Could he have known he had only a couple of years left to do everything he wanted to ? Mainly about lecturing in
America, his deteriorating health, his views on African writing, and his plans for the invitations to read and lecture in Europe.

from: 40 Guernsey Grove,London SE24 9DE
King's College London (KQC)- UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
STRAND, LONDON WC2R 2LS- TELEPHONE: 01-836 5454
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Emeritus Professor Eric N.W. Mottram
January 3, 1993

Dear Wignesan,

A happy and prosperous and creative New Year to you - and let's hope it will not be as - shall we say - adventurous as 1992... Back now from a semester as visiting fellow at the State University of New York's campus at Buffalo, and having survived - I nearly said miraculously, but you might think that blasphemous (joke). Anyway, here I am....I did not write to you immediately after I returned because (a) I had awful jetlag for six days (b) then Christmas (Eczmas) was upon us, and then (my) birthday (as distinct from His).... (another joke). (Not that I ever thought you lacked a sense of humour). Your success in Madras gratified me no end - but I was puzzled by the "valedictory oration" part - for whom? Your word for Madras - "hell" - distinctly reminded me of my experience of Hyderabad - although I managed to escape germs - I do hope your health is not wrecked. Maybe "India" should be scrapped and something else started. Especially re the recent insane religious riots... Your suggestion that I give up writing and take up painting or music must have been a joke (weird). But I suppose you were being sort of helpfully anxious; bless you. In any case, your own life of research and editing and writing seems - in the June 5 letter at least - to have been none too dazzling !

But I appreciated your report on your paper for the Bayreuth Conference - great stuff: that
Afro-English writing is pseudo-English stuff. All this afro this and afro that is a pack of bullshit to gain publishers more loot and tenth rate writers a spot of notoriety. America is full of it, of course - I awaited afro-Indians with trepidation, and sure enough, etc..... There is not even a place called "Africa" that has any precise meaning. And no one in their right mind would want to live anywhere on that continent. Afro is one more attempt to avoid the real issues of world rule by abject religions and cross-national capitalism. In America, as it became once more clear during the election while I was there, the mass of Americans believes that the State permits choice on a large scale - so Clinton got a few more votes than Bush - because he stressed the language of change and choice. As if a welfare state is possible in a world of high finance cross-national globality and intense - increasing - capitalist competition among the few, and among the masses at the petty levels of daily aggression ! In fact, the election "debates" on tv between the three characters for election cost a few more million dollars to add to the millions already spent. The poverty in Buffalo is shocking, and the general anxiety among students debilitating.

So do we continue the struggle with the little energy we have, and time ? Out of habit. And do we give up the habit?.....
I was astonished that you mention me at all in your paper at Bayreuth, and with such downright enthusiasm for my work in Malaya all those years ago..... I certainly was not then conscious of it the way you state it -- so I felt very much indebted to you for telling me, now. All I can say is: I guess one acts so much out of necessity with what is taken as obvious.... Also, I did enjoy those months there, and this was very much due to a handful of students, and two women, may be three.... and one Englishman in particular, the journalist who took me into the Pahang interior. Most of the department's staff were not exactly intellectually demanding (one exception - whose name I can't remember, whose voice I can). And there was the chap in the flat above who played me a Schubert piano sonata on his recordplayer (recorded by Clifford Curzon) -- and that certainly changed my musical knowledge. [EM was an accomplished pianist himself - to my ears !] If you have a copy of your paper, I would be indeed grateful to read it.

As for Liz Gunner, I can't imagine why she -- in your words -- put her guard up. After her appointment, we had a long talk in my office, at her request, about university teaching possibilities, etc. ; then I managed to get her an extra bit of teaching -- other than her Commonwealth Institute and Soas [School of Asian and African Studies] work -- at King's with a guy who wanted to hog post-colonial writings and so on - a lout, actually. And that is that. We meet occasionally in university corridors.... She recently separated from her husband, I do know that. May be she is still recovering from that.

