Note: This letter has to do with Eric Mottram’s second visit to Paris after his « official » retirement as Chair-Professor of English and
American LIterature at King’s College, University of London. His first visit, as the invitee of my Poiétics Association and Journal of
Comparative Poiétics, during March 1990, turned out to be a highly-appreciated wide-ranging tightly-packed introduction to Parisian
academics. Here, as an E-meritus, évidence of his constant occupation with literary production and promotion continues without
pause....

[Note: This letter has to do with Eric Mottram’s second visit to Paris after his « official » retirement as Chair-Professor of English and American LIterature at King’s College, University of London. His first visit, as the invitee of my Poiétics Association and Journal of Comparative Poiétics, during March 1990, turned out to be a highly-appreciated wide-ranging tightly-packed introduction to Parisian
academics. Here, as an E-meritus, évidence of his constant occupation with literary production and promotion continues without pause. In fact, his 1990 lectures earned him the Establishment’s invitation to give just one lecture fostered by the British Council.
Ostensibly he was invited by Professor Jacques DARRAS of the University of Picardie (Amiens) whose claim to fame resided in his being invited to give the Reith Lectures on the BBC, but I found out on the spot that it had to do with making EM’s renown rub off on a French teaching couple of no worth whatsoever and who did me more harm than it was possible to bear. Be that as it may, it however fell to me to make the necessary arrangements for his stay in Paris, organize a second-reading at Shakepeare & Company,
and generally play the host (by taking him to visit the Chartres Cathedral; the previous year to the Fontainbleau Castle) -- right up to a dinner-party on the first visit at my place with George Whitman, the exiled South-African painter Gérard Sekoto, David Applefield, the publisher of Frank Books who published Fire Readings (I got EM to make the final selection and write the Introduction which was
ignored by the other two original selectors: Richard Hallward and David Applefield ) and the usual Shakespeare & Co. crowd....
The one great regret that still festers: it never occurred to me to take him to Normandy to the Bois-Guilbert domain where the « possible » branch of his ancestors still reside: Jean-Marc du Pas du Bois-Guilbert, the sculptor Duke, was a work-pal of mine at the Panthéon-Sorbonne.
The reader should bear in mind that EM had even then no clue as to who I was really before 1977, and the same warning about spellings in the texts due to EM’s cryptic handwriting still holds good.]


40 Guernsey Grove, London SE 24 9DE

4 - 2 - 91

Dear Wig(nesan),

OK - you needn’t send me an invoice for the Journals ! [For the inaugural issue of the Journal of Comparative Poiétics devoted to EM: he was selling copies for me in England] — I’m doing you a service - remember ? But I have sold a few — and will let R. Hallward have the loot when a few more are sold. Incidentally, RH was here recently and gave me the word — the Shakespeare & Co. book. [Fire Readings. Boston: Frank Books, 1991, 272p.] I think the meeting was friendly. Thank you for your letters (2)and phone call (1) (sorry, I was occupied — evenings are a bit tricky, I’m glad to say !) Thanks for your Le Procope (New Year) card
of greeting — I suppose it is a haunt of yours ! [It happens to be the oldest café in the world where the young Corsican captain Napoléon left his three-cornered hat in lieu of payment and the city’s élite literati -- and where the incomparable satirist Arouet/Voltaire had a table all to himself — and the secretive politicking freemasons -- conferred.] I have no idea about Locos (?), but I’ll keep trying. As for my contribution to No. 2 of the Revue [Journal of Comparative Poiétics] — I’m sorry about this delay — but I really am « up to here » , as they say — but I’m happy to be writing and teaching, of course. A long piece on O’Neill go[ne to] the press, now another on O’Hara and an introduction to Paula Clair’s new sélected works — she is one of our leading Soundtext/ performance poets. And another part of work in the 1950s in America — this time a talk at the Royal Festival Hall on Jasper Johns’ position in the arts of that time ( there’s an exhibition of his work at the South Bank centre). And so on.

Thankyou for the snaps of the Revue/Journal in Paris bookshops — very heartening. You deserve it, of course.

The time of the year was exciting. I decided to go north to my sister’s son’s family in Countrin (?) — Ulverston. We — my sister, David and his wife and family and myself — had a couple of lovely sunny winter days to walk in before Christmas — and before the really foul weather which came with it. But indoors is a good time at Christmas. I stayed on longer than expected — and did a bit
of house-painting for them ! Then up to my brother’s in Bedfordshire for my birthday [EM was born on December 29th.] — a very good weekend. Then to Hereford and the Wye Valley for the New Year days — some exciting visits to Abbey Dove, Llanthony, and so on. It’s very fine country. And to the Rolls collection in Monmouth - small but to me — and my aircraft interests — very exciting.

Nearly forgot: my 1965-6 memoir of living in New York etc. — in two parts — is never published. When I have corrected the typos, I’ll send it to you ! [No trace of it, though, in my archives.] At the moment I’m shaping up: huge interview done for Peterjon and Yasmin Skelt, the publishers of Selected Poems — it is taking a long time: I do [a] bit every day…

Darras has invited me to talk on British poetry today for March 14 — so I will be in Paris then and — I’m not decided — a day perhaps on either side. I would not mind staying in the same Hotel as last time actually. Perhaps you could check with Darras — I’d come early on the 13th March and stay till the 16th — 3 nights. I could also read for Shakespeare & Co. Could I ask you to ask George ? Once again I’m burdening you. I didn’t dare ask you on the telephone ! Needless to say, I would appreciate a word with you — and another visit to your Sri Lankan restaurant !

Anyway, it will be good to be in Paris another time…

All the best.

Eric

P.T.O. !

Do I give Hallward a British cheque, sent to Paris, or what — for Revue/ Journal sales ?

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 1991-2023