Letters to a Young Poet
Group of letters to Andrew Wylie.
Goleta, California; Northumberland: 1967-1972.
Price: $5,500.00
About the item
4to and 8vo. Letters to a Young Poet. Generally very good to fine (some wrinkles and folds).
Item #333072
Basil Bunting (1900-1985) was close with Pound and was associated with Zukovsky and the Objectivist poets. Attention to his work flagged in the post-war years until the publication in 1966 of his long poem, Briggflatts. Wylie, who began his career as a poet before becoming the biggest literary agent in the world, arranged for Bunting to do a reading at Harvard. Bunting talks a lot about his travels and his health (and his cataracts), his hopes and plans to secure a teaching position – for which Wylie put his budding talents at promotion to work. Nearing Wylie's 1969 graduation and in the years that follow Bunting gives a lot of friendly advice on what to do (for work), and where Wylie might live, including much description about the various possibilities available in Italy.
a) ALS, 25 February 1967, 1 1/2 pp. (Arranging the details of a reading that Wylie is setting up at Harvard, the beginning of their relationship.)
b) ALS, 12 March 1967, 1 p.
c) ALS, 21 March 1967, 1 p.
d) ALS, 29 March 1967, 1 1/2 pp. ("I've been having a look at the verse Eliot wrote at Harvard, and find that yours is more accomplished, in spite of the echoes.")
e) ALS, 13 May 1967, 3 pp. "Good to hear from you. And that some at Harvard read me. Even in San Francisco a few do.")
f) ALS, 4 September 1967, 6 pp. (Describes a cross-Canadian trip and a visit to Lorine Niedecker, with praise and news of her work)
g) ALS, 14 September 1967, 1 p.
h) ALS, 8 November 1967, 4 pp.
i) TLS, 28 February 1968, 2 pp.
j) ANS, 4 June 1968, 3 pp.
k) ANS, n.d. (c. 1968), dictated to Bunting's daughter because of his cataract)
l) TLS, 3 January 1969, 1 p.
m) TLS, 14 April 1970, 1 p.
n) TLS, 17 July 1970, 1 p.
o) TLS, 1 June 1972, 1 p. (On Wylie's intention to open a bookshop: "I fancy its a branch of commerce, suitable for the kind of people who become millionaires whatever they do, but not for the rest of us. It is equally difficult to read the books that sell or sell the books you can read.").
