus appears. And thank you again for
that effort.
My current project is a complete read-through, with minor corrections,
of my enormous novel, Ever Broten. I had said, last time I went through
it, that I would not do so again until and unless I found a publisher. Now
a small publisher has said he wants to publish it. Huge as it is, and
economics of all publishing being what they are, well see. But this
publisher has followed through on several of my shorter works in the
magazines he also publishes. So I am hopeful. That he also publishes
magazines has the added advantage over many small publishers of
being an in-house means to promote the book. I now am almost
through with the read-through.
I am planning another trip into Silver City, in about a week and a half,
for about a week I think, and am hoping to be able to put together an
informal reading of the play I wrote this winter at that time. Another
writer friend who recently has settled there and is interested to
participate also just told me that Summer also is interested. That sort
of thing always pleases me, that she would be interested, but equally
that she is feeling well enough physically.
The state of the world, and of my countrys rulers in addressing it,
remains appalling. What to say?
One thing I will say is the reason why I am sending this letter by post
rather than by email. I have run into a bit of what amounts to

censorship of my email. I do not believe this was intentional, nor that

it was directed at me specifically. But it is disconcerting and leaves
me wondering what was intended, of which I have run into this
evidence. I am enclosing a copy of the instances I have found.
All of the censorship occurred at one place: the Glenwood Community
Library, which is unfortunate as that is the handiest place for me to get
online when here at my current home base. I do not believe it was
supposed to happen, but rather that it did happen because of a
malfunction or missetting of a Security program intended to do
something else. What I think caused the problem is that there now is a
low in the United States which mandates a Security program on all
computers with Internet access in public places that accept Federal
funding (which most do) supposedly to keep children from accessing
pornography. Many of the computers supplied to libraries have this
Security program preinstalled. However, the Glenwood Library bought
new computers this past winter which did not, and therefore had to
install it. I believe what I have run into happened because it either was
not installed correctly or some other error.
The reason I noticed what was happening is because of how I
customarily do a lot of my email. Not having my own access and
having limited time at any access, I commonly write letters on my
computer, copy them to disk, then copy them to whatever system I can
use to get to my email to send them. Then, I recopy them from the
Sent folder in the email, back to my disk and thence to my computer,
largely to have a record of when I sent them. I do not usually read
them at all these copyings. But I just happened to notice, on a couple
of occasions, that something didnt look right. So I checked, and
thanks to the recopyings, I had a record so I could check. Sure enough,
words were missing. I then checked further, and found that when I
copied from disk to the email Compose function, or wrote directly in
that function, what appeared was as I wrote it. So if I proofread what I
was going to send, it looked right. The changes occurred when I sent
the emails! And I have confirmed since that it is the changed versions
that people received.
It is entirely possible that what caused the problem was just a poorly
written program, shabby work sold to the public, created because the
law created a market for such programs. Unfortunately, exactly that
sort of thing has become more and more common in recent years, as a

once-robust and practical American economy and technology has,

more and more been consumed by mindless regulation and endless
hype.
However, I find it equally plausible that what I saw was a malfunction
of something else that was intended. Considering what words were
deleted from my emails (with no regard at all for context) I have
difficulty seeing how this program would effectively serve its ostensible
purpose of keeping children out of pornography. The cuts are too
arbitrary. And, frankly, a lot of young people are far too ingenious to
be stopped by such things, knowing how to do things with computers
that I cant even imagine. However, what if the program, and the law
mandating it really was sold, fraudulently, to a public susceptible to
fears about children and pornography, but actually is intended for a
different purpose entirely? As a flagging system, that would send
flagged words and phrases to some central government computer
system, which in turn would record them, and if a high enough level of
flagging occurred inform someone to take a look, I think the pattern I
saw would be quite usefulif, of course, no one noticed it, as I believe
no one was supposed to. As a Security measure, to trace
pornographers, drug dealers, terroristsor any dissidents getting too
uppity, I think such a system would be a useful addition to the
authorities repertoire. Considering that it came into play just when I
sent my emails, and that I have seen no suspicious lacunae in
incoming emails, I think just such a purpose is all too plausible.
Of course, I do not think it was supposed to do anything that anyone
would see. I think that the deletions, the censorship as I am calling it,
really was a malfunction. I think it was supposed to be a flagging
system, that was not meant to leave any visible trace. But it is just
because it accidently did so that I did see it, to note the pattern by
which it operatesfor whatever purpose it really is intended to serve.
Someone has worked on the computers at the Glenwood Library since I
called this problem to their attention. I have not noted any further
deletions in my emails since, though I really do need to check further
to be sure. I have not noted anything of the sort anyplace else, and
have checked on at least one other system in a public place: the
University library in Silver City. So I think the emails are going through
intact (except a few that always get lost, but that really is as much as
anything just a normal flaw in a huge and complicated medium).

However, what I have encountered leaves me with two troubling

concerns.
One is that, over a period of months, I was the only person to notice
what was happening at the Glenwood Library, and it was only because
of all my copyings that I had a record to check it. Very few children use
that library. But quite a few older people use it, and some of them use
it for such purposes as emailing medical records. Considering the
words that were deleted from my emails, I think such things could do
very serious harm. I wonder how many other small libraries run by
volunteers, as the Glenwood Library is, have encountered similar
situations, and no one has noticed.
The other concern, of course, is to wonder what really is going on with
this supposed Security program. I do not believe it was intended to
cut any words out of anyones email as it did to me. But I do believe
that, in it doing what it did, I saw the pattern by which it does whatever
it is supposed to do. What might that be? And who is supposed to see
the result, for what purpose? I dont know. But, in hope that the post
is at least somewhat less susceptible to tampering. I am using this
method, rather than any email, to tell people about it.
Hot here now. In fact, this trailer gets so hot, in the sun, that I dont try
to work inside at all in afternoons. It is even causing a problem with
deterioration of the disks I use for backup copies of my work. Though
in many ways, my situation is congenial here, I do hope that sometime
soonafter my trip east later this summer perhaps, I can find a
different living situation.
In the meantime, I should have a couple of more stories coming out
before that trip, and just wrote a new one a couple days ago, the first
new one since the play this winter. That felt good, as the original
writing always does.
Fruit trees have fruit on them, getting big. This is a major event, as it
usually gets warm too early and then freezes late here, nipping the
buds. But this year, trees that have not set in a decade have fruit on
them, including a peach tree right behind me, which I hope really will
ripen peaches this year, and will do so in time for me to eat some
before my trip.
I hope this finds you well. All best.

River

LETTER: 2005: 1

Uncle River
HC 61, Box 408
Glenwood, NM 88039
USA

Uncleriver8@yahoo.com
Aug. 25, 2005
Dear R.K.,
Most sorry to hear you are ailing. Perhaps I know what is wrong if not
just projecting from my own life. And I certainly dont know what,
effectively, to do about it.
I think the source of your ailment is that you are living in a way that is
poison to your soul. Eventually, this bleeds through to the body, one
way or another.
All cultures have traditions which answer this condition. And on the
whole, I think India has done better, longer, in this realm, than the
West. But the density of the times has blotted up too much of every
path, turned spiritual liberation to an advertizing jingle, exalted
infinite material paraphernalia and noise at the expense of life and
love, and made fulfillment of responsibility, always an effort, now an
endless irritating frustration.

Dont know what to say. For myself, Ive about choked on a largely
futile effort even just to get by. I think the world has to stop running at
such a frenzy, but I dont think it has any even acceptable way to do
so. So what is any individual to do, living day to day as long as we do?
Best,
River

LETTER: 2008: 1

22/11/2008

Dear R. K.,
Good to hear from you. Though I had been concerned, and I am sorry to
hear that my concern was justified.
I hope that all of the stresses and health problems will improve, for you and
all of your family, and that you can enjoy having a healthy grandson.
At present, I find myself in a somewhat anomalous position. The U. S.
economy is in great turmoil, with many people in unaccustomed difficulty,
some altogether displaced. But, after my many years of extreme
marginalization, I actually am a little better off than I am used to. Still living
on what most Americans would consider a fraction of enough to meet
minimal needs. But, at least partly because of where I live, as well as how, I

have been able to live pretty well, by my own standards, and am doing so
with less stress about being able to than much of my adult life, at the very
time when so many others are experiencing a financial crisis.
Well, life takes many odd turns.
I currently am writing this to you from the Western New Mexico University
library, during a visit to Silver City of most of a month, my first time here
since January. (Since my move to Pie Town, 175 miles away, I can afford to
make the trip to Silver City less often than when closer, but stay longer than I
usually have when I came more often.) I also made a trip a bit farther, from
here, to Las Cruces, where I attended an EMS (Emergency Medical Services)
conference, and also had a visit and did a signing with my Mogollon News
editor, who lives in Las Cruces.
Volunteering with the Pie Town ambulance, as well as Fire Department, has
been another new development in my life, if not what I would have expected
to be doing at 60. But with a lot of the population of that rural area, far from
most jobs and facilities, my age or older, that I am physically able to help, as
well as having a flexible schedule to be available, makes it a community
service that I am glad to be able to offer at this time in my life.
I have seen Summer twice since being in Silver City, and hope to see her
once or twice more while here. She continues to be more physically limited.
Her emphysema has her on oxygen most of the time, and general weakness
from the breathing difficulty and being unable to exercise progresses. Yet
there is a way that her energy has responded to the physical decline by
becoming more clear, releasing emotional baggage, so that she can continue
her creative work and enjoy people who come to see her all the more, with
what energy she does have left. After quite a few years of publishing only
online, which she continues with her www.motherbird.com Web site, she has
published several new print books this year. And there will be a signing,
tomorrow, for two children's books she published for two friends: Finder who
wrote them, and Jodey Bateman who translated them from English to
Spanish, with publication in both languages. Summer is not sure if she will
be able to go to the signing herself, at the Public Library, but will if she feels
up to it. And both authors and other friends will be there.
Wishing you all best,
Uncle River
P. O. Box 747
Pie Town, NM 87827
U. S. A.
uncleriver8@yahoo.com

LETTER: 2009: 1

Jan. 8, 2009
Dear R. K.,
The world continues to struggle. And at dusk, just a little while ago, I
watched a herd of deer that has been passing through often lately. Some of
them were playing, chasing each other around some trees.
I suspect, though with some embarrassment, that the whole world is waiting
for Jan. 20, to see if a saner president of the worlds richest, most powerful
nation either will or can improve policies, economic, diplomatic, enough to
make a significant difference.
You say that the only reason Indias economy has not collapsed is an
economist premier. I long believed that the only thing that kept Americas
economy appearing as stable as so many people wrongly believed it to be
was Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve micromanaging
each successive imbalance, but in the process making continued stability

more and more dependent on himself, a position which, no matter how well
and how long it worked, had in intrinsic limitation. Greenspan himself now
acts shocked at how badly things have fallen apart. Perhaps his surprise is
genuine, even if my opinion was correct. Perhaps he only could make
stability so dependent on himself by failing to realize that was what he was
doing.
Im not sure what economic collapse would mean, for India or for the United
States. Disruptions be what they may, the U. S. economy thus far certainly
has not collapsed. Compared, say, to Zimbabwe or Somalia, or even some
earlier American economic crises. The worldwide Depression of the 30s,
most notably. But I also think of a saying from the time of the American War
of Independence: Worthless as a Continental The Continental was the
paper currency that the then Continental Congress printed. Despite present
stupendous debt, and expectation of more, that has not yet happened to
contemporary American money, most of which is just electronic numbers
these days, not even paper. Well see what we see. I hope not too much in
that direction. It would not be good for anyone. At least in the 1770s, the
value, or lack thereof, of American money did not seriously affect much of
the rest of the world.
My own circumstances, in the meantime, living on about 20 percent of what
is called poverty level in the United States, continue relatively comfortable,
by my standards, and by comparison to quite a few previous years of my
adult life. I have a place to live, plenty of food including carrots, turnips,
parsnips and beets still in the garden under a foot of straw mulch and
patches of snow, which I harvest as wanted, good water, plenty of firewood
and the health to chop it. By contemporary American standards, I am very
marginal. By contemporary world standards and most of human history, I
can only wonder at my own societys assumptions, and consequences when
so many, mostly well-intended people have such assumptions.
Summers healthIt was good to see her while I was in Silver City. And her
health is relatively stable. But she was not having a health crisis. She has
emphysema, a chronic deterioration of the lungs. She may be with us some
substantial time longer; I hope so. One never knows for any of us. But it is
not a question of an acute illness and recovery. She is quite physically
limited now, needing to be on oxygen a lot of the time, and also weakened
just by not being able to do more. Yet her creative spark certainly does
continue and continue to grow.
And I am sorry to hear of your fathers health problem.
I hope you and your wife had a very fine visit with your son and indeed did
get to hold your grandson in your arms and feel his breath, and that your
daughter was able to join you for your birthday on Dec. 31, and a visit.

I had a birthday in December too, on the 12th. My 61st, by American

reckoning. I was born Dec. 12, 1947. Am I correct that it is customary in
India to account ones birth as the first birthday? In the U. S., and the West
generally so far as I know, the birthday at the end of ones first year of life is
called the first, when one is a year old. Thus, if I do correctly understand the
Indian method of counting, there is a year difference in ages of people calling
themselves the same age in India and the West.
I think my novella: Camp Desolation And An Eschatology of Salt, is nearly
ready to go to press. And the story collection: Counting Tadpoles, is
supposed to come out just a few months later.
I seem to be writing a new story. If so, it will be my first in a year. It has
been so long that I feel unsure. Also the material itself is on a subject that
tends to pull apart. People making assumptions, jumping to conclusions,
acting without sensible consideration. All too common human behavior, and
I think that current tensions and the pace and distraction, notably including
electronic media, of contemporary life only increases the tendency. Which is
a lot of why I feel inclined to portray it. But well see if I can do so and hold
the story itself together. It has been coming daily lately thus far.
My involvement with the volunteer fire and ambulance services continues.
But we have had mercifully few calls since my return from Silver City. It is a
service I am pleased to be able to offer though, at this time in my life and
while and to the degree that I can.
A quiet evening now. By comparison to the environment of much of the
worlds population, I suspect extraordinarily quiet, for which I am grateful. I
see Venus out my window, with full dark, higher than I realized Venus could
be; I mistook it for Jupiter the first few nights I saw it so high.
I hope this finds you and yours well.
All best,
River

IX. LETTERS FROM HAIKUIST

MOHAMMED H. SIDDIQUI

Sid, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is a

dedicated lover and promoter of haiku and
tanka. He has been editing the annual
theme-based Seasons Greetings Letter
(SGL) for about two decades and sending it
free to practitioners of haiku the world
over. He encouraged me to read quality
haiku and tanka and shared with me from
time to time several publications that
helped me develop my own sensibility as a
learner of the Japanese verse forms. I am
obliged to Sid for all that I received from
him.

Letter: 1998:1

Saturday, September 19, 1998

Dear Dr. Singh:

Thanks for your letter of September 7, 1998 which I received today. I
was very glad to read that you are publishing a book in concert with
two fellow haikuist from New Zealand.
Here in u.s.a. it has become a very common practice to put out small
books (popularly known as chap books). All this been made possible
due to computers. One even do not need computers. All one need is a
typewriter and an excellent Xerox copying machine. This is how AZAMI
is put out.
This suggestion would like to proffer, please send a complimentary
copy to the editors of MODERN HAIKU, FROGPOND, LYNX, HAIKU
HEADLINES and K in Japan. Be sure to mention how one can get a
copy and how much it would cost in terms of dollars and how the
money should be sent. All over Europe cashing a check is extremely
expensive, as such all the subscription amount has to be sent in bills
along with your letter and hope for the best.
Getting printed in India would be far cheaper than here. Once I
thought of putting out the work of Mujeeb Yar Jung. Gave it up. It was
going to cost more than $500.00 . in the future put out your own chap
book periodically.
When MODERN HAIKU gets a book, if the editor likes it, he would pass
it on to one of the readers who enjoys reviewing the books.
Have completed my upcoming Seasons Greetings letter. Gave the
copy to the printer. Please find enclosed a printers copy, perhaps you
would be interested to read it even before its publication. Now we are
hunting for the right paper that would give the effect of the theme:
appreciation of SNOW.
Now that this is completed I am concentrating for the 1999 mailing and
the theme is going to be GEESE. Yes, migrating geese.

I trust this letter finds you in the spirit of the fall season and would be
looking forward to the pleasure of reading your work.
With all the cordiality:
Cordially,
Sid

Letter: 2000: 1

Thursday, January 20, 2000.

