Here and there I think you are too didactic. Your “saint” is sometimes a little _too_ consistent--though this latter reaction is so personal merely to me, probably, that it’s valueless as comment. The beautifully measured opening lines create a fine abstraction of time and space: out of the clouds the sudden and dramatic introduction of the theme, the earthly conflict. Will you forgive me for echoing something you recently wrote me? I think this beats any and all of what previous verse of yours I’ve seen. I suppose that it’s a case--with all of us--of having to find the right theme. Much of your earlier poetry (and please don’t unconsciously include _Doc Transit_ here) seemed diffuse to me, and sometimes obscure. This long poem has the amplitude and self-contained movement that I can’t seem to find in any recent narrative poetry. I wish I had the facility for mingling fact and inference so neatly--into so organic a rhythm. I’m so hugged and restricted by a single-track, iambic metronometer these days! Somebody sent me Hemingway’s _Sun Also Rises_ to read. It certainly does what he evidently intends it doing--I’ve had a case of acidosis just reading the list of drinks that clutter every page. He certainly knows what dry-throated Americans want; no wonder the book sells. To me it seems brilliant enough (the fiesta and the bullfight are splendid) but horribly cold. A novel to read if you want a slant at one aspect of the age, but without any of the engraciating qualities that makes _Ulysses_, even that bitter book, a thing to keep and enjoy many times. I’m still on the watch for a job, so let me know if you hear of anything. -- -- -- -- 275: TO ALLEN TATE _Patterson_ _Thursday Feb 24_ Dear Allen: I wish I could keep up with Winters. I already owe him several letters, besides comment on the ms. of his “Fire Sequence,” which awaited me when I returned from town. All his work is so genuine that it takes close attention, meditation and blood and bone to answer.... At present it’s too much for me, so I’ve sent the manifesto on with a brief note to the effect that I agree with most of your marginalia, i.e., where I differ with him. Though I go further than you do in qualification of the Loeb-physics-etc. recipe.... Pure hocus-pocus for the poet. Just one out [of] a five-thousand other scientific similes, equally good to go by (regardless of their veracity)--and I venture to say that Winters’ work suffers already from such arbitrary torturings--all for the sake of a neat little point of reference. What good will it do him to go on repeating in the background of every poem, that “life is some slight disturbance of the balance,” etc., etc?! But we all must have some kind of incantation, I suppose. Though I’d rather adopt some of Blake’s aphorisms. They’re abstract enough. And a lot truer than the latest combination of scientific terms.