Wright - A wild perfection: the selected letters of james wright

Table of Contents

First and foremost, we shall always be eternally grateful to James Wright for making carbon copies of so many letters. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

We give very special thanks to Robert Bly, Nicholas Crome, Susan Lamb Graham, Donald Hall, Gibbons Ruark, and Janice Thurn for their generous contributions, as well as their enthusiastic and devoted interest.

Other contributors were Ted Wrights widow, Helen Wright; the biographer Diane Middlebrook; Kenyon and University of Washington classmates Jack Furniss, Lloyd and Gege Parks, and Eugene Pugatch; Kenyon College professor Edward Harvey; and two former students from the University of Hawaii, Sheri Akamine and Debra Thomas. Liz Esterly, daughter of Henry Esterly, supplied us with letters to both Henry and Elizabeth Willerton Esterly. Additional contributions came from friends George Allan Cate, George Lynes, Ann Sanfedele, and Betsy Fogelman Tighe, as well as from fellow poets Madeline DeFrees, Roland Flint, Merrill Leffler, Philip Levine, Robert Mezey, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Sander Zulauf.

Credit and grateful acknowledgment are also given to those who first published the following letters: Bobbs-Merrill Press, for a letter written to Robert Mezey in 1967, appearing in Naked Poetry , edited by Stephen Berg and Robert Mezey (1969); the publishers of American Poets in 1976 , edited by William Heyen (1976), for letters to Donald Hall (September 25, 1973), Laura Lee (September 30, 1973), Karin East (November 9, 1973), and Franz Wright (November 27 and December 17, 1973); the publishers of Ironwood 15 (Spring 1980), edited by Michael Cuddihy, for a letter on H. R. Hays to Michael Cuddihy (September 16, 1979); Genitron Press, for letters to Wayne Burns (November30, 1957; February 1, 1958; Spring 1958; June 19, 1958; and August 13, 1958) appearing in In Defense Against This Exile , edited by John Doheny (1985); Graywolf Press, for letters to Leslie Marmon Silko (October 12, 1978; March 14, 1979; June 15, 1979; and July 29, 1979) appearing in The Delicacy and Strength of Lace (1986); Logbridge-Rhodes Press, for letters to Betsy Fogelman (February 25, 1979), Donald Hall (March 7, 1979), Roger Hecht (March 7, 1979), Hayden Carruth (April 3, 1979), Franz Wright (April 6, 1979), Elizabeth Esterly (April 27, 1979), Richard Hugo (April 27, 1979), Franz Wright (May 4, 1979), Kay and Gibbons Ruark (June 6, 1979), and Janice Thurn (June 8, 1979), appearing in James Wright: A Profile , edited by Frank Graziano and Peter Stitt (1988); Great River Review , 1999-2000 (No. 31), from Dear Jim: A Friendship in Correspondence by Janice Thurn, for letters to her (May 4, 1976; September 25, 1976; February 26, 1977; June 7, 1978; and June 8, 1979); and W. W. Norton, for a letter to Henry Rago (November 25, 1959), appearing in Dear Editor: A History of Poetry in Letters, The First Fifty Years , 1912-1962 , edited by Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young (2002).

In addition to our friends at the Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota, the University of New Hampshire Library (who include Alison Carrick), and the Department of Special Collections at Washington University in St. Louis, we also received gracious care and attention to our requests from Dr. Michael Basinski, curator of the poetry collections of the university libraries at SUNY Buffalo; L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, associate librarian and coordinator of the Manuscript Unit, Special Collections Department, at the University of Delaware; Saundra Taylor, manuscripts curator in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington; Tara Wenger, research librarian at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and various members of the library staff at Kenyon College. We thank them very much. We also extend warm thanks to former Kenyon College librarian William Dameron, who took extremely good care of the James Wright Papers when they were on loan to Kenyon.

We also thank the following individuals who have supplied the photographs that grace the part-title pages: Carol Bly, Liberty Kovacs, Richard Pflum, Peter Simpson, and John Unterecker.

We have been the recipients of gracious hospitality from Ann Slaytonand Merrill Leffler in Takoma Park, Maryland, and from Brother Rick Wilson, TOR, at St. Jerome Friary in Alexandria, Virginia.

Jonathan Blunk, the authorized biographer of James Wright, blazed a trail from Seattle to Minneapolis in pursuit of letters. He has expended much time and energy to proofread the manuscript again and again. In his position as consultant for Farrar, Straus and Giroux, he has given us support, enthusiasm, and wise advice. In his position as a friend, he has added humor and good spirits to our sessions of hard work.

Elizabeth Hoover spent the summer of 2003 preparing the manuscript in fair copya gargantuan task! Trudy Gerovske took up where she left off and helped immensely with many additions and revisions.

Our editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jonathan Galassi, has been a paragon of encouragement and support. He accepted the book in just four days, after reading a sample manuscript based on twentyeight letters. His insight and great enthusiasm have kept us going. The good cheer and thoughtful input of his assistant, Annie Wedekind, have been most helpful, too.

Loving thanks go to friends who have been bastions of support, interest, and enthusiasm as they followed each and every turn of our adventure, from search to final selection. Saundra is especially grateful to George Allan Cate, Judith Serlin Cochran, and Gail Lowke. I thank my many involved friends from Wheelock College, the American Overseas School of Rome, and the Para-Educator Center, as well as those in New York City and Rhode Island; also the DeCinque family and Jamess many friends, in and out of poetry, who became my friends, too. We are both blessed. Its as if we had a crowd of supporters so numerous they could fill the arena in Verona many times over.

Anne Wright

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following previously published and unpublished material:

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Robert Bly is used with the permission of the author.

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Philip Booth is used with the permission of the author.

Miss Twye, by Gavin Ewart, from The Gavin Ewart Show: Selected Poems 19391985 (Bits Press, Cleveland, 1986). Copyright Margo Ewart. Reprinted by permission of Margo Ewart.

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Donald Hall is used with the permission of the author.

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Geoffrey Hill is used with the permission of the author.

Excerpt from A Troubadour Removed, by Richard Hugo, from Making Certain It Goes On: Collected Poems of Richard Hugo. Copyright 1984 by The Estate of Richard Hugo. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Bill Knott is used with the permission of the author.

Excerpt from the unpublished letter of Stanley Kunitz is used with the permission of the author.

Excerpt from At the Doorsill , by Antonio Machado, from Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly (Wesleyan University Press, 1983). Copyright 1983 by Robert Bly and reprinted with his permission.

There Is a Place Called Omaha, Nebraska, by Groucho Marx and Harry Ruby. Copyright 1952, renewed by Harry Ruby Music. Permission secured. All rights reserved.