Dear Dr Singh:
Thanks for your letter of January 4, 2000 which I received today and I
better respond to it right away otherwise I may not do it.
May not do it? Well, here the life is getting busier and busier. Paucity of
time for lots of things to do. I invest in the stock market, thus in order
to keep in touch with the financial markets I read The Wall Street
Journal and Investors Business Daily, two daily financial newspapers.
Then I go to the public library to read other financial publications.
Seems you have not received my letter which I wrote right after
receiving your gracious gift of your book Creative Forum. Let me
rewrite what I wrote in that letter.
The world seems to be divided in two distinct parts: one part of the
world is where Victorian or British English is spoken and written. The
other part is American English. This difference becomes quite obvious
when you read the works, either verse or prose, belonging to each
part. It seems the whole environment of daily life, schools and
traditions handed over, specially this becomes very obvious when the
work is being translated by the person belonging to either of the group.
The work done by the British part leaves you with an uneasy weirdouse of words. Whereas American version is just plain wholesome.
This is the main reason Dr. Glazier has made the comments on your
and your friends work from Australia. It is akin to glass is full or the
glass is half empty.
Authors from India have achieved international recognition. More of
their work is being read here in the USA. A friend of mine who is an
English major made the same observation like me. There is nothing
wrong with the work. One can easily see the difference of using
words, how it is phrased.
If you enjoy writing haiku, why do you have to stop writing just
because of one opinion. As you know, one write 100 poems and out of
this 100, only a few would be gems.
For my Seasons Greetings Letter, in my collection I would have several
hundreds. By the process of elimination, done several times, the best

comes out. Sometimes you have to NOT to choose the best one
because of paucity of space. All of them are from the written material
that gives me the chance to read them over and over, again over a
period of time.
One Mr Dion ODonnel from Oregon, who has a printing business, he
publishes his own diary of haiku for every day of the year. A very
fascinating reading. Sending you this years copy. Please make your
own conclusions as to the quality. I stopped reading his diary, he sends
this free at the request.
Coming to your question of getting your work published. Most of the
haiku poets have the same dilemma all over the world. Publishers say,
yes your work makes excellent reading, very high quality work. Yes we
can publish it. The big question is: would it sell. The answer is: no it
would not sell. It would sit the warehouse at a huge loss.
With the advent of Xerox machines you can publish your own book,
available directly from the writer. Lots of Chap books are being
published this way.
Along with the Haiku diary would be sending you few other
publications, you might enjoy reading it. Right now the linked haiku,
tanka and free verse is the rage and every day one sees a new way of
doing it and poets seem to have the time and are getting published.
The response to Canada geese has been very good, one of the top
notch writer even wrote me: my complaint with you is that I am not in
your letter.
The reason of her not being in it was I could not find her work on this
theme.
Here today we had the first snow of the season, just 4 to 6 inches.
Whole landscape is a sight to behold. Looks very pretty. Feel like
walking in it.
With all the cordiality of the Winter Season:
Cordially:
Sid

X. LETTERS FROM H.F. NOYES

I came in touch with Tom Noyes , born

in 1918 in Oregon, USA, when he was
already past 80. Very knowledgeable about
the Japanese tradition of haiku and tanka,
and critical of the Western, including
American understanding thereof, he
practiced psychotherapy for 25 years,
published seven books worldwide, won the
Herons Nest award for some of his haiku,
and died in Attikis, Greece in 2010. He
read my haiku and tanka with interest and
offered comments from time to time.
Simplicity and selflessness were his
watchwords for haiku. I respect his critical
opinion.

1.

4/20

Dear Dr. Singh,

I am so grateful that you shared with me your fine publication,
Creative Forum (a splendid title). I have read it through with real
pleasure, and I believe it to be a project that will promote the one
world haiku feeling and international interest and participation. India
seems to be a prime leader in this sort of undertaking. Bravo!
I have written a short piece for AZAMIs first spring issue - no., it will
be the secondabout the booklet and my enthusiasm for the haiku
therein.
I greatly admire your spirit, and I cherish your words, There is Gods
abundance to feel in the brief three lines and The briefer I become,
the nearer I am to silence. Haiku is but a sketch of a moments
experience, to be filled out by the reader. It does not use sentences,
as does prose. It also does not use the devices of Western poetry, nor
share its use of the sentimental and similepreferring always contact
with the realthe things of Nature and the spirit of Nature herself.
My good friend, in thinking of me and writing to me, remember that I
will be 81 in May and am beginning to failslow but sure. My spirits
are still high, but my work capacity is naturally diminished.
I wish you godspeed with Creative Forum and your other undertakings.
I sense that youre a man of great energy and great good will.
With my warm thoughts,

Tom Noyes

2.

Good Friday (our Easter is the

th

30 )

Dear R.K.
I do so appreciate your warm, friendly letter and your sharing of your
poetry. Last night I thought about what you said, that people were
helping you to understand haiku better, and Id just read the recent K
magazine. It seems more and more clear to me that East Meets
West is one of the great truths of our times. Im no expert, but Ive
followed the trends quite closely in Japan and the Westesp. America,
of course; and Im more and more convinced that Frogpond and
Modern Haiku are among the best representatives of the haiku of
Bash and his contemporaries, and that most Japanese publications
are not paying any sort of strict attention to the old guidelines. As
much as I admired Ikkoku San and his friends who contributed their
vernacular haiku to AZAMI, though those efforts had charm and
something of the haiku spirit, at least in the English translations, they
fell far short of genuine haiku. The translations from Croatia and
Yugoslavia are equally far from being the real thing, and they seem to
me strongly influenced by Western poetry. Kko Kat is far too
romantic in her feeling expressioneven sentimental. And I dont
usually see any relationship between James Kirkups poetry and haiku.
Its mostly mental and very close to Western poetry. So my general
conclusion is that not only East met West, but they have changed
places in the haiku world. We in the West learned so well from the

Japanese masters that it is we who not represent them, more than the
Japanese themselves. An exception is Kohjin Sakamoto, a professor
like yourself; he writes some of the very best haiku being written
today. Your own soul is highly poetic, and I feel intensely the struggle
youve gone through to try to bring your haiku down to earth. May I
suggest that you try at a library to find a copy of F.S.C. Northrups East
Meets West an old book, but truly great one, written from a solid and
scientific point of view. Haiku have their roots in Zen, and when you
mix in Christianity, as Kko Kat and some of her contributors do, it
just doesnt work. Zen and haiku are completely reality-oriented. Their
concern is what is what you see and hear and touch. Another
romantic is Marijan ekolj, pres. of Croatian Haiku Assoc. and editor of
Sparrrow. His latest book is mostly 3-line love poems that have no
relation to haiku whatsoever. After all these years of experience, hes
created what I view as a sacrilege. (He calls them HAIKU!)
I like your Crouching out of the bath. Its like one of mine from years
ago, in reference to the Holocaust:
In the queue to die:
a desperate clutch at modesty
hiding naked sex.

and
Her photograph
ever mysterious
haiku moment

is splendid.
To shorten ones haiku is a profitable discipline. Haiku moment
is the great secret. Chicken pox has a feel of sabis sense of
loneliness. Thoreau wrote:
Why be lonely?
Is not our planet, too
In the Milky Way?

Congratulations on your haiku in Greek. A fine achievement. Im

amazed at how few syllables the translator uses, because Greek
language is overflowing with syllables. Zoe Sabina is a very nice
person, married to an artist, and talented; but she, too, is overly

influenced by Western poetry, its beautiful description and metaphor.

Of your 3 beautiful haiku that I commended and really love, only
drowned in dreams not seen seems overly poetic in the Western
sense. The third peddling dreamshas the true haiku spirit.
Reminds me a little of Ion Codrecus wonderful haiku:
Easter evening
the old woman gathers
her unsold flowers

By the way, this is Good Friday, and our Easter will be the 30th.
Orthodox Easter is never on the same date as the other European and
American,
Its a good aim to try to express sensuousness in haiku, and most of
the time I think you do it well. After all, its not just seeing and hearing
that offer us reality, but touch as well.
Yes, if youre a poet, writing haiku too much can suppress some of your
true poetic instinct. They are very different. I too find the cost of
getting published very discouraging, as I live on a pension from the
Navy.
I do now have chronic bronchitis, so there isnt much hope of its going
away. But if I can swim in the ocean this summer, I will surely feel
much better for a while. Good luck with your allergies. The Greek Stoic
school believed that we shouldnt let anything affect the Self (the inner
self). While were creating something, it does seem to work Mind
over matter. Poetry and prayer and love-thy-neighbor can help.
My warm thoughts and friendly good wishes always,
Tom

3.

June 5 [2000]
Dear R.K.
I must say I feel some agreement with Lyle Glaziers commentary on
haiku in general. There is a mutual admiration society and its true
that haiku poets are moving toward self-expression and away from the
perception experience, which haiku of the old masters almost
invariably was. Also the old Japanese haiku of Bash, Buson, Issa and
Shiki was SIMPLE, and Bash particularly in his older years aimed to
reflect the values of karumi or lightness: Let your haiku be like a
willow branch waving in the breeze.
I dont agree with Glazier that haiku has little worth outside the inner
circle of mutually admiring poets. I believe if there can be another shift
this time away from mere self-expression (and as Glazier says, back
to concentrated objective visual/auditory/sensory revelations from
virtually didactic or clever manipulations of the simple truth of

natures wonders, haiku can be a major and world-respected form of

poetry. People already make pilgrimages to the haunts of Bash out of
reverence for what he stood for and what he achieved.
As for your own best way, youll find it for sure, because youre
committed. But just considering the 6 poems you sent me, it does
seem to me that the tanka is the best and that your preference is for
expressing ideas, thoughts, and on a different, more literary level than
haiku was intended to be. The cobweb of years is a mature literary
expression. he breathes Kamini is also, and isnt a true fit with haiku.
Even waltzing ripples is Western poetry, though I wouldnt actually
fault it in haiku. In haiku we offer the thing itself, not a poetic or literary
or philosophical view of it. flowers inviting is what flowers seem to
you to be doing. A haiku in their own voice would likely be quite
different, as they they themselves have a life utterly different from
ours. If you want to write authentic haiku, let the flowers, the water,
the night and the sun speak for themselves. I think a good example is:
washes the sky
for the sun to shine freshness
at my window

but dont attribute a purpose or aim to the night. Just

night washes the sky
the sun brings morning freshness
to my window

and let the reader make the connection. In haiku, we dont elaborate
or explain, only sketch our experience of the moment.
Thank you for Poets International. Small waves/growing into perfect
tides/without warning is a perfect haiku, WITHOUT An uncertain life
which is Western poetry. Obviously the editor of Poets International is
look for sublime poetry, rather than haiku. Theres no law against
India establishing its own genre, but its NOT HAIKU. Cekoljs Here and
Now has no relation to haiku.
For continuing in the Japanese tradition and expressing yourself, TANKA
is your best bet.
I deplore the American influence in literature, cinema, business (free
trade) and politicsits disastrous.

I feel profoundly how difficult it is for you to conceive of your son

having to sacrifice himself for the foolishness of petty politicians.
One should LIVE for his country, not DIE for it, to be a hero.
Tom

4.
July 8
[2000]
Dear R.K.
Your #2 tanka is very deeply felt. The tanka tradition is in general a
romantic one. I wish I could afford to send you The Country of Eight
Islands with the great old Japanese tanka of earlier centuries. I
admired your haiku this time, but I am not familiar enough with your
subjects to comment. on a sheet of ice paints an amusing picture.
There is sabi in waiting for the flight loneliness but without the
important element of beauty, (the beauty of loneliness in time).
I totally agree that simplicity and lightness should be the aim of all
haiku, and detachment is desirable in our way of looking at things
detachment, selflessness, and a sense of our oneness with all of life.

Spinoza wrote that the highest understanding is of the union of our

minds with nature. The Bible says, Though shalt be in league with the
stones of the field.
I deplore the Western influence its power over adult minds and even
children. When I practiced psychotherapy in N.Y. I used never to miss
seeing the wonderful Indian films. (Now I understand that India puts
out more than Hollywood!) I loved Tagores poetry and plays, even at
college age. Ill never forget his writing: The purpose of life is the
pleasure of living.
Ill be on holiday soon. Hope you, too,will have time off from the
grind of your workload.
Warm thoughts,
Tom
P.S.: At 82 I am having to cut down on my correspondence. Please
forgive.
A favorite waka (tanka):
This long bridge:
pausing to gaze
at the willows,
I forgot which way
Id thought to go.

--Clark Strand
sun behind the hills
the fisherman ships his oars
and drifts into shore
Nick Avis, Dragonfly, Vol. XII, No.1, Jan., 84
Haiku, wrote Lorraine Ellis Harr, Dragonfly editor, is like an iceberg.It is
the unseen part that
Is important.What floats within the depths is the universal oneness of the
experience. (Dragonfly, Vol. XII, No.4, October 84). When the sun goes
behind the hills, its the signal all over the world for working people to let
down, to call it a dayfor fishermen to rest the oars, to drift in peace. Its a
hallowed hour, a time of special blessing, of rest well earned. A time for the
mind too to driftto the haven of that emptinessfullness which revives our
hopes and dreams.

XI. LETTERS FROM BILL WEST

Bill West, based in Chicago, has published his

poems in many Indian poetry journals. He and I
have appeared together in magazines such as Poet,
Canopy, Metverse Muse, Azami, Spin etc. He has
published several books including The Heians,
Ghost Tales of Old Japan, Kaimami (Scenes

Observed While Peeping through a Screen),

American Summer Suite, and Sacred Numbers.

1.

666 West Irving Park Road 1-2

Chicago, Illinois 60613-3125, USA
April 24, 2001
Dear Professor Singh,
Thanks for your letter of April 10th, which has just arrived. Please dont hurry
to review The Heians. Its very kind of you to take the time and trouble to
review it at all. I hesitate to ask a poet to take time from his own work, and
Ive decided not to write prose in my late years. I really, therefore, shouldnt
ask it of others. Im sure Iftikhar had your Japanese association in mind,

when he asked me to send The Heians to you. I thank you for your help,
while pleading with you to concentrate on writing your own poetry without
allowing yourself to be distracted by other work. All of our lines are too
short. Leave it those who dont write creative work to write the reviews.
The letter I enclosed about the data surrounding The Heians is one I prepared
for all the potential reviewers, so be careful how you use it. I should have
put a warning in it, but I assumed reviewers would see the letter for what it
is.
I have no reason to think that my name will do anyone any good at The
Mainichi Daily, where Ive published only once or twice. The editors dont
write back at all, and I dont see the paper. I do seem to appear from time-totime in The Asahi Evening News, but David McMurray, the haiku editor sends
puzzling cursory telegraphic-style notes at times, which I take to mean, hed
like some more haiku. Sometimes he includes a copy of the issue with my
haiku and sometimes not. In general, his notes seem to coincide with the
four seasons. Again, unless he sends me a copy, I dont see my haiku in
published form, because I dont see the paper, and Im not on-line, because
Im a mechanical moron and computer illiterate. Im enclosing a copy of the
1998 and updated 1999 List of Haiku Publications put out by the American
Haiku Society. It has not been corrected since. I thought I sent you a copy,
when we last corresponded. It has some notes of mine, including my
warning to myself against your nemesis from NZ, Tony Chad. I recently sent
the list to Dr. Angelee Deodhar, who had sent me a copy of her Pail in Hand
collection of haiku which are excellent. Perhaps shell be perverse enough to
ignore my caveat and send her book to the boorish xenophobic of New
Zealand, in which case maybe well (or shell) get further evidence of his
churlishness.
What a noticer of trivia you must be to have become aware of my absence
from Metverse Muse. Dr. H. Tulsi and I didnt quarrel. When she sent me
notice my subscription was due several years ago, I sent her a twenty dollar
bill. She wrote back to say that, although the letter was or looked
untampered with, my twenty dollars wasnt in it. I then sent a second twenty
dollar bill, and she wrote back that she hadnt received that either. I sent her
a brief note, saying that I was absolutely sure I had enclosed the second
twenty dollars, and that I couldnt chance sending her more money, and that
was our last communication. I suppose I should have sent a check the
second time, but I didnt. What I miss most are the photographs of the
poets, though why I should care about how other poets look, shows a certain

superficiality on my part. I think its because the first anthology of poetry I

owned was Palgraves Golden Treasury, which, in those days, had little
portraits of many of the poets, my favorite being the portrait of the
spectacularly ugly Robert Herrick, whose lyrics are so delicate and lovely and
charming.
Love,
Bill

2.

May 22, 2001

Dear Professor Singh,

Thank you very much for your May 4th letter, the copy of your review of my
The Heians, and your cautionary notice of Tony Chads ascendance to the
editorship of Spin, arrived today. Do you know, if his other magazine
Winterspin continues and if hes also editor of it? I dont have any New
Zealand outlets for my poems. Patricia Prime must, I hope, mean well, even
if her memory is short.
Your review of The Heians is superb. Thank very much for writing it, and for
doing all the research into Japanese art and history youve clearly
undertaken to write it. Thanks too for your remark about my dealings with H.
Tulsi. Ill thinkover whether I want to resume relations with Metverse Muse.
Concerning your own dealings with that magazine, Id suggest that, if youd
really like to have your poems published in it, send Dr. T. some of your more
rhythmic free-verse and let her decide whether she regards it as metrical.
Dont speak of it, of course, as free verse. I havent seen the magazine for
quite a while, but my memory is that she interprets metrical rather freely.
Do you ever thyme? If so, send her some poems that have some rhymes. I
know that she has published haiku in her magazine in the past, so ship her
some of yours.
Judging by my experience, you wont hear from the Mainichi Daily, even if
they publish your poems. Ikkoku used to send his poets copies of the haiku
columns of M.D. in which their poems appeared. You probably will hear from
David McMurray, but, if youre like me, you wont know what hes saying to
you, because his notes are so vague and telegraphic. He likes 3-5-3 syllables
haiku, but I just send him what Ive got. He also seems to like season words,
but, again, I send what I can. At any rate, when he sends me something in
the mail, I take it as an invitation to send him more haiku for the next
season, if Ive got some. Hes published some of mine that appeared in
Azami earlier, so he surely knows that youre a well-known haikuist.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a copy of Srinivas Poet, although I stopped
subscribing to it quite sometime ago, so I sent them a poem. Perhaps, your
review of my The Heians reminded them or inspired them to contact me.
Thank you for that in this letter full of thanksyous.
Dont feel bad about not knowing much about the nature of the haiku and
tanka. Nobody does, I think, although there are some that are sure they do.
The British Haiku Society spent two years in trying to come up with a

definition of the haiku and had at last to give it up, although I believe they
issued some guidelines, which Ive never seen.
Do you write tankas? Im enclosing a copy of the new Tanka Society of
Americas membership application. The society has no magazine for poems
but publishes a newsletter with some essays about tanka. You dont have to
be an American to join, but its probably not worth your bother. I send it just
as general information to you. If you do write tankas, you could submit some
to Ms Laura Maffei, Editor & Founder, American Tanka, P.O. Box 120 024,
Staten Island, N.Y. 10312, USA. Most of the tankas in it dont follow the 5-75-7-7 form,.
Very gratefully yours, love,
Bill

Im enclosing 80 cents in American stampsenough to pay for a letter

weight reply from an American magazine, self-stick stamps.

