But you ask about the progress of my poetry collection … I feel my heart begin to flip like said dying fish. The situation is as follows: Having tweaked all my poems into what I thought were perfect little kernels of truth and sent them off (long ago, it seems now), I have just received a letter from my assigned editor at Vellum telling me he would like me to rework the following … according to the following editorial comments … and would like to cut blah, blah and blah … and he wonders about the logic of the sequencing … and feels an ‘emotional resonance is lacking’ in some of them and, presumably, could I please put one in? Well, how does one insert ‘emotional resonance’ into one’s poems—without, that is, pressing them into a kind of abject service? Would they like more obvious emotion, is that what they want? I loathe these vague requirements and suspect that fulfilling them will result in a book of poems I cannot bring myself to read.

They also believe the poems are not sufficient in number to comprise ‘a collection’—they think I need twice as many—the word they used was ‘flimsy’. They believe publishing it in its current ‘flimsy’ form will do a disservice to the work and to the reputation of the publishing house.

I am so bloody tired!

Owen grows his hair long like a little blonde beatnik.

Veda x

† † †

14 APRIL 1967

Dear Tilde,

I have a temper and a big mouth. When you get to the end of this letter, you will wish I was in restraints of some kind. Yes, I think I require restraints—ones that do up at the back perhaps.

Things don’t go as I’d like. Knox says Vellum are as good as any other publisher, but then I consulted Mr Parish on the same question. ‘Vellum Press!’ he said. ‘Lot of rubbish. Don’t mix yourself up with that lot, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ But he had no advice and offered no alternative. We were at dinner. He said what he had to say and then turned back to talk to Jo about Fred Williams, who is going to show at Works On Paper in November—it represents a coup for the gallery.