Your October letter again asks about my « health crisis »...so here goes. On July 10, about a month and two weeks after the op. [operation], I saw the disemboweller and slicer for the crucial check-up – he said fine, that’s it, gave me his card just in case. A few days after that, I saw the other heart specialist, and again – the ok to go ahead, especially with the trip to America, as planned. Many people were highly surprised, and I was a shade apprehensive beforehand but not at all after these two checkups. So I took up the fellowship in the new Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo, as SUNY calls its campus there-- to help kick off proceedings, which I considered a considerable honour – that is, to be advertized as « British poet and scholar’-- unimaginable in an(y) British so-called university ! The staff is headed by Robert Creeley and Charles Bernstein, and includes Susan Howe and Dennis Tedlock, and the Franco-American novelist Raymond Federman… Creeley has since relinquished the chieftonship to Robert Bertholf, the remarkable curator of the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, and himself a professor of American literature, PhD years ago on Wallace Stevens – at Kent State U… where I knew him quite well. I had a fairly decent apartment, but a long way from town – in fact 45 minutes by tube and bus. The new campus was made right outside town for various scurrilous reasons, and is in modernist style on a huge scale – i.e., it resembles a colossal asylum-prison. But it’s a powerful pl(a)ce. SUNY is like the U. of California – a bif wealthy organization with campuses all over the State. I also worked at the capital campus at Albany, and while there responded to an invitation from the fine poet Ro(p)bert Kelly to read for him at Bard College. I also managed to fly to Philadelphia to see an ex-student and friend, and then on to Washington to stay with close friends from my New York years, Ted and Joan Wilentz – perhaps you remember, the Wilentzes owned the famous Eighth Street Bookshop. My working semester at Buffalo was quite excellent -readings, lectures, discussions, work with graduates – and all within the Aegis of poetics as defined by Olson at Buffalo in the Sixties – not that he is getting his due respect at Buffalo these days, even from Creeley. Very different from my first visit while I was visiting professor and ACLS [American Council of Learned Societies] fellow at NYU in [1965/]1966. But Jack Clarke is dead and Duncan is dead. I read Tom Clark’s Olson biography while in Buffalo as my personal and private homage – not the excellent book it should have been. Best of all was working in the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, and with such a kind and expert staff. This collection has everything – if it hasn’t and the staff discover that, it is rectified ! I’m hardly exaggerating ! I had the grim feeling, often, that my own writings would have been considerably better had I been able to work them in the Collection. And Bob Bertholf couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful. Also living in Buffalo is my student of 1966 there and subsequent friend who enabled my visit to Hopiland years later. So that was also a happy reunion. But Bob, too, has had a heart operation, and then the latter nearly died recently from painful diabetes. We are all paying for our highly active lives – is that it ? Rubbish ! We are just aging physically, plus the wear and tear of having had creative and therefore stressful lives ! No debt theories for us, eh ?
So there’s a little of the story for you. Now I must go and stir my delicious red bean casserole, and make my evening vodka martini. Then on with this letter….

5/1/93
I do hope the New Year inaugurates a good turn for the better in your research prospects – you were pretty sanguine about this in your recent letters. But I anticipate your letter about this with some trepidation… I’m glad you found George Whitman so thriving – and as for staying in the shop apartment for a month, that sounds utterly idyllic ! Is there a kitchen- because cooking is absolutely essential these days for me… I loved your notion of a « defantomisation » of the place ! After Buffalo, I have a good deal to do here – double lectures in the US Culture course at King’s for the MA this coming term – and my grad. Seminars on Radical Poetics – this year on the pathology of capitalism and its languages of persuasion and coercion. Plus various writing commissions urgently to be completed. At the end of March I go to the University of Coimbra to lecture and read – a return invitation for the one I could not manage last year because between investigations etc. at King’s College Hospital and the op. at the Cromwell, I was invaded by a rash, caused by a rare allergy to a rare drug. Just my luck ! And I may be going to Helsinki to read, lecture and examine later in the year… So Paris will be fitted into all this… There may also be a trip to Italy if the Pound crowd seem to be interested. The invitation to the Browning conference will keep me in London – whenever it is – why they’ve invited me is that a colleague and a good friend of mine thinks I have something to say, arising from our conversations about the great poet – who has admittedly only interested me lately. Wxe all have our errors… So : plenty to do - and lots to write. Thank goodness I’ve recovered from things caught staying with my nephew and his family over Christmas. Little kids seem to catch everything at school, and leave the rest of us get the germs worse !
One last matter : you mentioned a cheque I said I was sending you or had sent. I’ll try to check this as soon as I have access to me [sic] accounts. As far as I can recall, it must have been for the remainder of the Revue...No 1 issues. I think I did send it, though.

Remember me to your son, with best wishes, please.

Yours,

Eric - off for another hospital check-up !
Did I send you Live All You Can ? And Raise the Wind for Me ? And Estuaries ?

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris: 1993- 2023