3.

July 6,
2001

Dear R.K.,
Thank you very much for your June 20th letter and the copy of your review of
my The Heians as it appeared in the June Poet. Its very kind of you to take
so much trouble on my behalf.
Im glad to hear youll have poems in the Asahi haiku in English column. Im
amazed to hear you had a long letter from David McMurray, who writes in
telegraphic style to me. He must be your admirer. The Mainichi people
seem to expect haikuists to find their poems in the newspaper. They dont
write to usor at least to me. Its hard to deal with them,when we dont
know if they publish our poems. Whos going to subscribe to the Mainichi just
to see if they publish us occasionally. Michael Dylan Welch brought out the
first issue of Tundra, two years ago and none since. He has my subscription
money, but I get no Tundras.
Enjoy the summer!
Love,
Bill

4.

April 29,
2002

Dear R.K.,
Our friend Iftikhar Hussain Rizvi has suggested that I send you a copy of my
The Sparrow With the Slit Tongue and Beautiful Oiwa: Tales of Old Japan to
you. Im also enclosing a copy of my letter about the books background.
It may be that Iftikhar intends to ask you to review it. Im very grateful to you
for your generous and excellent review of my The Heians, but, please dont
feel you need to take time out from your own important poetry writing to
review another book of mine. As you know, Im not writing any prose as a
matter of policy, so I have no right to ask others to do so.
I enjoyed your haiku about the maids leaving an oily smell behind her in
David McMurrays haiku column. Do you still correspond with him? He
published a haiku of mine in January, I think, but I dont hear from him much.
I always read your poems, of course, when I see them in magazines.
Love,
Bill

XII.
A LETTER FROM
KAZUYOSI IKEDA

Kazuyousi Ikeda has been appearing

in various Indian poetry magazines.
President of International Earth
Environment University and Professor
Emeritus of Osaka University, he is based
in Osaka. A few Indian scholars have
published books on his poetry.

1.

16 July 2001

Dear Dr. R.K. Singh,

Thank you very much for your kind letter dated 26 June 2001. I am deeply
impressed by your great interest in Japanese art forms. I am exceedingly
happy that I have such a bosom friend as you loving and admiring Japanese
culture. Again and again I thank you very very much for your writing on my
poetry, responding to the request of the editor of Samvedana. As said in my
previous letter, your recommending essay was amazingly excellent; I found
that it arose from your keen interest and profound penetration in Japanese
art.
I am very sorry that I could not fulfill your request stated in your letter: I do
not regularly read Asahi Shumbun, and it is impossible to get newspapers
published previously (say 22 June 2001) from any newspaper shop. So, I
regret that I cannot send you a copy (clipping) of the page carrying haiku and
comments on them.
I heartily congratulate you on your success with your haiku and tanka, being
published in Haiku Harvest and The Tanka Journal etc. I greatly admire your
energetic activities in the field of Japanese art, especially poetry.
I read your review on Bill Wests book The Heians. Your review stimulated me
into immense interest. The tanka of the Japanese court poets in the Heian
period (9th 12th centuries) are the important subjects of my literary
researches. The form of tanka is 5-7-5-7-7 syllable metre. But in the end of
the Heian period (12th century) the form of poetry 7-5, 7-5, 7-5, 7-5 syllable
metre also appeared and flourished. But soon it decayed. Researching into
this poetry form, I revived it late in the 20th century. This is nothing but the
seven-and-five-syllable metre (Sitigotyo in Japanese) which I am now using
not only in my Japanese poetry but also in my English poetry. You and other
poets in the world now read my Sitigotyo poems.

For the above reason, I eagerly wanted to read The Heians, especially owing
to your excellent, inspiring review. So, I ordered the book by sending Mr.
West $15. I am now waiting the reaching of the book. At the same time I
knew that Mr. West had published, besides The Heians, the books: Ghost
Tales of Old Japan ; Kaimami (Scenes Observed While Peeping through a
Screen); American Summer Suite; Sacred Numbers. I ordered all his books
from him. I am much interested in their being written with his calligraphy
and including illustrations and photographs.
Though they have not yet reached me, I can read these splendid books
because you wrote the review of The Heians in the journal POET and directed
my attention to it. My thanks to you is boundlessly large.
Again and again thanking you very much for your great favour and kindness,
and ardently hoping for your continued brilliant success in literary success, I
am
Sincerely yours,
Kazuyosi Ikeda

Address: Nisi-7-7-11 Aomadani, Minoo-si, Osaka 562-0023, Japan

XIII.
A LETTER FROM
FEDERICO C. PERALTA

Feddie is a haiku poet from the

Philippines. Our haiku have appeared in
many haiku journals the world over. His first
letter arrived with some of his haiku.

1.

18 Tanguile Street, Phase VI,

Pleasant Hill Subdivision,
San Jose del Monte 3023,
Bulacan, Philippines
16 February, 2000
Dear Ram Krishna,
Isang mainit na kumusta sa iyo mula sa Philipinas. A warm hello to you from
the Philippines.
I came across your haiku in a Yugoslavia haiku magazine and caught my
interest. But to my surprise when in another letter I discovered that you were
one of the poets featured in the book given to me by Catherine Nair, a dear
friend from New Zealand.
I am glad that I finally am able to write this letter which I have been longing
to do so to convey this message of admiration to you.
I enjoy reading your haiku, and I cannot but wish I could have some more of
your fine poetry. There is an intense craving inside me which is difficult to
explain. So, I typed some of my own haiku in the 17-syllabic sentence
pattern to exchange with more of your poems. I will cherish and treasure
them.
I am FREDERICO C. PERALTA. I was born on March 19, 1954. I am married. I
have two children. The eldest is a boy, and the youngest is a girl. I am not
gainfully employed in any commercial entities but in our house. It is my wife

who earns the living for us as a nursing attendant in a veternas medical

center receiving a meager salary which is, more often than not, insufficient
to make both ends meet. But love makes us survive.
I lost my sight more than a decade ago due to retinitis pigmentosa. It is an
incurable eye disease which eventually leads to blindness. Even modern
medicine has not yet discovered a cure for it. I inherited this visual malady
from my grandparents. But I am thankful to God for helping me realize that
the light within is brighter than the light without. The loss of sight does not
mean loss of insight in life. Life is beautiful seeing through the eyes of God
in the light of truth.
I collect books of poems, both haiku and non-haiku. I like the poetry of
Rabindranath Tagore, Kahlil Gibran, Matsuo Basho, Pablo Neruda and Jose
Rizal, our national hero. Aside from poetry books, I also collect stamps and
recorded music, jazz, classical and non-classical.
I look forward to hearing from you soon. Not merely to swap poems but
friendly notes and thoughts as well. Haiku is a path that will lead mankind to
universal understanding. Happy haikuing. Mabuhay.
Affectionately,
Frederico C. Peralta (Feddie)

Touching each other, we explode in ecstasy. Sound of pre-dawn rain.

Blue suburban sky. Solitary bird twittering in circled flight.
Beautiful morning. The narra tree ejaculating in the wind.
A night of no moon. The spark of love in your eyes leads me to your arms.
Sunday morning sun. The wings of dragonflies shimmering through the mist.
Wistful afternoon. Through the mist of memory, your image takes shape.
Quivering branches. A rain of white blossoms lights the deepening dusk.
Summertime rapture. Birds and butterflies darting between tall bamboos.
Nature symphony. Sunlight dancing on the top of trees and houses.
Hard afternoon rain. Cold lonely night ahead awaits my empty arms.

Cool summer night breeze. The Halebopp comet evokes a cosmic romance.
Hot afternoon tea. The scent of jasmine wafts through the door left open.
The summer wind blows. A slingshot stone plummets on the neighbors
rooftop.

--Frederico C. Peralta

XIV.
BAILEY

LETTERS FROM KEVIN

Kevin Bailey( b. 1954) is a well known

British poet and founder - editor of the
international literary journal HQ Poetry
Magazine : The Haiku Quarterly published
from Swindon, England. He seeks to
maintain good artistic standards in his
independent poetry magazine, just as his

poetry, reviews and commentaries have

appeared in a wide variety of publications.
In 2000 he edited, with Lucien Stryk, the
classic anthology The Acorn Book of
Contemporary Haiku. He has published
some of my poems, including haiku, in
both the HQ Poetry Magazine and the
anthology.

1.

39 Exmouth Street,
Swindon SN1 3PU
England
2 & 3/ V /00

Dear Dr. Singh,

Firstly, my sincere apologies for having taken so long to have replied to your
letters. The last few months have been full of family and work
responsibilities with little time available for literary work and
correspondence. My mother has been very unwell (now thankfully
recovered), I have been putting together the haiku anthology (with Lucien

Stryk but he too became ill early on and I have had to do most the donkey
work), I gave a six month commitment to the charity Mencap (for mentally
handicapped people) to run their community access project, and what with
the magazine and routine family demands, I have, frankly, been very
overstretched. I know that you understand, I just needed to explain so that
you did not think it was disinterest or rudeness on my part.
I cannot thank you enough for all the help that you have given Mike Hogan.
He is,in my opinion, one of the most talented young poets around at the
moment. It can only be a matter of time before his talent is fully recognized.
I saw him in Bath last week with his mother full of tales of his adventures in
India. He is coming to stay for a few days around the 20th of May when I
will get the complete story. He was looking tanned and well apart from a
slight fever which I suspect was mild malaria. I had malaria three times
myself when a child in Kenya (my father was an engineering lecturer at
Mombasa Technical Institute) and recognized the symptoms. He brought me
a set of four copies of Poetry Today which I enjoyed, and his own pamphlet.
I shall, in the fullness of time, write to Mr. Chaudhuri with a copy of HQ.
I do hope that you are well and about to enjoy the relative calm of your
summer vacation. April here in Wiltshire has been three times wetter than
normal. Every day dark grey clouds and pouring rain but thankfully since
the start of May the sun has shone and I have been able to get on with some
much needed gardening. I have a small flower garden here in Swindon and
share a vegetable allotment in Bath with my partner, the artist, Catherine
Roberts. I love to have cut flowers in the house and the pleasure in
harvesting my own apples, pears, plums, strawberries, Jerusalem artichokes,
runner beans, shallots, onions, etc. for pies and dinners is beyond
description. There is nothing like eating food one has grown oneself. It
literally keeps one in touch with the earth. I do hope that if ever you are in
England you will visit me. I am rather poor and cannot offer very grand
surroundings but the welcome would be warm and rich.
Mike has made India sound a very inviting place for writers. He has enjoyed
himself very much and is eager to return. I must confess I am very envious.
I now spend time day dreaming about visiting India myself. He has the
advantage of being single with few responsibilities It would take a lot of
effort for me to disentangle myself from work and family. I think that I will
start putting aside a little India money each month and you never know, I
might just manage a trip out sometime. I suspect a passenger carrying

cargo ship passage would be cheapest see how the fantasy is getting a
grip of me!
Well, I started this letter on Monday, and now, on Wednesday the rains have
returned and I have had to put the house heating on. Im getting very tired
of living on such a cold island And yet it is an island I would die for
strange thing this love of the homeland.
Im reading Michael Holroyds biography of Lytton Strachey, the poems of
George Barker, and Casanovas My Life and Adventures at the moment. I
tend to read as the mood leads me. I love good films and in recent years
Carrington, Regeneration, and The End of the Affair have impressed.
I must confess to being creatively rather sterile at the moment have hardly
written poetry for months the anthology and magazine squeezing the
creative energy out of me. I think I need a push from some external
stimulus; unrequited lovegood weather even!
Now Im starting to moan at you and that must indicate the letter has run its
course. I do hope we get the chance to meet one day. And of course, we
must stay in touch. Good health and happiness.
Very best wishes,
Kevin B.

2.

8. X. 00

Dear Dr. Singh,

My sincere apologies for the long delay in getting back to you after receipt of
your very kind letters over the last few months. Life became very busy and I
had to concentrate on getting this present issue of HQ out and dealing with a
lot of tidying up work relating to the Contemporary Haiku book just published
with Lucien Stryk.

Work seems go have been the one constant this summer and Ive had little
chance to either enjoy the weather which hasnt been too bad by English
standardsor get on with my own poetry. I am enclosing a copy of the latest
HQ with some of your work in and that of three other Indian poets; the
experienced Dr. Bahri and Dr. Deodhar, and the novice Ms. Crispy Birbal Jain.
I hope you find something to enjoy within its pages. I have rather spoilt Mike
this issuehis writing is so good that I felt that for once I would share as
much as I could with the readership. I do hope that he finds a publisher for
this major work soon. Publishing in England has fallen into the hands of some
powerful poetic cliquesmostly based on old school and university
associations, and the Poetry Society Mafiatheir poetry is mostly mediocre
but money and media hype maintain their position It has probably always
been so. It is only the main twenty or so really independent poetry
magazines in this country that brings new and really innovative (or just plain
Good) poetry before the public.
I write poetry when the Muse visits me and am not driven to be constantly
forcing out new poems. My main role seems to be to act as midwife to the
work of others. When I am older I will set aside some time for myself and
collect together all the poetry I consider worthwhile or interesting and
publish; simply as a testament to my life and a statement of my existence I
dont really care whether people will approve of it or not. It will just be to
say, I was here
I do hope that before then I get a chance to come out to India. It is an
ambitionbut one that will have to wait for a full purse. Mike has been
working hard and is planning to do a short but intense Teaching English as a
Foreign Language course in London during the Autumn and then return to
India once he has found a teaching post. He seems pretty keen to settle in
India for a while. I really do hope that we get a chance to meet
Mike has, I think, opened his mind to the possibilities of finding an Indian
wife. He spent a great deal of time extolling their (very real) virtues. Most
Western women, though having many fine qualities, are far, these days, from
virtuous My own daughter, Hannah, is now twenty and has just engaged
herself to an Oxford graduate, but Ive not been introduced to him yet. Oh for
sons I have two daughters and two sons; Hannah 20, Robert 17, Emily 16,
and Lawrence 9. I must confess that Lawrence is the apple of my eye;
perhaps because I am older and he is younger. He has started writing
poetry and is a keen artist, and claims to want to be a painter Hannah is
training to be an actor/theatre manager; Robert is confused and

concentrates on football, cricket and rugger; Emily is beautiful and bright

plays the saxophone, acts, is very bright, and will probably catch the eye of
some notable, wealthy enough to provide her with the beauty and easy that
naturally surrounds her
Perhaps I should come out and find a new wife for myself. But what well
bred Indian woman would want me for a husband!
You must be very proud of your son I hope that your summer has been
relaxing one and that you have had some time to rest. Perhaps now that
your son has graduated he has been able to spend some time at home. I
know that the company of Lawrence, though he is still young, is a good
thing that father-son relationship is a very special one; sons seem to grow
older and closer to their fathers.
8.10.00 (Some weeks after the above)
I have been ill with colon problems recently, and am particularly short of
cash at the moment, so a trip to India is still an ambition but a delayed one.
Thank you for your kind invitations This letter has been much delayed and I
must get it off to you. The Contemporary Haiku book had its launch at
Waterstones bookshop in Trafalgar Square, London, last Thursday and went
well. I do hope that you have now received your copy, if not, then do please
get in touch with Acorn direct. The book is to be reviewed in the Times
Literary Supplement in a couple of weeks which should raise its profile
somewhat. I am sorry for this absolute jumble of a letter. I am very over
stretched with work and feel sometimes that I am now drowning under the
weight of letters and manuscripts please forgive; I know you understand.
Mike is coming to stay in a couple of weeks and that should relax me. You
will be in our thoughts and conversation. We both think of you as friend.
Very best wishes to you and your family,
Kevin

XV.LETTERS FROM SALVATORE J.

CUCCHIARA

Sam Cucchiara (b. 4 Aug. 1981, d. 9 Dec.

2002), a former Professor of English in
Cleveland, Ohio and a Korean War veteran,
discovered me from the pages of poetry
journals. We stayed in touch for over five
years, till his death. He even visited
Dhanbad to appoint me as resident India
Editor of SLUGFEST, edited by M.T. Nowak
and others.

Letter: 1997:1

Sfest, Ltd.
P.O.Box 1238
Simpsonville, SC 29681
USA
10/28/97
Dear Prof. Singh,
Was delighted to receive your letter and a most positive suggestion from Pat
Prime. The enclosed current Sfest issue will give you a better glimpse than
any explanatory words. We are one amongst many thousands of tiny,
unknown, literary anthologies published since the advent of the computer.
Your work has probably appeared in many of them. There is no fame or
fortune in our work only the joy of connecting with a few people who share
your special interest. We do share a common passionliterature is not an
intellectual mind game but a lesson in life.
Each editor defines his/her own involvement and contributes financially, if
they can. There are five editors who vote on the prose material to be
published and the esteemed, managing editor, Mike Nowak, exercises the
sole vote on which poems will be published. All of the editors (except me)
work full time and it would be an understatement to say our SF work is a
labor of love. Its only an old story. One Im sure youre familiar with. We
would dearly love to open our pages to some unknown Indian authors
through the recommendation of an Indian SF editor. Thats your job, if you
decide to participate. I begin my journey in a few days and look forward to
meeting you during my first visit to your country in February.
Almost anything you do is insignificant but it is very important that you do
it. Indeed it is, young man.
With every good wish, I remain
Your brother-in-the-word
Sam Cucchiara, Emeritus

Letters:1998:2-10

2.

