I notice that _Broom_ has been consistently weak in poetry. Cowley’s things have been by far the best--but (with all due modesty) I think that my “F. and H.” will be an improvement over their past offerings. Matty appears to rest in clover and periwinkles, what with the Guggenheim millions and the international sweep of editorial authority. (In accepting my poems he merely mentioned that he thought Loeb also liked them!) What do you think of his _Broom_ ad in the Dec. number? He asked my opinion on the grounds that literary ads were generally the flattest in the world. It seems “attractive” enough to me--but the prize-subscription offer I balk at as a matter of policy in such a type of magazine. Stieglitz voiced an old feeling of mine about Bill’s [Sommer] work--the lack of finish evident in so much of it. This has always pained me. As a whole, his comments seem very just. But I tend to differ with him on one point in common with other critics who are so obsessed with the importance of current developments in art that they fail to recognize certain positive and timeless qualities. I refer to the quality of line in Sommer’s work. That has, in particular, nothing more to do with modern work than the draughtsmanship of Michelangelo. It is something that may not distinguish a man as a great innovator or personality--but it is, for all that, a rare and wondrous quality. From what you write Stieglitz has the sense to recognize this quality and to value it. But a person like Georgia O’Keeffe, who has so distinctly her own horn to play, is scornful of everything short of evolution and revolution. It is a relief once in awhile to detach one’s judgment from such considerations as hers, and to look at a piece of work as totally detached from time and fashion, and then judge it entirely on its individual appeal. I think that in Sommer’s case, you, Williams and myself are appreciators of this kind. I can enjoy Bill’s things regardless of their descent, evident or otherwise, from French or German artists of the last generation. He has certain perfections which many of the most lauded were lacking in. God DAMN this constant nostalgia for something always “new.” This disdain for anything with a trace of the past in it!!! This kind of criticism is like a newspaper, always with its dernier cri. It breeds its own swift decay because its whole theory is built on an hysterical sort of evolution theory. I shall probably always enjoy El Greco and Goya. I still like to look at the things Sommer makes, because many of them are filled with a solid and clear beauty.