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"MARIANNE MOORE IS RELUCTANT TO SAY THAT SHE CAN NOT DO ANY OF THESE THINGS: READ MANUSCRIPT; COUNSEL WRITERS; GRANT INTERVIEWS; PROVIDE PHOTOGRAPHS; RECOMMEND PUBLISHERS; RECOMMEND EDITORS FAVORABLE TO VERSE BY CHILDREN OR WORK BEQUEATHD [sic] FOR PUBLICATION; PROVIDE DATA FOR THESES, LECTURES, SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS, MEMOIRS; DOES NOT PROVIDE; COLLECTORS OF AUTOGRAPHS WITH CARD, STAMP OR ENVELOPE; DOES NOT READ BOOKS WITH A VIEW TO COMMENTING; ASKS FRIENDS WHO ARE MEMBERS OF UNIVERSITY OR OTHER FACULTIES NOT TO SUGGEST HER TO THEIR STUDENTS OR TO VISITING SCHOLARS AS AVAILABLE FOR CONSULATION [sic]." READ MORE

One day last year, while working on a biography of the publisher Scofield Thayer, I opened a folder of papers related to his magazine The Dial. The folder contained undated letters from the poet E.E. Cummings to Thayer, early versions of a couple Cummings’ poems and one poem by Cummings I couldn’t remember ever seeing before. It was called "(tonite" and, until I came across it, it was unknown. Evidence suggests that the poem was sent sometime around 1916, when Cummings was embarking on his career as a poet and artist. At this time the two men had known each other for about three years. Their friendship, which would last until Thayer succumbed to paranoid schizophrenia a decade later, was based largely on a shared passion for art and literature. Cummings benefited most from the relationship, as the wealthy Thayer gave Cummings money to write and paint, launched his career with publication in The Dial, and blithely assented to Cummings romancing, bedding (and, as it happened, impregnating) his beautiful wife. READ MORE

The new Paris Review has a long interview with poet Frederick Seidel by FSG president Jonathan Galassi; a small excerpt is online. (This is a much better match-up than the hideous choice of Katie Roiphe to interview Gay Talese in the last issue!) I love Seidel, despite that I usually reflexively (and properly) dislike many born-rich artists. And, you know, the Harvard set. Among other great moments of the interview, Seidel reveals the contents of a letter from Ezra Pound, regarding the incoming president of Harvard (that would be Nathan Pusey, in 1953, who was then rather liberal but whose liberal views were outpaced, let's say, by the changing country). This letter from Pound said: "Only you can save Harvard from that kikesucking Pusey," which, wow. But let us turn to the part where Seidel discusses Issues with Ladies. READ MORE

I did not know that the Poet Community was so dark, devious and dangerous! But here is a recollection by a former New York poet, in which it is revealed that being a poet is to enter a world of horror, ill behavior and general heinousness: "There was another night when I made out with a Boston Lyrical Poet and assistant to another Star Teacher, as rain fell on Lower Broadway. We stood there inside a doorstop of an abandoned building that is now a J. Crew. She later confessed to me that she was the Mistress of a Famous Dimple-Chinned Nonfiction Writer. She would arrange visits to artist colonies at the same time as him, meet on corners in Queens. For those few months we dated, I could claim the title of Other Man in an Affair with the Mistress of a Famous Dimple-Chinned Nonfiction Writer. This title and others delighted and wearied me as the years went by." And that is the nice part.