9/2/98

Dear R.K.,
Your letter was quite a gutsy wallop of truth saying. I certainly know the
heartbreaking, sincere work that you did in the special edition of the
LANGUAGE FORUM. Your tolerance article was a most valuable contribution
about a most important topic. I applaud and respect your accomplishments.
The fact is my interests have changed. I find it very difficult to plow through
any academic journals. That part of my life is over and now I get excited by
the writing in some of the small, outrageous literary journals. But where
thine infinite sky spreadeth for the soul to take her flight, a stainless white
radiance reigneth; wherein is neither day nor night, nor form nor color, nor
ever any word Change is a constant my friend.
One of the most unusual random experiences occurred meeting four
American retired Jesuits at Loyala University either in New Delhi or Calcutta.
Fr. McKenna invited me to listen to his stories at tea time. He told me that
each of the priests had spent more than fifty years teaching in India. When a
Jesuit is assigned to any part of the globe, it is for life. During my last visit
he said, Come with me Sam. I want to show your something. We walked
to the main entrance of the college, pointed to a poster on the bulletin board
and said, This is my favorite all-time poster. This is India. The poster
depicted a 7 or 8 year old lovely Indian lad with big hazel glowing eyes and a
Mona Lisa like smile. The caption above the photo read What would you like
to do, when you grow up? At the bottom of the caption read SURVIVE.

Another tiny insight into Hindu culture happened when two Bombay students
took me on a tour to visit some of the places that meant a great deal to
them. During our walk one of the beggars with a little baby in her arms
attached herself to me. When she left, I asked the students, How do YOU
react to the beggars? One of the students immediately replied, Just be
patient. In your next life you may be that beggar.
In this months Harpers magazine theres a profound article, BEYOND
BELIEF, A Skeptic Searches for an American Faith by Fenton Johnson.
Belief that is, dogma and doctrine may serve the ends of power, but faith
is the province of individuals, not institutions. So long as individuals have
something to losethe Buddhists would say, so long as we have
attachmentsits difficult to accomplish the letting go that is faiths sine qua
non; the more we have to lose, the greater the challenge. To find genuine
faithto find those who dwell in the world as it is, rather than as they would
have it one must look among the poor, among the dispossessed, among
the outsiders to power If one looks at the latter three categories, were
looking at ourselves. For some unknown reason so many of us mortals seem
to squander our brief journey cursing the gods because we are not one of
them. Often we get side-tracked studying the turtles. Why are we so afraid
to love, which is always a one-way street?
One personal experience that affected my life was attending a weekend
mens retreat at a friends, Mark Morelli, parish church in New Jersey. During
one of the sessions the priest repeated the biblical story of the rich man and
the beggar. For forty years the rich man worshiped daily at the temple, while
passing the beggar who sat on the steps outside with his little cup. When
the rich man died, he was condemned not because he didnt give alms but
because he didnt know the beggar existed. The priest ended the talk with a
humorous aside telling us not to worry too much about our sexual sins
because they are low on the totem pole of sins. It seemed like I heard the
story for the first time.
Your letter ignited my own soul-searching. Thank you.
May peace keep your heart and hold it gently,
Sam

P.S. I did receive the ISM Newletter along with a little note from Dr. Paul and
sent him a little note of thanks. Good luck to Winny on those cursed terminal
all-consuming exams.
Mikes wife, Monique, posted these photos last week. The occasion was our
little trip to visit Suzanne Kamata. If you look at the bottom photo, youll see
your letter to Suzanne in Mikes top, left hand shirt pocket. There were about
20 in the audience, when she made her presentation. We were there and so
were you.

3.

6.3.98

Dear R K,
Received your letter dtd 5/19 along with the photos and the radical Family
And Female Sexuality essay, yesterday. What a big boost. Thanks.
The first sentence is a big hug and many kisses to your young, Singh, rebel
daughter, Ms. Winny. The cultural difference between East and West I found
most difficult to adjust to was the role of women. Had dinner with more than
thirty families during my little trek through India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The fact that women at these dinners were almost non visible except when
serving the food, made me very uncomfortable. Ms. Winny gives me hope
that she can break this suffocating, concrete box. Go Winny!
I did not receive any letter from you at Patna. Either it was lost in the mail,
the hotel failed to pass it on, or possibly I moved to New Delhi before it
arrived. Would deeply appreciate receiving a copy of the Dickenson paper,
which is my special interest as you know. Im looking forward to a copy of
your Language Forum paper. Your FAMILY AND FEMALE SEXUALITY essay is
certainly a radical theme that very well may start a much-needed, Indian
revolution and I salute you.

This is my honest opinion. The format and voice was standard, academic
abstraction. If youre really serious (and I know you are) about this topic,
write it in a personal, passionate voice eschewing most of the references.
Your premise that the misogynous outlook was promoted historically is
questionable. The opposite is true because it is a rather recent phenomenon
for many of the reasons you stated in the last paragraph. A glaring omission
is the introduction of pill, which is probably the most important factor needed
to discuss the topic. As far as female sexuality, in Western culture its a case
of the horse that already has left the starting gate and is half way around the
track. The last paragraph is so packed with additional information it makes
the reader wonder what is the point youre trying to make. The title is
deliciously incongruous and original and immediately sparked my curiosity.
Im still curious. How did your wife react, when she read it?
Mike posted the copy of your Dual Muse review. Its a brilliant scholarly work
dual singleness of the writer and artistand I enjoyed reading it. Its a
shining credit to you, our colleagues and ISM. DUAL MUSE would be a
shining addition to the Cambridge, Yale, or Harvard literary journals but not
suitable for SF. Compare it with the reviews and articles we do publish. The
next SF issue will be posted in early Oct. Ive included some current
materials to give you a broader perspective of what we (SF) do.
The two Singh photos are now framed above my desk. Happy memories of a
most extraordinary week. That was a kind gesture and Im most
appreciative. One day Ill boast that I met Indias new President, Winny, and
Nobel Poet Laureate, R.K. Singh. My warmest greetings and respect to your
wife, Dr. Paul, Dr. Rizvi and his feisty little son, and last but not least, your
students. Take time to smell the roses.
Affectionately yours,
Sam

4.

09. 03. 98

Dear R.K.
Sin is soluble
in poetry and craft melts
ice cream cone or bone
God has given you a rare gift and I appreciate and enjoy your verses. Your
Kachru review was gigantic in scope and taught me a great deal. Thank you
for expanding my vision of the English language. Thank you for the
opportunity of meeting some of your very bright students and collecting my
cohesive Dickenson papers. I thank you and your family for your kind
hospitality. With the new Indian voices you channel to SF, I feel we will
achieve a higher level of quality and excellence.

Appreciatively and Collegially,

Your brother in the word,
Sam Cucchiara

5.

17. 03. 98
Dear R K
Just finished reading your book review on Kachru (great), the Interactional
Process and the marvelous Dr. Sharma The Journey of an artist.
The dress hides
undress
and you look beautiful.
Singhs world is peopled not with sweet syllables, sweet faces and sweet
songs; rather it is dark, black and cold Singh like Baudelaire and many
modern poets is a poet of dark imagination (great comparison). After
reading My Silence and Other Poems and Above the Earths Green it is a
perceptive statement.
Wont you share/my aloneness/tonight
Dr Sharma often refers to you as a poet-hero poet-wanderer quite a tribute.
The statement I would question is, A poor country, he avers, cannot give
birth to a high civilization. Doesnt history teach us that civilizations rise
and fall and its just a circle?

It was a great review and my congratulations.

I remember those rat verses you wrote that gave me a welcome laugh. I
found one that Emile Dickinson wrote:
The rat is the concisest tenent.
He pays no rent,-Repudiates the obligation,
On schemes intent
It reminded me of yours. Enjoy.
Sorry for not calling. Have to call my family a couple of times a week and
those calls are very expensive.
Off to St Xaviers in Calcutta tomorrow.
Leave the brightness and fragrance of your memories with me.
The next moment might be the last moment of life for me. (?)
You have enriched my life, R K. Blessings to you and your loved ones.
Love
Sam

6.

08. 05. 98

Dear R K
By the grace of God am finally back in my own home. Got a lot of catching
up to do. There have been numerous submissions and contacts from India
thanks to you. Also had several letters from Pat Prime awaiting. She informs
me that she and you (and other collaborators) are working on a haiku
chapbook. Sounds exciting.
Itll take me a few weeks to recuperate, readjust, and reorganize so be
patient. Mike received your letter and is working on it as are several other
editors, including me. I should get up to full steam within a couple of weeks.
You are a dynamo. Cant thank you enough for the privilege of meeting you
and for all your kind hospitality. On Sail On
Collegially,
Sam

7.

7/7/98

Dear R.K.,
Received your letter dtd 2.6 yesterday. Im really grateful for your taking
time to post the Dickinson/Aurobindo article once again. Ill read it with
relish during my next trip which begins today. Also many congratulations on
your guest editing the current LANGUAGE FORUM issue. Its the typical
formulaic academic journal I no longer have to deal with during my happy
retirement years. I dont say that to disparage the necessary and valuable
research that is done but simply to let you know my interests are now
elsewheremy family, students, religion, travel, beauty, purpose, search for
truth, Slugfest and several other small non-commercial journals
Philosophically, my current state of heart and mind is best expressed in a
favorite quote by Percy Walker: Surely wealth is neither prize to seize, nor
race to win, but a grace abundant, to receive here and now, in the plain and
daily things, alive shimmering and true.
I cant answer any of your questions related to S.F. submissions. Retired
from active S.F. editorial board last year but Ill send the letter to Mike.
Please remember that there are more than 200 submissions per month from

other distant lands. Our work is totally unrelated to career and job but is
that little common space that transcends career and job.
Im sending you some of that abundant grace to enjoy the here and now.
Slow down and smell your beautiful roses. Ditto to Winny.
With every good wish, I remain
Collegially yours,
Sam

8.

The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I cannot go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke
Dear R.K.,
Im in The Waking phase of my life. Thats my apology for not responding
to your previous letters. Im sorry. I rarely can use my penNormal decay.
I was thrilled to see Mike Hogans Singh Review printed. Not only did it bring
back so many memories but it was so well written That haiku,

Facing the sun

the lone flower
dying to bloom
touched me so deeply, I almost say it daily like a prayer. That beautiful
metaphor seems to encapsulate not only the existential condition of so many
younger generations in my own family but on the planet.
You have expanded and enriched my existence. Keep doing what youre
doing. You touch many people.
Love
Sam

P.S. Ill be returning to the States 5.15. My permanent mail forwarding

address is still Keene, N.H. I learn by going where I have to go.

9.

29.8.98

Dear R K
It was a happy coincidence that your letter to Kamata happened to arrive on
the morning Nowak, his wife Monique and the Southern editor, Borowski, and
me attended the Kamata reading. Suzanne is in this country on a two-week
tour promoting her book so your letter was delivered to her personally.
Many thanks and congratulations for making this avenue available to your
fellow artists.
Was delighted to see four Indian artists published in this issue and hope to
see many more in future issues, thanks to you.
Warmest regards to Winny, your dear wife, Dr Rizvi and Dr Paul. Keep doing
what youre doing. You touch many lives.
Many thanks, Collegially,
Sam

10.

10/11
Dear R K,
Facing the sun
the lone flower
dying to bloom
--R K Singh
Thats another way of writing your Waiting poem that I read with a mist of
tears. That haiku embraces most people on the planet. Ive already quoted
it in six of my letters and told Mike it was my choice for the Feb. SF issue. I
was so moved by it that I may use it in my Christmas family letter. As you
said in your Acorn Haiku essay (sincere and passionate for your style), for
each haiku needs to be read slowly and realized in the minds eye. I see
that lone flower dying to bloom in my minds eye.
Not only is it a glimpse of R. K. but a glimpse of past and future generations.
Thank you for that aesthetic glimpse. The lone flower I saw was a yellow
rose.
I also read your Cyber Literature D.C. Chambial critique. Sadly too many
people find life an endless tale of vales/dales and hills/from the black holes
of eternity The current crap American poetry also wails about trying to
find meaning in life. Like Harold Bloom Im also a dianasour crusader for the
Western cannon, which teaches us that the purpose of life is to live it.

4/11

As I started this letter a week ago, Ill end it here and now.
Keep doing what youre doing.
Affectionately,
Sam

Letters: 1999: 11-15

4.1.

Dear R K, Bhai,
First, profound and genuine congratulations for the Kyoto R.U. Haiku award.
Its a dynamite haiku. Kudos.
Many more kudos and thanks for your stimulating review of the Chinese
poets. Poetry without imagination or metaphor is one of the most radical
ideas that never entered my mind. I was so startled and curious I ordered
the book. The illustrative verses you chose vetted my appetite for more.
That was a great review. Thank you. I would appreciate a copy of Dr
Chambials SF review. I hope you send a copy to Mike for possible
publication. Would also suggest you write a guest editorial for the Oct. or
Feb. SF issue.
Im including a copy of Chandras essay because I got a startling glimpse of
what he is talking about vis a vis MANO A MANO contacts with a dozen or so
Indian writers during my visit.

Im sorry I havent been writing much lately. Lately Ive been absorbed by
Tolstoy and Ruskin. Also happened to pick up Joseph Conrads Lord Jim. The
only Conrad novel I was familiar with was Heart of Darkness. Read 4 other
Conrad books and I forgot Sam or time existed. Send me the names of two
of your favorite Indian poets (other than Tagore) and two prose writers.
Thanks.
I know you are active with many literary publications and I want you to know
Im deeply happy about your S F involvement. You are a gentleman and a
scholar.
All is that God wills
Sam, the vagabond

12.

Dear R K,
Have thrown all my machines away. Its time for less speed and power.
Didnt think I could make this trip but Im still moving slowly and happily.
Sorry it has been sinx months since Ive written. Very large family.
Took a hundred or so S F pages to proof (Feb 15 issue). Your marvelous China
Review was in it. Also a poem by Dr Rizvigreat. I think one also by Asha.
There has been a flood of submission and surprisingly a few subscriptions,
thanks to you. The 10th annual edition brought a generous response from our
readers. Its amazing how this small community of writers from distant
lands are connected. The muses will not be silenced. As Marilyn said,
without a continual stream of original, creative work any culture will sink into
mediocrity What I can do is read my submissions and remember what I do
is important and remind you that what you do is important And that is
why all the crazy desk top publishers do it anyway.

Time is to meditate, mon ami. What you do is very important. You have
enriched my life. We are in your debt.
Happy millennium. Keep the fires burning.
Sam
Big hug to Princess Winny.

13.

Dear R K,
Coal grows golden
each moment in quiet corners
raw wind singes
--R K Singh
Could feel that moment of magic in Dhanbad and in your verses. That the
Mair Prime Singh CF haiku edition is golden. Youve all placed your little
stars in the sky. Thank you for all those tingling moments. You have even
converted even this old codger to appreciate and enjoy these gifts from the
gods to us mere mortals.
Its not my Cause I work for but all of who know (as you do) that poetry and
literature must be reinvented, reinterpreted, renewed during each generation
so that the demons and chaos do not destroy civilization. And the first

opportunity to open the mouth means: Sound like lecturing. I guess well
have to wait until there is no breath to open the mouth.
Im glad you recognized Marilyn Tatlows unique talent. How fortunate are
those authors who receive one of her critiques. Im sending her a copy of
your letter along with posting this one to you. Will also do some for Mike. Itll
give them a big boost.
Will be returning home June 1. The family threatens to come and pick me up,
if I dont return by that date and I believe they will. For a few months Ill
have to show them Im not quite senile yet and can handle another trip.
Hope youll stay in touch through the Manchester box. Warmest regards to
Winny. Off to new adventures. Hang in. It really does get better.
Still looking for the next generation R K Singh.
Sam

14.

Dear R K,
Thanks for the photo. Just received a copy of the first 40 pages of the SF for
proofing. Was delighted to see PPs (Patricia Primes) review of your Above
the Earths Green . Many congrats.
The completed copy should be posted 2/15 (or 15/2) so you should be
receiving it shortly. Im sure youll probably be recognized as Indias greatest
poet after you diethats the way it usually works as you know. In the
meantime, enjoy your gift of creation.
Have you ever thought of starting your own zine possibly a broadsheet?
During my India travels I kept looking for a zine. Ill be your first subscriber.

Think about it. All the other S F foreign editors do produce their own. Since
you have free mailingit would be an interesting project.
Warmest to Winny.
Love
Sam

15.

