Much much love to you and Warrie—
Sivvy
SEPTEMBER 21, 1956
Dearest, lovely Mother,
How we have loved your long, newsy pink letters! So much is happening, hanging fire, that I now, these last ten days before I return to Cambridge, feel rather torn. I am actually almost eager to be back and plunged in work, for as you know, I generally leave places [mentally] a week early and am going through my worst homesickness for Ted now.
Elly Friedman, the dear, is up here now, and Ted and I got her an exquisite room at the most magnificent, quaint old stone inn, low beamed, lined with books. Ted and I would love to buy it. She is the best visitor; perfectly independent and leaves us to work until late afternoon, and I’ve had some good long talks with her which have caught me up on Smith. Imagine, there was a rumor among the seniors that I was coming back to teach there this year! Probably one of my teachers confided to a student and this got around. I should think, if I do well at Cambridge this year, I should have no worry of a job there. But I have decided very definitely against applying for a job for Ted there too for many important reasons. First, I would have the responsibility for him, proving him, in a way, and my ties there are very emotional and deep with the place and professors both. In my first year of marriage and teaching, I don’t want to stack the odds against me, and the girls at Smith are unscrupulous (witness the two professors, still on the faculty, who have married three Smith girls in succession)…. I would be absurd to throw Ted into such hysterical, girlish adulation. I shouldn’t have a minute’s peace, because I know how college girls talk and romanticize endlessly and how they throw themselves at men professors, be they ancient or one-legged. So I shall apply for Ted at Amherst … If Ted doesn’t get in Amherst, he’s perfectly willing to take another kind of job on radio or TV station or whatever, and, if he is successful writing TV scripts, he could do that at home. But I refuse to give my married life and independence completely to Smith. I don’t want both of us to be tied to the same faculty meetings, social life and Smith-girl gossip….
… You can imagine how weary I am of living off Other People’s kitchens and houses … I long for my own privacy and pantry more than anything … If I get through this hard year, I feel I deserve a wedding and gifts and reception and honeymoon for a summer the worst way; it has not always been easy. We will really begin our proper married life with our wedding next June.
… Ted has not a definite job yet in Spain, but will leave with his … uncle on October 1 or thereabouts …
Ted, by the way, has an audition for reading modern poetry at the BBC in London next week (they heard a tape recording of his reading of Gawain and the Green Knight which he made at a friend’s and liked it). I am going down with him, fingers crossed that they’ll want to broadcast it. I have great hopes for Ted in TV scripts, too. If only Amherst would accept him, it would be so great. Advise me about how to apply for applications. Much much love to you and Warren.
Sivvy
SEPTEMBER 28, 1956
Dearest Mummy,
… So glad you aren’t renting [a] room. DON’T! I know from repeated experience that for sensitive persons like you and me for whom the home is the last refuge of rest, peace and privacy, it is impossible to live and share kitchens with strangers. One is always wondering, “Are they through with the bathroom now? Can I shove their stuff over in the icebox to make room for mine?” … Can’t wait till I’m home and in the brief days Ted and I are in Wellesley, I’d love you to give me recipes of our favorite things you make so well—corn and fish chowders, apple pie, apricot-jam half moons, etc….
Am sure I’ll have earned enough money by spring to help considerably with wedding expenses—never felt so creative; so many projects out this year. I’m concentrating on my novel of Cambridge life and a book of poems for the Yale Younger Poets Series … We wait the news from six stories and sixty poems (half each) sent out. I’ll be back in Cambridge hard at work Monday, October 1. Have passed the “blues” period and am now dying to get there and plunge into a stout year of study.
