out my stuff in ink. Have managed to get rid of three fair stories and four unsatisfactory poems to Matrix, a rather old-fashioned Philadelphia “little magazine.”
I am really a much too nervous person to hitch hike to Washington to see you. I would break up into all sorts of quatern little pieces. Thanks, really, though. You’ve been very decent, very.
Might send you something soon, but not for awhile. Whatever that means.
1947
[To Whit Burnett]
April 27, 1947
Thank you for the note.
I don’t think I could do a novel—I haven’t the urge, though I have thought about it, and someday I might try it. Blessed Factotum would be the title and it would be about the low-class workingman, about factories and cities and courage and ugliness and drunkenness. I don’t think if I wrote it now it would be any good, though. I would have to get properly worked up. Besides, I have so many personal worries right now that I’m in no shape to look into a mirror, let alone run off a book. I am, however, surprised and pleased with your interest.
I haven’t any other pen sketches, without stories, right now. Matrix took the only one I did that way.
The world has had little Charles pretty much by the balls of late, and there isn’t much writer left, Whit. So hearing from you was damned lovely.
1953
[To Caresse Crosby]
August 7, 1953
Saw in book review (never really read one, but) your name, “Dail Press.”
You printed me sometime back in Portfolio, one of the earliest (1946 or so?). Well, one time came into town off long drunk, forced to live with parents during feeble clime. Thing is, parents read story (“20 Tanks from Kasseldown”) and burnt whole damn Portfolio. Now, no longer have copy. Only piece missing from my few published works. If you have an extra copy????? (and I don’t see why in the hell you should have) it would do me a lot of good if you would ship it to me.
I don’t write so much now, I’m getting on to 33, pot-belly and creeping dementia. Sold my typewriter to go on a drunk 6 or 7 years ago and haven’t gotten enough non-alcoholic $ to buy another. Now print my occasionals out by hand and point them up with drawings (like any other madman). Sometimes I just throw the stories away and hang the drawings up in the bathroom (sometimes on the roller).
Hope you have “20 Tanks.” Would appreci.
[To Judson Crews]
Late 1953
You send out the only cheerful rejections in America. It’s nice to have the news behind those delicious photos! You are a pretty good guy, I’d rather imagine.
I was impressed with your last edition of Naked Ear. It smacked of aliveness and artistry much more than, say, the latest edition of The Kenyon Review. That comes of printing what you want to print instead of printing what is correct. Keep it up.
Met Janet Knauff yesterday. She has met you. Took her to the races.
[To Judson Crews]
November 4, 1953
I’ll be honest with you. You might as well keep those poems as long as you want to because when you do send them back I’ll just throw them away.
Except for the new ones on top, these poems have been rejected by Poetry magazine and a new outfit, Embryo. Favorable remarks, etc., but they do not think my stuff is poetry. I know what they mean. The idea is there but I can’t break thro the skin. I can’t work the dials. I’m not interested in poetry. I don’t know what interests me. Non-dullness, I suppose. Proper poetry is dead poetry even if it looks good.
Keep these things as long as you like. You’re the only one who has shown an interest. If I do any more, I’ll send them out to you.
1954
[To Whit Burnett]
June 10, 1954
Please note change of address (323½ N. Westmoreland Ave., L.A. 4), if you are holding up more of my wino masterpieces.
This piece rejected by Esquire is an expanded version of a short sketch I sent you some time ago. I guess it’s too sexy for publication. I don’t know exactly what it means. I just got to playing around with it and it ran away with me. I think Sherwood Anderson would enjoy it but he can’t read it.
[To Whit Burnett]
August 25, 1954
I’m sorry to hear, through a slip sent me from Smithtown a couple of months back, that Story is no longer alive.
I sent in another story about that time called “The Rapist’s Story,” but haven’t heard. Is it about?
I’ll always remember the old orange magazine with the white band. Somehow, I’d always had the idea that I could write anything I wanted, and, if it was good enough it’d get in there. I’ve never gotten that idea looking at any other magazines, and especially today, when everybody’s so god damned afraid of offending or saying anything against anybody else—an honest writer is in a hell of a hole. I mean, you sit down to write it and you know it’s no use. There’s a lot of courage gone now and a lot of guts and a lot of clearness—and a lot of Artistry too.
For my money, everything went to hell with World War 2. And not only the Arts. Even cigarettes don’t taste the same. Tamales. Chili. Coffee. Everything’s made of plastic. A radish doesn’t taste sharp anymore. You peel an egg and, invariably, the egg comes off with the shell. Pork chops are all fat and pink. People buy new cars and nothing else. That’s their life: four wheels. Cities only turn on one-third of their street lights to save electricity. Policemen give out tickets like mad. Drunks are fined atrocious sums, and almost everybody’s drunk who’s had a drink. Dogs must be kept on a leash, dogs must be inoculated. You have to have a fishing license to catch grunion with your hands, and comic books are considered dangerous to children. Men watch boxing matches from their armchairs, men who never knew what a boxing match was, and when they disagree with a decision, they write vile and clamorous letters to the newspapers in protest indignant.
And short stories: there’s nothing: no life. [ . . . ]
Story had meant something to me. And I guess it’s part of the world’s