16.12

Dear R K,
The Winter/Spring issue comes out in Feb. Was surprised to discover that
Malito has a PhD in Chemistry and is a lecturer at Cork Univ. Discovered that
fact thru Geoff Stevens. Got a big smile from your:

They all look for

a little more moon coming
back from movie
Thanks. Pat mentioned that the proofs are in for your joint haiku project.
Many congrats. Would like to read a copy because I still dont know anything
about that form except it is 17 syllables.
I didnt think your poems were particularly erotic. Im saddened that so few
poets write of those grand, (un)noble, tragic or comic literary classic themes.
As you know the themes dont change but how we interpret them does.
What I see in the current poetry scene is too many poets interpret those
themes through one channelsome unknown sub-conscious, private island
of existence. And they try to convince us that the private island is Existence.
What do you think? Possibly Im looking at the metaphors through one
channel?
Am not in Prague randomly. Had a dear friend and colleague who was born in
this city and emigrated with his family, when he was a youngster. Worked
with him for 20 yrs and his passion for this city and its great writers like
Rilke, Ivan Klima, Kafka, Seifert, Holub, Havel rubbed off. He died six years
ago. Since the Velvet Revolution, have been coming for a month every year.
There is an ancient mystical heritage about this tiny piece of land that keeps
whispering my name. One day soon I pray you have the opportunity to
leave that ISM prison. Life does not happen at your desk. I certainly dont
have to tell you that.
Im not familiar with Burroughs work but be as supportive of the candidate
as possible. We all remember the thesis nightmare. A good teacher is a
gynecologist not a judge. The one truth that Tony Arnold slipped into his list
is: The life you live will be judged by its benefits to others; live it any how.
There is a positive and negative I see in that concentrated madness for
writing in a new vein a flourishing of an egalitarianism that connects and
paradoxically laud voices shouting that their private lives are existence. I
always ( I think ) tried to teach my students that good writing (literature)
gives me a glimpse of Blakes crack between the doors, the chasm, the fork
in the road It taught me something about my life and the authors life.
My prayers are storming the heavens for Prof Maini, a dear soul.
Keep breathing in and out. It gets better.

Peace, lil brother. Strength to your sword arm and power to your pen.
(great closing from AYTD)
Sam

Letter: 2000: 16

The Ides of March

Dear R.K.,
I am in your debt for the special NZ CREATIVE FORUM issue. You certainly
wrote an exhaustive and comprehensive introductory essay about the whole

scene. Hope you get the recognition you have earned. That was one big
mountain of work. Many congratulations.
Reading the K.D.S. Eroticism R.K.S. interview was far more fun. It reminded
me of a few letters S.F. received from Morris Slavin bemoaning the fact that
American poetry sucks because it lacks sensuality. It also brought to mind
an Indian fiction author (?) read in the distant past whose main theme was
mediation or sexuality or possibly both (?) as the eyes to existence.
Further, I think expression of passionate love and sex in my poetry is the
internalized substitute, nay antidote, to the fast dehumanizing existence
without, and ever in conflict with my search for life, search for meaning in a
sort of routinised, boring existence. Thats an incredibly honest statement
because thats what I saw not only in your verses but your routine on
campus. The bottom line truth is Readers are free to interpret my poems
according to their own taste and understanding. Lets keep pushing that
point. Poetry is global. Thats the new (ism) crusade. Amen.
I really, really enjoyed that interview albeit some of your answers were a bit
overblown. Dont take yourself so seriously. Give that student an A and an
A+ for you.
In this country there are many Russian illegals seeking my help. Where ever
I travel there are students approaching me asking for help in obtaining an
internship or study abroad. I can only offer empathy and extend that same
empathy to Winny.
Peace brother,
Sam

P.S. Received the ISM bulletin and noticed youre also the editor of that
publication. Copied the Hindi page to spread around. Its such a beautifully
written language. There are so many colors in the rainbow and sadly so
many people seem obsessed painting it with his own color.
Would suggest you send five Singh poems to PRAGUE REVIEW. Its standard
practice to submit no more that five poems to any zine Eng. Press.

XVI. LETTERS FROM PATRICIA PRIME

Patricia Prime (b. 1939), a perceptive New

Zealand poet, editor and reviewer, is a familiar
name to readers of small poetry magazines
and journals in India. A NZ editor of Slugfest,
she is one of the leading haikuists with
extensive international presence. We, as
poets, have been in touch with each other for
over two decades, sharing and promoting each
others work. Every Stone Drop Pebble
(1999) is our joint collection of haiku. She also
helped me establish connection with some NZ
poets and writers whose work have been
mentioned in my New Zealand Literature:
Some Recent Trends ( ed., 1998). She has been
actively associated with Kokato, Haibun Today,
Takahe, Atlas Poetica, Simply Haiku, Stylus,
Muse India, Metverse Muse and other journals
and zines the world over.

Letters: 1997:1- 2

1.

42 Flanshaw Road,
Te Atatu South,
Auckland 8
New Zealand
6. 4. 97

Dear Ram,
Good to get your letter of 17 March, poems and newsletter, for which thank
you. Im reading gradually through Language Forum and making some notes
which I hope to type out for a review when Im on holiday in a week or so.
Thanks also for passing on my poems to Indian mags, Ill pass on your poem
to Spin.
Ive sent a letter to several NZ journals: The Poetry Society Newsletter, NZ
Books, Q/U and The Pen Newsletter, asking if they would place an ad for
writers to work on essays for Language Forum and will be interested to see
the response. Will also ask a couple of friends, but dont think I will be
successful as most are too busy with their own writing. Im going to write on
NZ as seen from offshore from the viewpoint of three NZ women poets: Anne
French, Cilla McQueen and Lauris Edmond three very fine poets, the last
didnt begin writing until she was well into her fifties.
You might be interested in a market listing mag Ive been put in touch with:
John List, Lights List, 29 Longfiled Rd., Tring, Herts., HP23 4DG, England.
($US5 air).
Loring tells me he is going to New Mexico on holiday. I hope he gets to see
both Uncle River and Summer who now seem part of our extended family
of poets!
Hope to hear from you soon.
Kind regards,

Pat

2.

7/9/97

Dear Ram,
Please find enclosed ms of my essay. (Could you please italicize words that
are underlined).
I have been very unwell for the past two weeks with a nasty (and very
painful) attack of shingles. Good news, however, is that I have had two
weeks off work and have two weeks school holidays in which to recover. Im
off to my friend Catherines place for a few days and hope to have plenty of
time for rest and contemplation.
Ive received lovely letters from Dr Balarama Gupta and Mr Bahri. Bahri says
he will publish two of my pieces in forthcoming issues of C F and also the
review of Rizvis poetry. Dr Balarama Gupta can only publish the review and
wanted me to extend it by several pages (which Ive done). Ive also sent
him a parcel of journals/books for his research institute.
Catherine and her friend, Sandra Simpson, are getting ready to host another
poetry festival in Tauranga next March. They have already received
acceptances from some wonderful poets. Janice Bostok, editor of Paper Wasp
(Aus) is coming and there are several NZ poets: Bill Manhire (who runs a
creative writing course at Victoria University) and is our Poet Laureate,
Reimke Ensing who comes originally from Germany and Cilla McQueen who is
married to a well-known NZ painter, Ralph Hotere. It promises to be very
exciting. Catherine, Janice and Patricia are going to do some poetry reading
in schools in the prior to the festival. It will be a busy time for them. It
seems that Catherine may hand over the editing of WinterSpin next year to
a fine poet, Bernard Gadd he printed my first poem several years ago.
If you have any concerns over my essay please do not hesitate to make
alterations or corrections.
All the best
Pat

Letters: 1998: 3-7

3.

11. 3. 98

Dear Ram,
Enclosed for you is part of Cyril Childs letter responding to my enquiry
regarding writing a piece on haiku poets. Perhaps you could answer his
questions in detail.
As Ernest Berry has already agreed to write a piece you may have to put off
Childs or take two items on the same topic. As they come from totally
different backgrounds, experience and knowledge, I dont think it would hurt
to have two contributions.
I received a letter from Dr Rizvi enclosing a copy of Canopy and a book of
reviews of his poems. He was upset that I hadnt answered a letter of his
from last year but I am sure I have and it must have gone astray.
Tirra Lirra (an excellent Australian magazine) is going to publish my review of
your book. When I receive a copy I will send it to you. They also said that
they have not received a batch of poems I sent in October so the post is not
to b trusted!
All the best
Pat

4.

1.8.98

Dear Ram,
Thank you for your letter of 8 July. You will no doubt have received my letter
and Introduction (which was aided by Catherine) and perhaps you would like
to add it seamlessly to your own Prefatory and add all our names to it. I
return your notes with a few technicalities altered. Call it a Preface if that is
correct!
Im unable to contact Catherine about this as she is in Australia for a month,
but feel sure she will be in agreement.
I enclose some more of my haiku as requested and will ask Catherine for
more when she returns. You did not, by the way, include your additional
haiku, but may like to do so when you next write.
I will write to Mr Bahri along the lines you suggest, ie. hard cover, high
quality paper. Perhaps you could let me know whether or not the last title I
sent is agreeable to you.
Im looking forward to receiving a copy of C F and I should be happy to
receive books from Maha Nand Sharma if you could arrange this.
The Tirra Lirra review was in Vol.8, Nos. 2 & 3, Summer/Autumn 1998, 30.
It was very interesting to read your article in the Mawaheb International. Ive
sent Ned Bejjany a photo, bio and more poems, as he requested. He has
several contacts in NZ and one of his friends has been in touch with me.
Sympathies with you re work/weather/illness. It has been a hard month for
me. We have had terrible floods herethe worst Ive experienced in
Auckland. My workplace was flooded and weve had to have the carpet
replaced which has meant a couple of days closure, and added disruptions.
Ive had some toothache and have had to undergo expensive dental
treatment, likewise my granddaughter who has three teeth erupting in one
place and has to have two removed and a plate inserted to push her teeth

forward ($600). Also my poetry hasnt been doing well and Ive had a couple
of rejections which was disheartening.
On the good side,I had one poem published in Australia and received $A100
for it, and several haiku have been accepted for USA mags, and the second
NZ Haiku Anthology is to be launched in September and contains some of my
work.
Hope all is well with you and your family and look forward to hearing again
from you.
Love
Pat

5.

8.8.98

Dear Ram,
Thanks for your letter of 28 July and for enclosing photocopies of my poems.
I received a copy of Mawaheb and the editor has asked me for a bio, photo
and more poems. I also received a copy of International Poetry and Dr
Chambial sent me a copy of Poetcrit with my recent reviews in it.
As I mentioned in my last letter, Catherine is overseas, but when she returns
I will obtain the extra haiku from her and send them direct to Mr Bahri and
will send a copy to you. Those of mine I sent with my last letter you may like
to forward together with the Preface to Mr Bahri. You might prefer the latest
title I sent which appeals to both Catherine and myself: Every Stone, Drop,
Pebble. If it is too late to change, or should you prefer beneath a
sunshade ,so be it.
Im happy to hear the parcels of Slugfest reached you at last and hope you
are fortunate in having some Indian work published therein. As you say, it
takes time to be in tune with what the editors are looking for. I havent had
much success with other writers work Ive sent them, and its almost
impossible to persuade writers to part with their stories when they can be
paid for them elsewhere.
The Second NZ Haiku Anthology is to be published in September in
Wellington and Ive been invited to the launch. However, as Im taking time
off work to go with a friend to his book launch in October, I will not be able to
go. Ill send you a copy when it eventuates.
All the best,
Love,

Pat

6.

22.8.98

Dear Ram,
Many thanks for your letter and I presume you have by now received the
extra haiku, Preface and my suggestion for a cover illustration.
Catherines son is willing to do three illustrations, one for the cover and two
to go between the sections of haiku. The cover illustration may well be
based on an Indian goddess (or something similar) and hopefully will not be
culturally offensive. Ive spoken to one or two Indian friends and they dont
seem to think it will be a problem. (Perhaps you could let me know about
this as soon as possible).
During the week I received a letter from Prof Syed Ameeruddin suggesting he
would like to publish a book of my poems, together with bio, photo and
critical essays under the International Poets series.
One of Catherines poems was used recently in an essay on a NZ painter,
Mary McIntyre, in the current issue of Art New Zealand. Unfortunately, the
person who had written the essay didnt acknowledge the use of Catherines
introduction to the poem which she had used as a heading for her article, so
Catherine wasnt very happy.
Hope to hear soon that you have received everything safely. Look forward to
hearing from you soon.
With love,
Pat

P.S. Just received Mirrors containing your haiku, Catherines and mine.
Congratulations!

7.

10.10.98

Dear Ram,
Im enclosing a copy of the NZ Haiku Anthology for you and hope you enjoy
it.
At present Im busy trying to arrange a venue in Auckland for a friend to
launch his new poetry book from. There are several places in Auckland: The
Dead Poets Society a bookshop on the North Shore, St Kevins Arcade in
the heart of Auckland and Unity Books which specializes in poetry and the
arts. Kevin is to have two launches before Christmas: one in Wellington and
one in the South Island, to which I hope to accompany him in December.
My week at Catherines wasnt too good as Catherine had the flu and had to
spend a couple of days in bed while I did the cooking, washing, etc. After
shed recovered a little we got down to some writing: five linked verses and
about 30 haiku each.
During the week we went to a concert given by a married couple. He was a
bass-baritone and sung arias and ballads while his wife accompanied him on
a clavi somethingan electric piano which plays all the parts of the
orchestra. I didnt enjoy the sound of the electric piano but the singing was
great.
Later we went to the local quarry to have a look at the rocks and select some
for the haiku trail which Catherines council is making a feature of their town
for the year 2000. Then we took a small sample of the rock to a wonderful
old Maori carver so that he could test its viability. It is granite and will have
to be worked with tungsten-tipped tools. Tutukawera and hi son Tutukawera

Junior (who had amazing deadlocks down to his buttocks) showed us around
their workshopornately carved coffins, panels etc. and huge stones carved
with angels, dolphins, fish etc.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Love,
Pat

Letters: 2000: 8 - 11

8.

19 August 2000

Dear Ram,
Many thanks for your recent letter. It is nice to hear your children are doing
so well and you must be very proud of them.
I am enclosing for you a copy of a little book Catherine and I have published
of our linked verse. It was done purely as a family memento, but we have
received a number of orders for it, which is pleasing. I think weve written
over 50 linked poems in three years and have had them published in 10
countries, which is quite an achievement.
Ive been in touch with Mike several times as he is now on email. Sam is
back in the country until the autumn and then will be going overseas again.
His address at present is: 13 Electric Avenue, Lunenburg, MA 01462, USA.
Uncle River seems to be doing well and was expecting visitors to his place
last time I heard from him. He has finished work on his novel and is looking
for a publisher for it.

Yes, its great to see the work of myself and Giovanni in the Indian
publications, although I am sorry not to have received copies of The Brain
Wave in which my work was published. Professor Jagannathan has written
to ask me to subscribe to his magazine, but it is an expensive business, as
you know.
Ive heard at last from Mr. Bahri, after some delay due to the malfunctioning
of his computer. He says the anthology is at the binders and he should be
able to send copies in a week or so.
At present I am busy with a number of books to review, my last academic
assignment to write, and collating a collection of haibun for publication.
When all that is finished I hope to begin collating my own poems for
publication later this year. I have asked Mr. Bahri to publish my poetry and
he seems keen on the ideawe just have to work out the cost.
Im glad to hear you are having success with publishing your book overseas
and hope to see a copy in the future.
Here, it is nearly summer and we are looking forward to some warmer
weather. I am going down to the South Island in September for a brief
holiday and for the Haiku Sounds Festival where I hope to meet up with some
old friends. Catherine is having several of the poets back to her place
afterwards for a couple of days, so it should be a busy week.
All the best,
Pat

9.

7 October 2000
Dear Ram,
Many thanks for your letter which I received on my return from Picton in the
South Island where I was attending the Haiku Sounds Festival. Our haijin for
the event was Jim Kacian from the USA. We had a very enjoyable and
stimulating weekend and I went on to stay with Catherine and Janice Bostok
(from Australia) for a few days in Katikati.
The weather was terrible and the flights to and fro were quite something but
we arrived safely (although an hour late). Our friend (and excellent) haiukist
Ernie was there to meet us in his BMW and he and his wife Triska were most
hospitable and met our every need. Jim Kacian was delightfula most
interesting person. He was a tennis pro and now coaches tennis, speaks
several languags, is a composer, and is a keen sportsman. He regaled us
most evenings with his stories about Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poets and the
New York School of poetsmost of whom he met when he was an
undergraduate. The workshop was well attended and it was lovely to meet
all those people whom Ive written to but not met. Barry Morrell (a talented
NZ poet) entertained us, too, with his stories, songs and dances. Jim is
talking about setting one of Barrys poems to music. It will be an opera

about Hinemoa, the beautiful Maori maiden who swam out to an island in the
middle of Lake Rotorua to meet her lover whom she had been forbidden to
see.
While I was at Catherines we met Lynley Dodd, childrens author and
illustrator, (of Hairy MacLairy fame) and took her around the haiku
pathway. She was duly impressed and had a lovely afternoon despite the
windy conditions. Janice regaled us with the news of the Aussie poets and
we spent hours walking, talking, and generally catching up with events of the
past year.
I sent some poems to SideWaLK (Aus) and the editor, Richard Hillman,
suggested that I send them onto a Chinese-Australian magazine called
Otherland, edited by Ouyang Yu. Also received several mags with my work
in them and much praise for a couple of articles Id sent overseas.
I had a card recently from Sam. He is in America at present but is about to
return to his flat in Prague. You could write to him via SlugFest and Im sure
Mike will forward letters to him. Mike writes often now that he is connected
via email. Slugfest came my way a couple of days ago, so you should be
receiving your copy shortly. Its been nice to read your work in various
overseas mags.
I havent heard anything from Mr Bahri regarding the anthology. Last time he
contacted me (about a month ago) he said the book was at the binders, so I
can only hope it will soon be here. Some of the poets are getting a little
agitated and Ive been receiving calls and letters from some of them
wondering what is going on.
Now its back to the grindstone. I spent all of Friday at work preparing for the
final term of the year. Our rolls are up and we have full sessions, which is a
blessing. 10 new little people to welcome to the world of kindy on
Wednesday.
Love,
Pat

10.