… We spent two days in London and just got back—very auspicious, Ted having audition reading modern poetry for the BBC. I was thrilled; I made him read one of his own poems stuck between Yeats and Hopkins. The dear man judging … sat with me in the listening room, saying, “Perfect, superb.” … The man wants him to do a broadcast of Yeats if the committee approves, and perhaps they’ll also approve his reading his own poems over the erudite Third Program … The pay is excellent for this, and we wait word of the committee’s decision eagerly; it would be another feather to his letter of application for a teaching job. When we are famous enough, we want to make reading tours in America. My mind seethes with ideas for stories; my novel preoccupies me; and I am spending this year daily doing a detailed notebook of Cambridge with sketches, trying to sell chapters as stories, then [will] finish the writing of it next summer. I need this year badly to read, study, and write. What bliss not to have to consider any social life!
… We spent one athletic day hiking ten miles over the moors and swamps from Wuthering Heights, where I did [a] sketch in the freezing wind. Saw museum of Brontës, things in the old Parsonage—incredible miniature children’s books of a magic kingdom they made up, in tiny print with exquisite, luminous watercolors—what creative children! Charlotte did the loveliest little watercolors. Will write article about it this week.
Have received proof for poem “Pursuit” from the Atlantic, so it should come out soon. Looks terrific, with French quote from Racine from “Phèdre,” meaning, in case anyone asks you: “In the depths of the forests your image pursues me.”
Hope I can get novel out within next two years. I’d like best to dedicate the novel to Mrs. Prouty, but wish to dedicate my first book to her, and it may be poems, which I’d rather dedicate to Dr. B.—those two women have been the greatest helps in my life and both, I think, deserve a book dedication….
… If only we can teach at Amherst and Smith! … I’ll write Mary Ellen Chase for advice in applying as soon as Ted has his job settled and some things published. She might be able to help me with names.
All goes well; Ted and I thrive and plan to work like mad this year to secure a writing Cape summer after a gala wedding and reception and get good twin teaching jobs. Wish us luck. Write often.
Love,
Sivvy
WHITSTEAD, BARTON ROAD
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND
OCTOBER 2, 1956
Dearest darling Mother,
Something very wonderful has happened. On my return to Whitstead in rain, weariness, and general numb sadness yesterday, I received a lovely letter from Poetry magazine, Chicago, saying they found my poems admirable and are buying SIX (!) for publication! Do you know what this means! First, about $76 (they pay 50 cents a line) … then, they are all my new poems, written after “Pursuit” and glorifying love and Ted. They are obviously in the market for a new lyrical woman. And they are happy poems.
This also means that my manuscript of poetry which I am going to get ready to submit to the Yale Series of Younger Poets Contest this January will have a terrific list of introductory credits. Already, nine of my poems were published; add seven, this fall, and perhaps more this winter, and it’s rather impressive. My manuscript should have much more chance; and, bless it, Poetry is a magazine of poets … That, combined with my commercial publications, is also fine … They are publishing “Two Sisters of Persephone,” “Metamorphosis,” “Wreath for a Bridal,” “Strumpet Song,” “Dream with Clam-Diggers,” and “Epitaph for Fire and Flower,” a longish one which I began on the beach in Benidorm, Spain! I’ll enclose a copy.
Also got a lovely letter from Peter Davison, who is now associate editor of the Atlantic Monthly Press, saying he wants to encourage me from his new position and wouldn’t it be nice if they could publish a novel by me some day? I wrote him a colossal letter, telling him of Ted’s stuff and my novel plans, asking advice, etc. He
can be a most valuable friend. Your little daughter will be a writer yet!
… I want to type up a poem-book Ms. for each of us. Ted is producing terrifically—the Atlantic has had his poems for four months; I have fingers crossed. You would be so touched—he wants to get his fables printed especially for you, so you would not worry that he can support me! He thinks you would be pleased. The dear one.
Naturally, it will be hard work here, but I am happy alone, want to see no one, but live in the spirit of Ted, writing daily. I’ll see him in London before he leaves for Spain, so there is that to look forward to. He waits now word from the BBC.
You must tell Mrs. Prouty about my new poem acceptances! It shows what true love can produce!
