want to thank you for the o.k. to PENGUIN on reprint of some of It Catches stuff for the Penguin Poetry Series. it won’t be out until Xmas ’68, and the royalties are not astounding but if I am around by then whatever bit it is might save me from the pit, the pit of madness, sickness, the row, whatever pit there is, each inch helps save what’s left, so thanks, surely, the o.k., esp. since you are evidently down on me—a column, a Shermanism, whatever the hell, I don’t know, but that’s the way it works. I know that you were very unhappy and worried in Tucson and both not feeling well, and it was a bad time for me to be there. so it goes, but still you were good enough to give the PENGUIN O.k., so you do not play small and bitter games and crash a man down because of dislikes. that’s good moxie, and all I can say is “thanks,” which doesn’t seem like very much.

I hope that wherever you are now that things are easier.

I didn’t get the grant. just a form-letter. so it’s try to hang onto the horror of the post office; if it weren’t for Marina I think I’d just go out and lay down in the gutter. everybody I know has either gotten a grant or been offered one, so I guess Bukowski is just shit with the govt. agency, and so I sit and peck at the typer while my toenails bite at my feet. in same mail—a few weeks back—a letter from W. C[orrington] telling me, in essence, that I could dish it out but not take it.

the dog-pack is really after my aging ass.

did have some luck with Evergreen. poem in Dec. issue and they have accepted a rather long one on bullfighting for a future issue.

so the horses began again Tuesday and maybe a little action can help me forget the whole damn poetry scene. it’s good to drink a hot coffee out there, the ice wind from those snow mountains north chilling your god damn shorts as you work out the winner of the first race. that’s as good as anything. we don’t ask much of the gods. just that they keep quiet for a while.

all right, then. punchy, I shape up to stick more letters. in my neat little shit-cage. and remember the good days past. there were some.

• 1968 •

[To Douglas Blazek]

January 15, 1968

[* * *] Heard from Penguin & Webb relented, said o.k., so it’ll be Norse, Bukowski, Lamantia, Dec. ’68.

The problem with being a poet is that by the time you get well-known you can’t write anymore. or, at least, not as well. but, still, being young & unknown isn’t the answer either. a lot of them grin out machine-made shit that they think is very real only because they like it. then, they quit. to become a good writer takes time & luck & moxie & no special desire to be a good writer. [* * *]