4 November 2000

Dear Ram,
I hope you are well and have had a good summer. We had one or two days
of lovely sunshine but today it is cold and wet. A good day to be pounding
the keys.
We were very fortunate in having the American haijin, Jim Kacian, here
recently for the Haiku Sounds Festival in Picton, in the South Island. I am

enclosing the NZ Poetry Society newsletter for you as it carries a report of

the meeting.
Jim is hoping to establish a World Haiku Association, or a worldwide web site.
By setting up a web site there is no president (everyone wants to be the
president!), no secretary (no one wants to be the secretary!), and no
membership fees. It will be a huge undertaking to begin from scratch to
collect haiku for a web site, so no doubt NZ would work from the two NZ
anthologies edited by Cyril Childs. An interesting subject.
Ive had one or two emails from Mr. Bahri regarding the anthology but still no
sight of it. He assures me it will be arriving in early November. Meanwhile I
am collaborating on a book of haiku with Dr Kanwar Dinesh Singh, and will
follow that with a collection of my own poetry.
Ive had a very creative couple of weeks writing about 20 poems all in the
same style: 1/2/3 lines in a 3 stanza format. I think some of them have
worked well. Three have been put on a friends web site, and I have sent
some to Australia and others to Britain. Will have to wait now and see what
eventuates.
Its been nice to see your reviews, articles, poems and haiku springing up
from time to time between the covers of mags.
Ive recently finished my last assignment and hope to receive my BA early
next year. Its been hard work to fit it in between everything else: family,
work and writing, but hopefully will be worth the effort.
Love,
Pat

11.

30 December 2000

Dear Ram,
It was great to receive Christmas letter, greetings and good wishes and to
hear all the latest news. You must be very proud of your son and its so nice
to see them growing up happy in what they are doing.
Im sorry to hear about you not being able to find a publisher for your ms. If I
come across anything Ill let you know. I will also keep an eye open for your
work and photocopy it to send you.
My writing is going well. Im still waiting for the hardback versions of the
anthology I edited to arrive. Mr Bahri told me he had sent you a copy of the

mag version and I was hoping to hear what you thought of it. Ive sent off
my ms of Deuce but havent yet heard from Kanwar Dinesh Singh to say
that he has received it. At the moment I am preparing the ms of a selection
of my poems to be called Accepting Summer. Ive just taken over as coeditor of the magazine WinterSpin from Catherine and am keeping busy
reading poets submissions etc. if you have some haiku youd like to submit
please send me a dozen or so. Ive also done some reviews for NZ mags.
Catherine is far from well with Parkinsons Disease and is hoping to have
brain surgery in a month or so to relieve some of her symptoms. The
operation is going to cost about $10,000, so Catherine has had to limit her
spending and has curtailed her writing. Im going down to see her next week
and am taking my granddaughter, Rhiannon, with me.
Rhiannons father has been shouted a trip for the two of them to Disneyland
by his firm (in lieu of overtime). He is a stone mason and has been working
long hours on granite and marble fixtures for some mansion in Auckland.
We had a great Christmas. It seemed to go on for a long time as it fell after
the weekend. We had a party on Christmas Eve at my son Bobs in-laws,
then did some touring around on Christmas Day to fit in everyones families
and dinner at my daughter Kathryins, and on Boxing Day all the family
gathered at my place for dinner. The weather has been awful for the past
couple of weeks so there were no picnics or barbecues.
It sounds as though all my friends back home are in retirement mode,
planning their OEs, changing houses, finding new hobbies etc. I had a letter
from a friend in Canada to say that he and his wife were planning a trip to NZ
in 2002. As I havent seen them for 28 years it will be a joyful reunion. I
believe that Mike Nowak and his wife are also planning a trip to NZ about
that time, too. We have to work until 65 in New Zealand, so I still have a few
years hard labour.
Things at work have picked up after a very hard year when we saw the rolls
dropping drastically and had to cut our hours to make ends meet. We should
be starting the year with the rolls full and hopefully they will stay that way.
My colleague is going to be starting her degree this year which will take her
out of the centre for one day a week. Ive finished mine and am awaiting my
piece of paper. My daughter, Kathryn, is going to do a Post Grad diploma in
Media Studies, as well as running a very successful after-school care
programme.

My sons, Andrew and Bob, are fine, working hard, playing sport and generally
enjoying life, although Bob has a lot on his plate with his young son, Isaac,
who is nearly 3 and his stepdaughter, Renee, 9. Isaac is a handful but has
the face of an angel so gets away with murder!
Well, thats about all for me.
Have a happy New Year.
Love,
Pat

XVII. LETTERS FROM NORMAN SIMMS

Dr Norman Simms, Associate Professor

(emeritus) in the Department of English at
the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New
Zealand, is a Jewish academic, who was born
and educated in the United States and lived
most of his life in New Zealand. Unlike most
of us, he has resisted the easy option of
choosing conventional standards and
positions. He has several academic
publications to his credit that shatter
literary and scholarly conventions. These
include Silence & Invisibility: A Study of the
Literatures of the Pacific, Australia, & New
Zealand (1986), The Humming Tree (1992),
Crypto-Judaism, Madness, and the Female
Quixote: Charlotte Lennox as Marrana in MidEighteenth-Century England (2004), Festivals
of Laughter, Blood & Justice in Biblical and
Classical Literature (2007), Alfred Dreyfus:
Man, Milieu, Mentality & Midrash (2012) etc.
He also edited an interdisciplinary journal
Mentalities. We stayed in touch for quite
some time.

1.

The University of Waikato

Department of English
Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand
9 December 1993
Dear Professor Singh:
Thank you very much for your kind and flattering letter of 24 November, as
well as for the several copies and photocopies of your book of poetry.
I look forward to reading through your poems this summer, now that our
term is just about overand what a difficult year it has been! But I am not
quite sure how you wish me to help you, except perhaps in passing on the
books to the person in our small department who teaches Indian Literature.
You certainly have my sympathy when you speak of being outside of various
literary coteries and poetic establishments, but then, though I face the same
problems, we ought to be able to say that it is not from such mutual
admiration societies that real literature arises. Prestige and commercial
success, yes, alas do tend to be where the individuals cluster to control
access to the main journals and write the reviews of each others works; so
we are doomedor chooseto be on the outside, or in the margins, to
always longingly look from a distance at the others. Quite frankly, I dont
think it is a matter of projecting oneself vigorously or of imposing oneself
onto apparently successful in-groups. It is also a matter of personality and
familiarity. I can say for myself that I dont fit in with any local groups and
am, by temperament, a perpetual outsider, always more at home with a
small number of correspondents all over the world than with the drinking
clubs and back-slapping bands.
I sometimes think that, yes, perhaps if I had not gone into exile, it would
have been different, if I had stayed in America, or New York, or moved to a
big city in Europe when I was in my twenties, ififif. No, I think no matter
where I was I would be a loner, an eccentric, a man who stands on the
boundaries or beyond them, and, yes, probably this is what I most enjoy and
want. Pardon me, but your letter does seem to call for a bit of personal and
intimate response.
So let me ask, if it is not too impertinent, because it is a question which I
have to ask myself all the time. Do you, really and truly, in your heart of

hearts, want to be a part of the inner group? For me, I have to answer in a
complex way: yes, I do, but not on their terms, not in New Zealand, where I
never feel at home, and probably now it is too late to inject myself into the
sophisticated circles of Europe or Americaso what does one do?
Probably this does not help you at all. The situation in India must be very
different from that which I experience around myself and dream of in the
circles of London or Paris or New York. To me, when you present yourself as
a published poet, a professor and head of a large department in a major
Indian university, I wonder what it is that you are seeking? Do you have a
family, a loving wife, children, other relatives, friends around you? What is it
in life that one seeks? I am restless, isolated, alienated, my children grown
up and flown far away, my wife ill and dissatisfied with her life, a job which
gives little in the way of material rewards, lack of recognition of my talents
and interests, etc. etc. yet I receive letters like yours and I wonder if
perhaps we are kindred spirits, and that we should be thankful that now, at
the end of the 20th century, it is possible for a few people like ourselves can
communicate and make our own surrogate community
Well, this is perhaps not the letter you expected. Sorry about that.
Yours sincerely,
Norman Simms

2.

25 March 1997

Dear RK
I have finally received your letter of 8 January which you posted to Israel, and
as you can now see I have returnedwithout any enthusiasmto New
Zealand. Why and how is a longish story. That I did not write to you during
the year and a half I was there is part of that rather confused and difficult
narrative of events.
Thank you for asking me to help you with the special issue of a journal
devoted to New Zealand literature. Ten or fifteen years ago not only would I
have jumped at the chance, but would have known quite a bit although
even back then I was never part of the mainstream and quite isolated.
Nevertheless, there were many writerspoets as novelistswhom I could
have called on; now they are either moved away, given away the writing
career, or dead. Given the changes in this society and my alienation, I
thought you would have realized that I neither know nor care about what
goes on here, to tell the truth.
But I have passed your letter to a colleague who is the specialist in New
Zealand literature here at Waikato. Sarah Schieff seems interested, but
cautiously so: she will soon be writing to you and seeking further clarification
of just what it is exactly you are planning, what backing you already have,
and where her work would be particularly placed.
For myself, though stuck here, my sights are overseas, and even my writing,
whether scholarly or creative, like my publishing activities is directed at
other kinds of audiences. It seems odd and rather archaic that you should
have to say you have no prejudice for academic critics or university dons,
when you are certainly one yourself. In a similar way, to say that you would
be interested in women writers just rings hollow, when virtually all important
writers in this country have been and still are women.
Good luck on your project.
All best wishes
Norman Simms

3.

16 April 1997

My Dear Friend,
Thanks for your letter of the 7th and the various enclosures which I have
begun to distribute on your behalf.
I think Sarah passed your request for help on to Alan Riach or Ralph Crane
and Ralph is really our Indian specialist in the department. Alan basically
teaches Scottish literature. Perhaps someone will take the bait and get
involved in your project.
As I said before, even before I left for Israel, I have very little interest in New
Zealand or New Zealand literature, and that my experience here and all my
efforts to make something of a literary impact have soured me greatly. My
efforts now, aside from the scholarly side of my career, will be directed
towards Israel, and I am editing more little journals and booklets of Israeli
writers in English. Still I could hardly call myself as a participant in the
scene. That is not how I workor live. The fact that I have to live here
for God knows how much longer does not mean that I have to like it or try to
be involved, does it?
You misunderstand me if you think my departure from Israel was because of
the volatile socio-political tension there, not even because of the daily
dangers of terrorism. No, it is simply because my wife became ill and
returned here and refuses to go away from the children and her friends
again. Especially because I disagree so much with the current government
and its policies in Israel the desire to be back there is strong: there is a need
for the secular, liberal voice to be there and to vote. Besides, in a way you
may not be able to understand, the reality is, I believe, that Israel is my
home, my homeland, and that given the recent history of the world there is
no one we Jews can ever trust againno one! So even if I dont live in Israel,
I can still live for Israel and do my work with my sights there.

Which is not to detract or diminish from my interests in other things, of

course. It is just that New Zealand does not fit in. This society has become
sicker and sicker over the years, and my sense of alienation stronger and
stronger. The social democratic and the humanist ideals no longer exist, or
are so completely distorted that it would take decades to restore.
I am not a specialist in Indian literature, and only dabbled more or less in a
few other Third World/Commonwealth/Post-colonialist literatures, and will do
from time to time still as the opportunities arise. For the past few years I
have been acting as external examiner for several small Indian universities
reading theses, and that seems to be at the moment my strongest tie, little
as it is, with India.
It is hard to be isolated and alienated, but you have always written to me
that you also feel cut off from the heart of things by your position in the ISM.
But you seem to have accomplished much and to have the respect of your
colleagues, which is no small matter.
All the best regards,
Norman Simms

XVIII. A LETTER FROM VIVIENNE

PLUMB

Vivienne Plumb (b. 1955 - ) is an awardwinning writer. Her debut collection of ten
short stories The Wife who Spoke Japanese in
Her Sleep (1993) won the 1994 NZSA Best First
Book Award for fiction. Love Knots (1994) is
her first playscript, Salamanca (1998) is her
first collection of poems, and Secret City
(2003) is her first novel. President of the New
Zealand Poetry Society, she has won numerous
awards and honours for her writing.

1.
38 Drummond St,
Mt Cook, Wellington
Aotearoa New Zealand
17th March, 1999

Dear Dr Singh,
Thank you very much for your letter and photocopy of your introduction and
article on my playscript, Love Knots, for Creative Forum.
I found both very interesting to read. I enclose a copy of an interview
between myself and Dr Antonella Sarti of Italy, which has subsequently been
published in her new book, Spiritcarvers. (I enclose an order form for the
book it is a collection of interviews with New Zealand authors.) There is
now quite a bit of global interest in New Zealand writing, which we all find
very exciting.
Your introduction was informative. I wondered whether you talked at all
about Janet Frame (you didnt send me the complete intro). She is still alive
and her novels and autobiographies have been a great influence on recent
New Zealand literature, as much as Colin McCahon is an ongoing influence in
present day New Zealand art.
I am presently working on a new collection of poetry (my first collection,
Salamanca, was published during 1998), and have been funded with a
writing grant to complete an hour length solo piece for the theatre. Later in
the year I hope to read at the Queensland Poetry Festival in Brisbane,
Australia.

Thank you once again for your letter and photocopies. It is wonderful to see
so much interest in New Zealand literature in India, a country that has been
the source of so much rich literature itself.
Best regards.
Vivienne Plumb

XIX. LETTERS FROM LORNA S. ANKER

Lorna S. Anker (1914-2000) is New

Zealands first woman war poet whose
Ellens Vigil (1996) contains themes ranging
from Boer War effects through World War I
and II. She also authored My Streetlamp
Dances (1989) and From a Particular Stave
(1992). She is a poet of deep sensitivity and
humane concerns. Bernadette Hall recently
edited an anthology of Lorna Ankers poems,
The Judas Tree: Poems (2013), to resurrect
her reputation.

1.
149 Mt Pleasant Road
Chrustchurch 8
New Zealand
26th September 1997

Dear Sir,
William E. Morris, International poet and author of Tauranga, New Zealand,
has suggested I write to you and forward a copy of my third collection of
poems, which has been favourably received by reviewers.
I am most impressed by the list your accomplishments in the literary/poetic
field, and also your desire to share one of the gold mines of language
expression. A global vision is a gift you so willingly extend, and that is rare
I think the book will suffice to encapsulate the facts re. my writing, as this
Ellens Vigil portrays. I take no small satisfaction from being New
Zealands first woman war-poet.
Please consider the book as a gift not requiring payment. (It holds the key to
my temperament and talent.) You may find something suitable for your
project in the contents, and I shall look forward to hearing from you on this
topic.
Best wishes

Yours cordially,
Lorna Staveley Anker

2.
15 March 1998
Dr R.K. Singh,
Thank you for your kind gesture (along with Dr Wm Morris, Tauranga) in
promoting my poetry to an international level. Im sure it will spur me on to
further activity creative wise.
I have received the Biographical Questionnaire, and Im checking details for
the Cambridge Centre and hope to provide names of other suitable aspirants.
I was interested in your sons situation which could generate mixed emotions
in any family-circle. I trust he will be successful. I have two grown sonsan
artist (graphic design tutor), and the younger in electronics, but no soldier at
present!
As a token of my gratitude, I am giving you a copy of my second book
(earlier than Ellens Vigil). The title derives from my family name
STAVELEY, which was our first-born sons Christian name. He died tragically
at 21 years, so the book title embodies his memory as well as the musical
stave. I used the traditional Italian terms (where suitable), at the lover edge
of some poems to highlight the mood in which they were conceived. Also
the text of most poems is richly musical, because of the alliteration,
concealed rhyme, assonance, etc.
The little harp is a copy of a famous ancient Welsh harp, also a cause to
celebrate my sons memory, as he had a strong Welsh inheritance from my
husbands (his fathers) ancestry.
I trust this dissertation has been of relevance for you and not tedious

I trust you may enjoy browsing through the poems, a few of which were used
in the war-topic selection for Ellens Vigil, my third book.
Yours Sincerely,
Lorna Anker

XX. LETTERS FROM ROSEMARY

MENZIES

Rosemary Menzies, widely published

and anthologized, is a notable New
Zealand poet, who writes about the
tragedy of Bosnian war which affected the
lives of thousands of individuals. Her
poetry collections, Poems for Bosnia
(1995), New Poems for Bosnia (1998), and
Omarska Camp (1998) derive from her
first-hand experience of the fear-filled and
tragic circumstances of the lives of women
in Bosnia and Croatia. She was involved

there as an independent volunteer during

the war. Her other works include More
than Words (1980), I asked the Moon
(1981), Whitewave and Undertow (1986),
and To Where the Bare Earth Waits (1988).

Letters: 1998: 1-2

1.