If only you knew how happy I am with Ted. I have been with him every minute for over four months, and every day I love him more and more. We … never run out of growing conversation. We talked the whole day on our bus trip to London, and it is so exciting, both of us writing, producing something new every day, criticizing, dreaming, encouraging, mulling over common experiences. I am walking on air; I love him more than the world and would do anything for him … We want to work and work … success will never spoil either of us. We are not dependent on the social arty world, but scorn it, for those who are drinking and calling themselves “writers” at parties should be home writing and writing. Every day one has to earn the name of “writer” over again, with much wrestling.
Our last days at Ted’s were lovely, even under the strain of coming parting. We listened to Beethoven after dinner by the light of the coal fire, the stars shining outside the big windows, and read in bed together quietly and happily. I finished my drawing of Wuthering Heights and will do a little article on it….
Do write a lot this year.
Much love,
Your happy Sivvy
EPITAPH FOR FIRE AND FLOWER
You might as well string up
This wave’s green peak on wire
To prevent fall, or anchor the fluent air
In quartz, as crack your skull to keep
These two most perishable lovers from the touch
That will kindle angels’ envy, scorch and drop
Their fond hearts charred as any match.
Seek no stony camera-eye to fix
The passing dazzle of each face
In black and white, or put on ice
Mouth’s instant flare for future looks;
Stars shoot their petals, and suns run to seed,
However you may sweat to hold such darling wrecks
Hived like honey in your head.
Now in the crux of their vows, hang your ear
Still as a shell: hear what an age of glass
These lovers prophesy to lock embrace
Secure in museum diamond for the stare
Of astounded generations; they wrestle
To conquer cinder’s kingdom in the stroke of an hour
And hoard faith safe in a fossil.
But though they’d rivet sinews in rock
And have every weathercock kiss hang fire
As if to outflame a phoenix, the moment’s spur
Drives nimble blood too quick
For a wish to tether: they ride night-long
In their heartbeats’ blazing wake until red cock
Plucks bare that comet’s flowering.
Dawn snuffs out star’s spent wick
Even as love’s dear fools cry evergreen,
And a languor of wax congeals the’ vein
No matter how fiercely lit: staunch contracts break
And recoil in the altering light: the radiant limb
Blows ash in each lover’s eye; the ardent look
Blackens flesh to bone and devours them.
OCTOBER 8, 1956
Dearest of mothers,
Loved your letter this morning—love all your letters—so much to say. First, good news: the erudite Third Program of the BBC has accepted Ted’s reading of Yeats and will make a recording. I am just exploding with pride; it was all I could do not to leap up at breakfast today and shout: MY HUSBAND IS A GENIUS AND WILL READ YEATS ON THE BBC! As soon as he finds [out] the date they want him to make the recording, he’ll let me know and we’ll meet in London. We hope more readings may come out of this. It means Ted has a certified enunciation and should be a big help in getting a teaching job, don’t you think?
… Have been back here exactly a week and am going through the most terrible state, but stoically, and will somehow manage. It is the longest I have ever been away from Ted and somehow, in the course of this working and vital summer, we have mystically become one. I can appreciate the legend of Eve coming from Adam’s rib as I never did before; the damn story’s true! That’s where I belong. Away from Ted, I feel as if I were living with one eyelash of myself only. It is really agony. We are different from most couples; for we share ourselves perhaps more intensely at every moment. Everything I do with and for Ted has a celestial radiance, be it only ironing and cooking, and this increases with custom, instead of growing less … Perhaps, most important, our writing is founded in the inspiration of the other and grows by the proper, inimitable criticism of the other, and publications are made with joy of the other. What wife shares her husband’s dearest career as I do? … Actually, I never could stand Ted to have a nine to five job, because I love being with him and working in his presence so much…. I hope you will forgive me for blasting off about this; you must understand, as you have only Warren to talk to, that I have only you. I am living like a nun, sequestered completely in my study (it took me a whole week to be able to read: am reading Paul’s Epistles and Augustine for philosophy; also Chaucer—bless Chaucer). Writing every morning, all morning…. I need no sorrow to write; I have had, and, no doubt, will have enough. My poems and stories I want to be the strongest female paean yet for the creative forces of nature, the joy of being a loved and loving woman; that is my song. I believe it is destructive to try to be an abstractionist man-imitator, or a bitter, sarcastic Dorothy Parker or Teasdale. Ted and I are both recluses; we want to work and read and stay out of NY circles and ego-flattering fan parties …
Love and more love to you and dear Warren,
Your own sivvy
P.S. Got terrific, lovely letter from Peter Davison in his new influential position as Associate Editor of the Atlantic [Monthly] Press. He is very interested in Ted and me; wants me to send Ted’s children’s fables to their small but receptive children’s department. Wants me to enter their novel contest—probably in 1958—and will read all manuscripts gladly. What a wonderful help and friend he can be. He looked up Ted’s poems still at the [Atlantic] Monthly offices; says no decision has yet been made, but they are definitely interested and Editor Weeks will see them soon. Cross your fingers—
x x xs.
