Marianne Moore and etc.
From Harriet:
For their recent Mentors feature, the Los Angeles Review of Books has Jeffrey Kindley writing about the brief time he spent conversing with Marianne Moore, when the poet was in her 70s. It’s a great read. Par exemple:
In August of 1963, shortly before I left Portland to go to Columbia, I sent Marianne Moore six poems I had written and a note saying that I would like to meet her. She quickly responded (“since he who gives quickly gives twice/in nothing so much as in a letter,” as she had written in her poem “Bowls”) saying that she liked the poems and noting that they were beautifully typed. But she was “beleaguered”: “in fact to show you that it is true,” she said, she would “enclose my ‘offensive card’! — with 2 misprints in it — let it go in despair … But I shall see you sometime, that I shall.”
Her “offensive card” read:
MARIANNE MOORE IS RELUCTANT TO SAY THAT SHE CAN NOT DO ANY OF THESE THINGS:
READ MANUSCRIPT;
COUNSEL WRITERS;
GRANT INTERVIEWS;
PROVIDE PHOTOGRAPHS;
RECOMMEND PUBLISHERS;
RECOMMEND EDITORS FAVORABLE TO VERSE BY CHILDREN OR WORK BEQUEATHD [sic] FOR PUBLICATION;
PROVIDE DATA FOR THESES, LECTURES, SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS, MEMOIRS;
DOES NOT PROVIDE COLLECTORS OF AUTOGRAPHS WITH CARD, STAMP OR ENVELOPE;
DOES NOT READ BOOKS WITH A VIEW TO COMMENTING;
ASKS FRIENDS WHO ARE MEMBERS OF UNIVERSITY OR OTHER FACULTIES NOT TO SUGGEST HER TO THEIR STUDENTS OR TO VISITING SCHOLARS AS AVAILABLE FOR CONSULATION [sic].
She had corrected the “bequeathd” and “consulation” errors in pen.