21 Wernham Place
Birkenhead
Auckland 10
New Zealand
March 13, 1998
Dear Dr Singh
I am enclosing the article that Peter Dane has written to be included in your
anthology.
As I told you in my last letter the timing was very difficult for him as he was
moving house and was living in a house in the country, bare of all books,
references, typewriter, etc. The article is not as long as you had expected,

but we hope that it will be of use and interest. Might I ask if there is a fee for
his article? Peter himself has not mentioned it. I am asking, as my own
question. I understand if circumstances preclude payment.
I am enclosing a copy of the piece LOOK, YOU LOT! Referred to in the article.
My new book NEW POEMS FOR BOSNIA and OMARSKA CAMP will not be
launched for about two more weeks.
I am also sending you a fuller writing biography in case it is helpful. The
other fact that I shall mention, in view of the opening remarks in Peters
article, is that I am a 4th generation New Zealander. My ancestors were
among some of the earliest settlers to New Zealand. They came from
Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England a very typical background for the
time.
Peter Dane is retired from his position in the English Department at
Auckland University. He himself is a writer and poet. He has been, and still is,
very active in social, environmental and ecological issues.
My very good wishes to you and I wish you success in this work that you are
editing.
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Menzies

2.

April 1, 1998
Dear Dr Singh,
Thank you for your letter of 23.3.98.
Peter Danes address is:

R.D. 1
Jack Bay
Russell
Bay of Islands
New Zealand

I understand completely that there will not be a fee for him, and I know that
he will too. There are so many such labours of love and I want to express my
appreciation for what you are doing. I trust that you understand, though,
why I asked on Peters behalf. I too want to thank him.
Your comment that perhaps it is correct that my poetry is too true to be art
has caused me considerable reflection. And a mixture of feelings. But I am
glad that you enjoyed reading my poems and that they touched you in some
way.
My very best wishes for all that you are working with.
With kindest regards.
Rosemary Menzes

Letter: 1999: 3-4

3.
C/o Ali
Ejuba Ademovia 6
71000 Sarajevo
Bosna Hercegovina

Jan. 22
Dear Professor Singh

1999

I have just today received your card forwarded to me by my family from New
Zealand. Thank you so much for your greetings and good wishes, as well as
for the news about Creative Forum article. I do look forward to reading it.
I have been over here since last June and intend to be here for a further few
months. It is a very sad situation indeed, not at all clear to most outsiders
who tend to lump criminals and victims together in the same confused heap.
But there is deep injustice, with no real signs of solution, and a depression
which was not so visible at the end of 1995 when Dayton stopped the actual
killing. At that time, people believed and had hope in a future. Now, with, I
think, 85% without jobs, and therefore no money, pensions etc. and most
people unable to return to their own homes or towns, the reality that they
face daily is grim.
I distribute money from the fund in NZ to individuals and families whose
needs are desperate, but it is such a small contribution compared with what
is needed.
My book NEW POEMS FOR BOSNIA has been translated into Bosnian by one
of their leading poets. It should be ready for its launch in a few days time.
The Ministry of Culture, Education and Science wants 3000 copies to
distribute to schools and libraries throughout Bosnia, and I hope to go on a
poetry reading tour to help with distribution. I have taken part in other
readings here, and in Makedonia, and a whole evening was devoted to my
poetry in north Bosnia last October. I felt very honoured.
I would like to wish you a very fulfilling 1999, good in every way. Thank you
again for keeping in touch and for keeping me informed about the article on
NZ writing.
With greetings and kindest regards
Rosemary Menzies

4.

March 15, 1999

Dear Dr Singh

Thank you very much for your letter of February 4 and also for the copy of
the article on New Zealand writing. I am grateful for all the work that went
into it, as far as my own writing is concerned; and the article is very
interesting to read.
I was worried about the title given immediately after my name, i.e. VERY
FEW OF US FEEL NORMAL. This line from one of my poems referred very
specifically to people living here in Bosnia after the recent war. It is not a
general comment in any sense, and placed where it is as the title of a piece
of writing about me as a New Zealand writer, it is misleading, out of context
and not really clarified.
However, I do thank you again for all your work and willingness to include me
in the paper. I very much appreciate it.
My new book NEW POEMS FOR BOSNIA has been launched here. It now
exists in a 2 book bilingual edition (Bosnian and English). The book launch
was a beautiful occasion, covered by TV and radio. I felt very honoured.
I wish you well with all your own work. You must be an extremely busy
person.
I shall be here probably for a further 6-8 weeks, before returning to New
Zealand.
With kindest good wishes
Rosemary Menzies

XXI. A LETTER FROM PETER DANE

Peter Dane, who retired from the English

Department at Auckland University, was a
respected writer, poet and social activist in
New Zealand.

Peter & Gabi DANE

Kempthorne Road
R.D.1, Jacks Bay
RUSSELL 0255

25 3 99
Dear Professor Singh,
At long last I have received my copy of Creative Forum on NZ Lit. interesting
reading. I particularly liked the contribution by William Morris. I must
confess that many of the authors discussed are new to me: I am not widely
read in NZ Lit & Ive not kept up with recent publications. Im surprised that
Elspeth Sandys isnt mentioned once. I would have thought she would by
now be a NZ writer worthy of note. Enemy Territory, River Lines & Riding to
Jerusalem are contemporary & good. Her earlier The Broken Tree & Finding
Out gain on re-reading. I particularly like A Passing Stranger, soon to be
published I hope. Its a short & searching re-appraisal of a dead Maori who
spent much of his life in maximum securityin Paremoremo prison, & of his
impact on the lives of thers.
Thank you for the letter & the photocopy of my contribution. Pity about the
misprint on p. 133. Just after the second poem it should be it singswhich
leads onto the pace and musical mole of the paragraphs concluding
sentence. However.
Good to know that there is so much interest in NZ Lit at an Indian tertiary
institution! I guess you bear some responsibility for that!
Keep at it!
With my best wishes
Peter Dane

XXII. A LETTER FROM ZHANG ZHI

Dr Zhang Zhi is President of The

International Poetry Translation and
Research Centre and Executive Editor-inChief of the multilingual World Poetry
Quarterly, published from Chongqing City,
P.R. China. Besides being a distinguished
poet, translator and critic in contemporary
China with several international publications
to his credit, he edits World Poetry
Yearbook and Dictionary of Contemporary
International Poets.

1.

March 4, 2005

Dear Prof. R.K. Singh,

I am sending you herewith the new issue of WPQ No. 37 which I hope you
will find interesting and enjoyable.
I know you have always been a leading authority in poetry appreciation and
your opinion is highly valued amongst scholars within the literary circle. I
wonder if you would be so kind as to take a look at a number of poetry works
composed by my friend, Dr. Choi Laisheung entitled THE HEART OF FLUTE,
EXPECTATION, THE REMOTE MOUNTAIN and THE INSPIRING SPRING and
share with your critique. I believe she is one of the best contemporary
Chinese poetess and she would most certainly welcome your view on her
works. In order to give due credit and acknowledgement to your criticism, it
is proposed that your review will be published as part of the above poetry
works and in that regard, would it be all right for you to send us a short
write-up on your distinguished career and perhaps even a picture of yours for
our readers benefit. Of course, we will be delighted to send you a copy of
the final work complete with your reviews and as a mark of our thanks to
you, a small token of appreciation.
Once again, I am much obliged for your indulgence.
With many heartfelt thanks and kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Zhang Zhi

XXIII.

LETTERS FROM ANNEKE BUYS

Anneke Buys is a dedicated Bahai from

The Netherlands. Our faith and poetry
brought us together. She is a poet, translator
and reviewer, and writes in Dutch, English
and Espiranto.

Letters: 1-4
1.

4 February 1989
Dear Dr Singh, Allah-u-Abha
Thank you for sending the poem Homebird as it appeared in Creative
Forum.
From what one can see in just one leaf, the magazine looks attractive and I
hope it will find subscribers enough to continue appearing.
I hope that by now you are feeling better, and say prayers for your recovery.
Often the physical situation is an indication of the spiritual one. When one is
in a period of stagnancy, spiritually speaking, one often feels content for a
while. Then one gets depressed and physically less well as a first step
towards renewed spiritual growth. One seems to follow the other, and of
course, one influences the other, too!
Did you write any new poems? Poetry is such a strong means of getting to
know oneself, to solve inner problems by voicing them different points of
view, dont you think?
I am looking forward to the fast as a period of spiritual renewal and hope that
after it I may be able to write new poems again. At present I am first trying
to write, but only a few nice ideas and good lines are the result yet.
Last year we had a slide show about the Lotos Temple by one of the friends
who attended its inauguration. One of the non-Bahais who came wanted to
know more about it so in September he was invited to a talk by the Architect.
Last month he told us he would like to attend meetings that are open to
public, and he came to our prayer meeting (a Sunday morning once every
month). So even in this country the Temple has its influence, thank God.
I have to stop now, wishing you all the best and a speedy return of full
health,

Best regards,
Anneke Buys

2.

15 June 1990
Dear Dr. Singh,
Thank you for the letter and poems. It took some time to read them quietly
but now I can reply at last.
In a job such as yours one has frequent periods of being very busy and then
more slack weeks. The same applies to my husband: he just started
planning the vacation period, which is not easy in a childrens home! Usually
it takes several weeks, and most of this work he does at home, late at night.
But the sense of achievement when all is finished is worth the exertion. I
dont think it will be helpful to translate the poemsmany of them would
need explanatory notes, for instance, like the Indian words or names in them.
Moreover, peoples tastes in poetry differ widely, most people here do not
appreciate Indian poetry, they think it oversweet or nave. And unfortunately
hardly any literary magazine will publish translations. With Esperanto it is
different but they have hardly any literary magazines! And translating from
one foreign tongue into another I find beyond my abilitiesI once tried
English translations of Esperanto poems by a Czech poet but it was
impossible to capture the atmosphere. Had I succeeded, he could have
polished it a bit, knowing some English, and mailed it to some magazines.
But it did not workat least not yet.
I like the idea of your title poem (no. 6) and smiled over no. 10 (She slams
the door), the way it gives perspective to the different view on what is
important for different people And even briefer than Japanese haiku, just as
poignant, I find no. 23 (naked/without ring/my finger/a widow). Here, many
people wear only a wedding ring, no other ornaments; widows/widowers
often wear their late spouses ring as well: a double band of gold but it
indicates being alone

I hope you sent your curriculum vitae to Haifa yet; many people will be
needed there as the buildings are under construction, and also out in the
teaching field too few people have to do too much.
Here are the addresses. Do not mention Bahai on this one (Chinese
Committee)Mr. Paul Koh, P.O. Box 54, 12000 Butterworth, Penang,
Malaysia.
--National Spiritual Assembly, 149-13 Hsin Sheng Nan Lu, Section 1, Taipei,
Taiwan, R.O.C.
I hadnt heard about Poet running into trouble. I received the first 2 3
issues for this year in May. Congratulations on being included in World Poetry.
And on the long article on your work. Up to now, I had a nice interview in the
local paper and one in a small literary magazinein both the Faith was
mentioned as the main basis for my work and life. Which it is.
Yes, pray for me please, as I will pray for you and your family.
Best regards,
Anneke

3.
16 April 1993
Dear Dr. Singh, Allah-u-Abha!
Thank you for the letter that arrived just after Naw-Ruz. Our community
celebrated it with a dinner for the Bahai families and their friends. All in a
relaxed, happy atmosphere.
Yes, I am preparing to travel in Romania: 14-20 May. I look forward to it very
much.
By now, I walk nearly straight but cannot easily bend or crouch yet. The
upper arms still need rest and special exercises because of overstretched
tendons, but on the whole, progress is steady, thanks to regular exercise.
By now, you will have been to Delhi for that interview concerning a
professorship. I hope and pray that it went well for you.
Isnt it strange, the way you keep trying to find work elsewhere and still have
to stay in Dhanbad? Apparently there is a hidden jewel of wisdom there for
youand until you find it, you cannot leave often life feels like that, I think.
Congratulations on your appearance in Two PoetsI hope it will be received
well! I did not send any poems for World Poetry this timeam glad to hear
your poem appeared in it.

Yes, I sent work to Poetic Voices, and one was used. As the editor indicates
that they cannot consider new work for a while Ill send poems by the end of
this yearwhich should leave them time for clearing up the backlog.
Skylark published one of my poems last yearmore are to appear, though I
havent seen these yet.
At present I do not find time and quiet for creative work, even for
translations. So many things needed attentionthe area convention, the
BAFA book keeping and other work, plans for the journey, garden work. But
I hope to try my hand on the theme for the new local writers group:
Faithfulness. Maybe Ill write a prose piece first, like a brainstorming session,
then pick up a few ideas from it to write one or two haiku poems on.
Depending on my small amount of skill instead of on inspiration. I wonder
whether it will work. If anything worthwhile comes from it Ill make an
English translation for you.
And Now
Softly between each word
silence sifts down. Now
between silences faint light shines
on your heart of hearts
along with your mouth
the door closes
relief ships in
to the rhythm of my heart
now from between the shards
happiness is picked up again.
Anneke Buys, 1988
Translation 1990

Warm Bahai love,

Anneke

4.

2 August 1993
Dear Dr. Singh, Allah-u-Abha!
Sincere congratulations on your promotion to full professor. The kind of
jealousy you describe I also find in a book I am at present reading, a Dutch
novel: Among Professors by W.F. Hermans. The reactions to the fact that one
of the professors in a provincial university is awarded the Nobel Prize. From
this I can guess what it is like for you
Thank you for sending my poems to that small magazine; as a result, I was
asked to send work to Dr. Skanda Prasad for several publications. An
unexpected side effect of your kindness.
I havent yet received Skylark. I suppose it will arrive by surface mail; Baldev
Mirza promised to send it.
You described the weather. We have a fairly mild, very wet summer. The rain
was much needed as the ground water level was far too low. We were lucky:
though it rained during our vacation we could take down our tent dry (on
both occasions); no dripping wet yards of cloth to hang out wherever
possible!

How did your inaugural lecture go, what was it about? And what about the
legal implications of the construction of the crematorium? So many things to
consume your time and energy.
The journey to Romania went well. Our son is home now; Klaas and our
younger son went to take him home and brought boxes of medical supplies
for a hospital, and clothes. They also met our sons fiance, Simona! I met
her in May, before they decided to marry. She is a student of languages, will
study Norwegian in Oslo for 9 months. Meanwhile, Menno will learn about
computer work and publishing, so he can work at the Bahai publishing and
printing house in Cluj while Simona finishes her studies there. I think they
will marry in 10-11 months. We both feel that this relationship is good, both
for Menno and Simona. And they will be a strong support for their Bahai
community too. The community is big (for Europe) and needs much
deepening. Having 450 Bahais in one town means lots of problems for the
L.S.A. (all young, new Bahais) that has little experience yet. Menno was
caretaker of the local centre; fortunately they have a good replacement for
him.
The country is poor, government corrupt (a kleptocracy), the people
frustrated, tired. It is good to have been there, so I can understand a bit of
what is going on.
When I was there, only 15% of the fields had been sown; the oil company
speculated with petrol and so the tractors could not work. Thus a country
that could provide wheat for half of Europe will have to import it and prices
will rocket again. When I was there, train fare was raised 90% overnight To
me it was extremely cheap still. But local people earn only US $20 a month
(or less), which clearly is not enough as inflation since 1989 is 4000%.
There is a lot to do still in the worldover there, but here as well. Why, for
instance, does the government restrict the inflow of refugees, the amount of
help given, why can no one stop the war in former Yugoslavia and
elsewhere
Waking up
No dreams last night
(how do I know I was alive?)
only warm silence till
you moved; hesitating your hand
on my hair, tender your mouth
near mine, waking up together

reality better than dream.

Anneke Buys, 1989

The Dutch original will appear in a collection that I am having printed

privately. It will be called Droomwerld (Dreamworld).
Sincere regards, warm prayers
Anneke

XXIV.
LETTERS FROM CARLO
COPPOLA

Carlo Coppola, a distinguished scholar of

South Asia and Professor Emeritus at

Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, is a

man of wide-ranging intellectual and artistic
interests. Editor of the prestigious Journal of
South Asian Literature published from
Oakland University, USA, he has translated
numerous poems and short stories from Urdu
and worked on Ahmed Ali.

1.
JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

430 Wilson Hall; Oakland University

Rochester, MI 48063 U.S.A.
5 March 1984
Dear Dr. Singh:
My panel of readers has responded to your paper The Vision of Death in
O.P. Bhatnagars Poetry, and they are unanimous that JSAL should not
publish the piece.
Their reason is primarily because the poet has not himself achieved the
distinction as a writer that merits your essay. This is not to say that the poet

is not a good poet, nor that your essay is not a good essay. For Bhatnagar is
a good poet, and your paper is a good essay. However, with the large
number of other papers and submissions we have been receiving from critics
of other poetsboth in English and in the vernacularthe committee
recommends that we use JSAL pages for these, and suggest that perhaps you
try to place your article in another publication. One which immediately
comes to mind is WORLD LITERATURE WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, c/o Department
of English, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontarion, CANADA. This journal
specializes only in English literature, whereas JSAL deals with all South Asian
literatures.
We shall be sending you reprints of your review MODERN TRENDS IN INDOENGLISH POETRY after Volume 19, No.1 in which it appears is published in
June 1984.
We do want to thank you for your interest in JSAL.
Sincerest best wishes,
Carlo Coppola
Editor

2.
25 June 1984
Dear Dr. Singh:
I wish to acknowledge with gratitude receipt of your review of INDOAUSTRALIAN FLOWERS, ed. V.S. Skanda Prasad for JSAL.
I shall be pleased to use the review in the 1985 issues of the journal. I am
pleased that you have sent this review, for there is a considerable time lapse
between the publication of books in India and their notice in the U.S. Hence,

I would appreciate receiving from you from time to time reviews of this
nature.
Your review of H.S. Bhatias MODERN TRENDS IN INDO-ENGLISH POETRY
appears in JSAL, Vol. 19, No.1, which appeared only last week. You shall be
receiving your offprints sometime during the summer.
I would appreciate receiving from you a short biographical statement which I
might edit and use in our NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS.
Many thanks for your kind interest in JSAL.
Sincerely yours,
Carlo Coppola
Editor

XXV. A LETTER FROM WILLIAM RIGGAN

William Riggan is Editor of World

Literature Today, a literary quarterly,
which appears from the University of
Oklahoma, USA.

