Dear Allen: -- -- -- -- Let me salute you again. “Bored to Choresis” is as good as “Euthanasia,”--if not better. You do the trick here. Your vocabulary is exceedingly interesting--you have a way of meticulously accenting certain things in a quiet, yet withal so sharp a note, that the effect is greater than as though you roared. “Tribal library,” “Her rhythms are reptilian and religious,” etc., are excellent. And then, of course, I like your lunge at the bourgeois literary biographical interests. No one has ever put it better than you have. You see what is good about this poem is over and above the merely personal sketches and digs that Robinson has been getting you into. Here you come into something larger, as you did in “Euthanasia,” where you hit all humanity a few slaps, but in so interesting a way! In other words,--this poem is _creative_ where the ordinary “character” portrait is merely analytic and, generally, unimportant (at least in poetry). You needn’t be afraid of running too squarely into Eliot with work like this. I would like to see you follow out the directions indicated in this poem--not their downward slant (interesting enough), but (if you get what I mean) their upward slant into something broadly human. Launch into praise. _You_ are one who can give praise an edge and beauty, Allen. You have done so well in a couple of damnations, that I feel confident in you. I must close. Bosses brush near my shoulder, and poetry isn’t exactly encouraged around here. Munson is strong for you with this new poem. I think he would like it for _Secession_ if _The Dial_ does not take it. He asks me to inform you that no particular “jargon” is necessary for _Secession_ contributors. Be your own language--in so pure a way that it will be noticeable, and you will do well enough. My hay fever temporarily passes. I peer again on the world with subsiding eyes. It’s a pleasure to think you of down in the clear valleys, and feeling so top-spinning! Marriage! Well, it sounds ominous. Think well, beforehand. Are you easily satisfied? That’s the main danger. 105: TO ---- [_Cleveland_] _July 27th, ’22_