OCTOBER 16, 1956
Dearest Mother,
… Our London weekend has given me a new calm and dispelled that first hectic suffocating wild depression I had away from my husband for the first time in our married life. It almost began with a nightmare. I’d arranged to have Ted meet me at King’s Cross station about 7:30, but when I found he was getting into the bus station at 7, decided to take an early train to Liverpool Street and meet him. I wrote a letter to this effect which, if he didn’t receive, I figured would be all right as I’d be at the bus terminal from 6 on and would have no chance of missing him. Well, I waited from 6 to 8 at the terminal and the bus he was supposed to take came; he wasn’t on it. The bus terminal inspectors were all callous cretins, and the most I could get out of them was that all buses were in and no accidents reported. I was really frantic, unable to understand why Ted wasn’t on one of these; he’d bought reservations: so, in a fury of tears, I fell sobbing into a taxi and for 20 minutes begged him to hurry to King’s Cross to see if by some miracle Ted might be there. I was sick, not knowing what to do but yell, but yell … through the streets of London. Well, to shorten the trauma, I walked into King’s
Cross into Ted’s arms. He’d made the bus driver drop him off early so he could get to me sooner and had been worried about my not arriving on the train, not having received my later letter. He looked like the most beautiful dear person in the world; everything began to shine, and the taxi driver sprouted wings, and all was fine.
For two blessed days we wandered about together, sitting in parks, browsing in bookshops, reading aloud, eating fruit, and just basking in each other’s presence. For the first time now, I feel I can work and concentrate and manage this stoic year.
Ted makes his BBC recording on October 24, so I’ll manage to get down on the 27th to celebrate my birthday with him; one more reunion before he goes off to Spain.
… Have written several of my best short stories this week, which he criticized in London. My best, “The Invisible Man,” I have great hopes for—about this charming extroverted, versatile chap who is invisible to himself alone … and what happens. Maybe it’ll be a classic, too, to add to Peter Schlemiel and Hoffmann’s mirror-imageless man; I can’t wait to send it off. Love your letters; only 8 months till we’re Home. Bless Warren for me; love to Grampy.
Your own Sivvy
OCTOBER 22, 1956
Dearest Mother,
It is a rare blue and gold day—very rare. Walked out this afternoon to sit by the delicate yellow willows in a golden haze by the Cam, brooding over white swans, bobbing black water hens, and much else. I’m sending you by regular mail a copy of Granta (the New Yorker of Cambridge undergraduate life), which contains a story I believe you might have read, as I wrote it for Mr. Kazin [“The Day Mr. Prescott Died”]. Ben Nash, the nice editor, has done fine illustrations, I think.
Just received word that The Nation has accepted another one of Ted’s poems, a fine one about the violence of wind. I am with great difficulty saving this to tell him when I go to London on my birthday, as I can’t bear not seeing his joy and being present at it. The New Yorker rejected his fables (yet we will try it till we’re bloody), so I hope this will cheer him up: if only the Atlantic would buy one of the poems they’ve kept for five months now. Ted makes his recordings of Yeats and two of his own poems this Wednesday.