23 May 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

I am pleased to inform you that we accept your short article on the poetry of
O.P. Bhatnagar, Average is Large, for publication in WLT. We had known of
Mr. Bhatnagar only by name but found our interested genuinely piqued by
your article. Corroboration of your assessments and characterizations of his
work by several of our specialists confirmed our initial reaction and
persuaded us to publish the piece. It will most likely appear in our Winter
1985 number, scheduled for mid-February release.

I enclose several information sheets and request forms for you in connection
with acceptance of the essay. Please return the appropriate sheets at your
earliest convenience. Thank you for thinking of us in regard to the essay.
Cordially yours,
William Riggan
Associate Editor

XXVI. A LETTER FROM GRACE

STOVALL MANCILL

Grace Stovall Mancill of the American

University in Washington started in 1980

the now prestigious The ESP Journal, which

was a major milestone in English for
Specific Purposes teaching practices in the
80s. The journals publication was a
gamble and great struggle to fill the
pages of two issues a year.

The ESP Journal

English Language Institute
The American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
April 8, 1982
Dear Dr. Singh,
Thank you for submitting your manuscript, ESP: Communication
Constraints. I regret to say that in its present form it is not in line with the
sort of papers we accept for The ESP Journal.
If you will permit me, I would like to suggest an alternative approach which
could have great value. It appears that you have devoted much thought to

an analysis of what ESP is and should be in Indian educational institutions.

You may be able to provide a counterbalance to some of the common
assumptions of writers of ESP textbooks.
As an example of the assumptions which I myself have had reason to
question, such textbooks as Nucleus: General Science (Bates and DudleyEvans) and English in Physical Science (Allen and Widdowson) work on the
principle that students who will use these materials already have (1) a
dormant competence in English, and (2) a basic acquaintance with general
science. Taken together, these assumptions seem to me to imply an
expectation either that the students are in England (or the United States) or
that the English (or American) educational system can be exported whole to
other countries. Thus ESP textbooks may be just as culture bound in their
own way as are general English textbooks centering on life in Britain or the
United States.
For this reason, an insiders view of the teaching of ESP in India, particularly
as it may serve to correct some mistaken assumptions held by those who are
not familiar with conditions there, could be quite instructive. For example,
could you summarize the information one might gather as a result of
considering the factors which you mention in the last paragraph of page one,
continuing to page 2, second paragraph? Also, your comments on the
typical course syllabus in India (pages 2-3) are interesting. Could you give
illustrative details?
There is already much material in your manuscript which could be reoriented
toward this alternative view. If you feel that you would like to undertake a
revision of your manuscript along the lines suggested, we would be happy to
consider it for publication. For your guidance, I am enclosing a copy of
Instructions to Authors. Thank you for your interest in the Journal.
Sincerely yours,
Grace Stovall Mancill
Editor

XXVII. A LETTER FROM NORMAN F.

DAVIES

Norman F. Davies of the Department of

Language and Literature, University of
Linkping, Sweden was editor of System, the
international journal of educational
technology and language learning systems,
published in association with the Pergamon
Institute of Engllish (Oxford) and Pergamon
Press. He also authored Language
Acquisition , Language Learning and the
School Curriculum (1980).

Linkping 22 April 1982

Dear Dr Singh,
Thank you for your article, ESP: Communication Constraints. This has now
been refereed and we are pleased to tell you that it is suitable for publication
in System.
Our earlier possible date of printing is late 1983 or early 1984. If this is
acceptable to you, please fill in and return the enclosed transfer of copyright.
Thank you for contacting us.
Yours sincerely,
Norman F. Davies

XXVIII. A LETTER FROM W.R. LEE

W.R. Lee (1911-1996) is one of the

respected names in English Language
Teaching practices. He was appointed as OBE
in 1979 for his selfless efforts to promote
ELT. For many years he ran the International
Association of Teachers of English as a
Foreign Language (IATEFL), and edited the
ELT Journal, published by Oxford University
Press, and World Language English,
published by the Pergamon Institute of
English (Oxford).

13 November 1984
Dear Dr Singh,
Thank you for your letter of 23 October, which I find awaiting me on my
return from abroad.
Yes, I am very sorry to have to tell you that World Language English will
cease to exist in its present form after the October issue, in which there is an
announcement to this effect. According to the publishers, the journal will be
transformed into a research journal of the more conventional Pergamon
type, concentrating on the upper end of the educational scale. I realise
that this is disappointing news, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do
about it.
I understand that the journal will be edited, from the States, by Professor
Kachru and Professor L. Selinker.
I am not retiring from the profession but will remain fully active in various
ways, and will be able to return to writing. Perhaps who knows?I may
even come to edit another journal. But I have plenty to do already, what
with examining, school inspections, contributions to conferences etc.
I do not know why you have not heard from Harley Stratton. Your review of
Kachrus book was sent in with the copy for the October issue, which should
be out almost immediately.
Thank you for your very kind remarks and your good wishes, which I
reciprocate. We must remain in touch.
Yours sincerely,
W.R. Lee

XXIX.

LETTERS FROM ELT JOURNAL

Catherine Robinson, Assistant Editor

(Journals) of the ELT Department, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, corresponded with
me about my submissions to the prestigious
The ELT Journal.

1.

31 August 1984

Dear Dr Singh
ELT Journal Vol. 38 No. 3
Thank you for your letter of 20 July concerning your review of Working with
English Idioms, which was published in the July issue.
Two complimentary copies of this issue were posted to you by surface mail in
the third week of June. I hope that they will have reached you by now. At
the same time, a cheque for 20.00 was despatched to you by air mail.
Your letter suggests that you were expecting to receive offprints of your
review, and a years free subscription to the journal. I am sorry that we
omitted to inform you that the Board of Management decided six months ago
to change their policy with regard to payment of contributors, and to make a
cash payment instead of a payment in kind.
I hope that this arrangement will be acceptable to you.
Yours sincerely
C.M. Robinson
Catherine Robinson
Assistant Editor (Journals)
ELT Department

2.

English Language Teaching Division

OXFORD

ENGLISH
27 November 1985

Dear Dr Singh
ELT Journal Vol. 39 No. 4
With reference to your review of Grammar in Context, published in the
October 1985 issue of ELT Journal, I write to confirm that early last month I
arranged for part of your fee -- 8.85 to be transferred to IATEFL in lieu of
your membership fees. On receipt of your query dated 8.11.85, I telephoned
IATEFL, and received confirmation that this sum had been received. It was
pointed out to me, however, that if your wish your IATEFL literature to be
sent by airmail, you should send them the sum of 3.50.
I have pleasure in enclosing a copy of the October issue containing your
review.
Yours sincerely
C.M. Robinson
Catherine Robinson
Assistant Editor (Journals)

ELT Division

3.

English Language Teaching Division

OXFORD

ENGLISH
3 March 1986

Dear Dr Singh
ELT Journal
Thank you very much for sending us your photograph for display on our
Fortieth Anniversary exhibition stand. We are most grateful for your
cooperation.
Yours sincerely
C.M. Robinson

XXX.LETTERS FROM JALT

James Swan, an ELT expert, used to

coedit JALT Newsletter, published by The
Japan Association of Language Teachers,
Tokyo.

1.

24 Sep 1983

Dear Dr. Singh,

Thank you for your letter of September 14th and the two book reviews,
Authentic Reading and Writing Skills. We were very gratified to receive a
response from such a distance. Yesterday I spoke with our general editor, Ms
LoCastro, at the JALT 83 National Convention and showed her your two
reviews. She also was gratified and pleased.
So, I am happy to inform you that your review of Authentic Reading will be
accepted for publication in the JALT Newsletter. Unfortunately, the same book
is currently in the process of being reviewed by a domestic JALT member, Mr.
David Dinsmore, who requested our official review copy early in September.
Under our customary practice, he is requested to actually use the text with
his classes for several months before reporting on it, so we dont expect a
review from him until at least Feb 1984which would mean a publication
date of no earlier than April 1984. In consultation with Ms LoCastro we have
decided to withhold your review from publication until we receive Mr
Dinsmores, then publish both reviews in tandem. This seems to us the
fairest procedure to follow, since we did more or less assure him of
reviewing priority by assigning him the official review copy. We hope that
both you and he will find no objection to this unusual arrangement.
Regarding Writing Skills: no domestic JALT member has yet requested the
official review copy, so we will offer you the publishing priority on the basis
of the review you have submitted. As it stands, however, the review seems
to us to be a little thin. Not only is it quite brief, but the second and third

paragraphs in particular seem to be little more than lists. If you would

please expand it according to the enclosed guidelines and resubmit, we will
receive it gladly.
Our backlog of reviews is currently sufficient to fill the November and
December issues. If you can return a revised book review to us quickly,
perhaps it could be published in the January issue.
Sincerely,
James Swan

2.

4 May 1984
Dear Dr Singh,
I must apologize for the long delay in responding to your March 1 letter, and
also for most of the news the letter will contain. Please do not kill the
messenger for bearing the message!
The review of Authentic Reading should be appearing in this months issue
(May) rather than in last months, due to the delay in getting Mr Dismores
review to press. As you recall, I had offered to publish both of your reviews
at the same time since we had given him our JALT review copy and had,
ineffect, appointed him to write the Newsletters review of that book.
Although the magazine is always dated the 1st of the month, in reality it
almost never arrives until the 6th or 7th, so I am still waiting to be sure that
your two reviews do in fact appear. If all has gone as planned, I will request
our central office to send you a complimentary copy, as before.
You may be dismayed to note the vast disparity of opinions on the book
between yourself and Mr Dinsmore. In your March 1 letter you wonder if the
fact that you have found audience in Japan might not also indicate that the
India/Japan EFL experiences do not differ so significantly. I have no
experience in India, but from what I gather, I would expect the teaching

there to be a different world. In Japan, no pretense of English being anything

but a foreign language is made; English study is mostly one of the obstacles
used on college entrance exams to weed out the unfortunate ones who will
never enter top-class universities and whose careers are therefore to be
similarly stunted. Fluency is never expected, only grammatical mastery for
translation purposes. Entrance examination questions are commonly of the
which-preposition-fits-best-in-this-space type. Classes are generally
conducted along the lines of rote memorization translation exercises. It is a
deplorable situation which has been much deplored for the entire 10 years
that I have been in Japanbut with little effect, although the Ministry of
Education has long recognized the problems.
Needless to say, the concept of different but equally valid Englishes is a
concept whose time has not yet come in Japan. Even Australians have
difficulty in being accepted; basically the question in Japan is whether to
study American English or British English. Racially, blacks and JapaneseAmericans have more difficulty in finding a decent job than blue-eyed blonds
(of which I am one) do, although this problem seems to be easing somewhat
I have no data to back up this feeling, its just a feeling.
Most foreigners in Japan are in the conversation school teaching situation
perhaps a uniquely Japanese institution. After concentrating on reading and
translation for so many years in secondary and tertiary schooling, many
business people find themselves lacking even the most rudimentary
communicative skills in English, and pay outrageously high tuition to
commercial language schools for the dubious privilege of spending 90
minutes at a time in a class with an American or British native speaker, who
may or may not have any kind of education beyond high school, let alone
teacher training or linguistic awareness. (After the collapse of the Shah of
Iran and the rise of the Khoumeni government there, however, many
Westerners left the Middle East and began drifting into Japan with their MA
degrees in TESOL or Applied Linguistics, so perhaps that particular abuse has
been somewhat alleviated these days, too.)
Be all of this as it may, college/university/junior college teaching jobs are all
hotly contested and avidly sought after here in Japan. Full-time TESOL jobs
for foreigners are very raremost schools have one or two token foreigners
on their staff, and many times they are not full-time or tenured positions.
(So far, my own position isnt a full-time one, either.) Japanese universities
generally have a ratio of full-time (tenured) teachers to part-time teachers on
the order of 1:5. This, too, is a deplorable situation which is not likely to

change in the near future. I would say that the chances of anyone getting
even a part-time college job by merely submitting a resume or vitae are
almost infinitesimal. Most hiring in Japan is not done openly, but through
personal connectionafter which the connector is held quasi-responsible for
the connectees conduct, which keeps Japans social system in the condition
that it is in, for good or ill. Without having lived in Japan for several years
and having met many people in the right places, it is almost impossible to be
considered for such a position, despite a strong academic history.
After having said all of this, however, I will tell you that one man trying to
make a dent on the existing system is Mr. Joseph Liberman of Ashiya
University in Kobe, a city about 1 hours from here. He has organized (or
tried to organize) a job referral system for college teaching. You might write
to him and find out how he is doing (my prediction is: not very well, but it
cant hurt you to ask him, anyway).
I hope all this doesnt depress you unduly. Ill certainly have a copy of the
issue containing Authentic Reading sent to you as soon as it appears.
Yours,
Jim Swan

XXXI.

A LETTER FROM TEAM

TEAM used to appear from the English

Language Center of the University of
Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi

Arabia. Stan Gentry was the Book Reviews

Editor.

October 9, 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

By now you will have received my letter of 29 September and the extra
copies of TEAM sent to you by our Circulation Manager, Mr Tesdell. I hope
the matter is settled to your satisfaction.
Mr. Adams, our Editor, has asked me to reply to your letter of 21 September
in which you generously offer to review Hugh Gethins Grammar in Context.
Of course we should be delighted to receive yet another review from you. As
a matter of fact, your review of Meyers Engineering: Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science is scheduled to appear in our Winter 84 issue (#49).

It is our present policy not to publish reviews by the same contributor in

consecutive issues. This is the reason that your review of the Atkins and
McKean book appeared in our Summer 84 (#47) issue and the Meyers
review is scheduled for Winter 84 (#49).
Nevertheless, we shall be most appreciative to consider a further review. It
is simply that we cannot guarantee its publication for quite some time
perhaps Summer 85 or Autumn 85. By that time, the book will have been
on the market for two years or more.
Should you wish to have the review published prior to that time, it would
perhaps be in your best interest to submit it to another publication. That is
quite understandable. If, on the other hand, you still wish to send it to TEAM,
I can assure you it will be most kindly considered.
Once again, let me take this opportunity to thank you for all your
contributions and for your interest in TEAM.
Most sincerely,
Stan Gentry
TEAM Book Reviews Editor

XXXII. LETTERS FROM BRAJ B.

KACHRU

Braj B. Kachru (b. 1932), well known for

his pioneering studies on socio-cultural and
pedagogical dimensions of cross-cultural
diffusion of English, is Jubilee Profesor
Emeritus of Linguistics, in the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA.
Founder and co-editor of World Englishes,
his contribution to linguistics has been
legendary. He is internationally respected
for his numerous research articles, lectures,
and books which include The Other Tongue
(1982), The Indianization of English (1983),
The Alchemy of English (1990), Asian
Englishes: Beyond the Canon (2005), etc.

Letters: 1-2

1.

July 9, 1987

Dear Dr. Singh:

I just received your letter of June 29th and the review of Alchemy published in
The Language Teacher. Thank you for writing the review and for your positive
reaction to the book. In recent years I have read several of your reviews in
ELT, WLE, RELC Journal, and so on. I am impressed with the thoroughness,
precision, and over all quality of your reviews.
I would encourage you to send us reviews for WE. But before you actually
write a review please check with our review editors (Professors Sridhar and
Lowenberg) if the book you select has been assigned to another reviewer.
Normally, all the reviews in WE are written by invitation. We would be
interested in the reviews of books published in South Asia.
No, Bahri has not given the book to Yamuna Kachru. It seems that he called
her up in Delhi and expressed an intention of doing so. It is good that he has
mailed a copy to us now. We will certainly review it in WE.
Your second review of Alchemy (in Focus on English) is obviously held in mail
somewhere. I have not received it as yet.
In my next visit to India for field work, I am planning to visit Bihar: It will be
at the end of 1987. Perhaps I will get a chance to get together with you
then.
Again, thank you and with best wishes, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
B.B.Kachru
Braj B. Kachru
Professor of Linguistics
Director

2.

October 12, 1991

Dear Dr. Singh,

It was very nice to get your recent letter and to learn about your proposal for
a book on Indian English poetry.
I appreciate your kind invitation to me to submit an article for the volume. As
you know, I have not published any articles in this area though I very much
enjoy reading (and listening to) Indian English poetry. Only last week we had
A.K. Ramanujan here and his poetry reading session was a delightful
experience.
I can think of two persons who might be interested in your project as possible
contributors: Professor Giridhari L. Tikku, Department of Comparative
Literature, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Professor S.N.
Sridhar, 273 Hallock Road, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. I am sure that in
India you have already contacted Makrand Paranjape and Rukmini Bhaya
Nair. I have not been to Dhanbad for several years although I did go to India
several times. My indifferent health makes it rather difficult to get to
Dhanbad.
Do keep in touch. My best wishes for the success of your latest project and
other academic endeavors.
Yours sincerely,
B.B.Kachru