It’s late, and those who arise at five must get sleep, so I’ll barbarically acquiesce. My poem, the phallic theme, was a highly concentrated piece of symbolism, image wound within image.[9] You were only too right in your judgment of it. When I get some time I’ll work more on it. What you saw was fresh and unshodden enough. 41: TO GORHAM MUNSON _Cleveland, Ohio._ _April 14th, ’20_ My dear Gorham: --/--/ Yes,--the Grandmother poem came out very nicely. You notice, of course, that I cut it in several places, which improved it, I am sure. It is the only thing I’ve done that satisfies me at all now,--whether I can ever equal it in the future remains to be seen. I’ve recently been at work on something that I enclose for your verdict.[10] As usual I am much at sea about its qualities and faults. It is interesting to me,--but do I succeed in making it of interest to others? Please slam and bang your best about it,--pro and con. I have much faith in your critical powers. Much remains to be done on it yet, but enough is done with it at present to detect the main current of it, which is principally all that worries me. My daily routine tends to benumb my faculties so much that at times I feel an infantile awe before any attempt whatever, critical or creative. This piece was simply a mood which rose and spilled over in a slightly cruder form than what you see. It happens to be autobiographic, which makes any personal estimate of it all the more dangerous. I like Marianne Moore in a certain way. She is so prosaic that the extremity of her detachment touches, or seems to touch, a kind of inspiration. But she is too much of a precieuse for my adulation. Of this latter class even give me Wallace Stevens, and the fastidious Williams in preference. Is there anything more fastidious in poetry than these lines of his in a recent _Little Review_ ...--? --/--/ [“To a Friend Concerning Several Ladies,” II. 1-7.] The Bynner poems and translations were fine. Vildrac is the one who set me on the track of the Grandmother mood, and it is odd that our poems should have come out in the same number. Have not heard from Josephson for some time. His last letter told of splenetic days following his post-graduation from Columbia, and an urge to ramble toward the continent via a stewardship on some vessel. Perhaps, for all I know, he has left our shores. Anderson writes me often from his Alabama bower. He is enthusiastic about the Negroes and their life, and will probably write something, sooner or later, on the subject.