I would like to say that the people who have seen the book are as taken with it as I and that the last page which begins “777 copies of this book…” is one of the best poems, if not the best poem in the book.

A little sadness here—and I thought I’d tell you before anybody else told you—in the poem “Dinner, Rain & Transport”, one line was left out, “I can prophecy evil,” this was to proceed “with the force of a jackhammer.” And when I say a little sadness I know it will be mostly yours, for to me the book is so much that this makes no difference, so please don’t blame yourself for being also real enough to error. [* * *]

[To Ann Bauman]

December 4, 1963

Like the American provincial, I start my letter: “I have been meaning to write but—”

It’s good you liked the book; I feel that Webb has surrounded me with more than the poems deserve, and he will hear this from many quarters, but for it all, he has created a book such as I have never seen, and he (they really!) have done it out of absolute poverty and the force of their beings. [* * *]

The book has lifted me high over the branches, building, etc., but they are still there, and I go on, actually tired physically as if I had been wrestling a bear for 43 years, and I slept ten hours today and wish I could sleep ten more but after I type this I must go to the place and the place will have its way. [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

December 7, 1963

[* * *] Enclosed the article Robt. Fink was speaking of, mentioning Outsider, and lucky the papers lay on the floor with the beer-cans for days or I would have long ago thrown this bit away, but enclosed. Lipton gained his golden head through the BEATS but the beats through their artifact of so-called brawny and courageous poeticism did more damage to the pure poem trying to breathe than Poetry Chicago has done accepting the accepted. The trouble with the BEATS: they gathered in crowds to gather SOLACE and when you take the gang-form you become the gang—i.e., the same as CORE or Congress or STANDARD OIL or American Banana and their assorted $ ventures and assassinations and cries. You’ve got to rise from the floor alone or fall back alone. What I mean is: conceive the Art-form and forget it, and conceive it again if you have the blue blood and the red blood the bull blood to carry you past the matador the god whatever so and whosoforever stands in the way. I told you I was drinking beer. [* * *]