6 July 1959 (Stinson Beach, California)
As an aftermath of the Wesleyan press venture, I have found a reader, I think, in Norman Holmes Pearson.1 The letter he sent me representing the Wesleyan committee gave me a personal opening to send Letters and yesterday he wrote: “The Letters is an achievement. Quite apart from taking or rejecting any single manuscript volume, there simply isn't any doubt that you are a poet. You are in Letters and you are in The Field . . . Naturally being a poet doesn't mean that everyone will like your poetry, and your approach to it simply isn't critically popular at the moment.” Well, I press from which grapes what wine of recognition I can [assume, for instance, that Dr. Pearson is careful of his judgments].2
19 November 1959
I have finally come to the place in my recent work where I see...
