As I had decided to publish the full uncensored texts of the correspondence, it would be senseless to shear them of their personal stuff; hence the reader is not specifically invited to read the "gnawing" parts,but EM's comments on the literary scene continues, this time in America again...

Dept.of English, King's College, University of London,
Strand, London W.C.2
October 22 1960

Dear Wignesan,

Your July 19 letter missed me because I left for America July 18 -- and I haven't had another letter, so one has gone astray, since you mention two in your card later. Pity that. I'm so glad the Maryland job came through [EM was one of five "professors" -- including professors John McCormick and Sühnel at Berlin, and two others at Heidelberg - who recommended me for the post as Instructor in English. And I most probably made the biggest mistake possible in refusing a 5-year Fullbright to teach and do a Ph.D. at College Park, Maryland, US, offered by their European Division in 1961.] -- I did send in a recommendation, and it would be nice to know it helped a little. I hope the job pays decently and will help you to live a little better than I imagine you have been doing. Incidentally, no one could contact me directly in America, so I don't think you ought to complain ! the only address was New York where I ended up in October, or rather September and October.

You don't mention your wife's relative -- cousin -- who came to see me in London before I left. [He must have been an imposter or some one specifically sent by the in-laws to do me "damage". EM had no idea I was tricked into marrying a fellow-student who on obtaining the marriage certificate in London refused to have anything to do with me, a fact I kept from EM until the divorce came through a couple of years or so later.] My German just about scraped along. He seemed genuinely to like you [ the "He" must have been the scoundrel American veteran who was - unknown to me then - the wife's secret lover who put her in the family way, not to mention her best friend and room-mate as well.] and to want to do something for you, but perhaps I'm mistaken. I'm surprized he wasn't able to help your problems, perhaps. But I believe you have really gone through hell and darkness during the last months which no one outside yourself and your wife could have ameliorated. You have become a bit awesome, and I retire in ignorance and, always, sympathy. I have never believed that suffering is good for a man necessarily and never will. And for you to even think, in your own words, that it may benefit you as a writer seems to me astonishing and largely irrelevant. Since your letter is all abstractions, I don't know what you have been through, and I wish you would tell me: any idea you may have that I can't bear it is wrong. What I can't bear is being unable [words missing] you really, but that's nothing. So you have your cue: take it and clear the experience up.

About the Evergreen people, I really don’t know. I wish I had known earlier because I could have seen them ditrectly in New York very easily. Hold on a while, even if it was June you sent them, because New York dies in the summer heat and begins activity in the Fall. Should nothing come up, I may be able to suggest something – no promises, I’m afraid. I have one or two addresses of publishers of tiny output – I mean they do it for love. One of the striking things in America is this getting on with publishing at your own expense. I met a couple, poor and clever, who « work » a little and then bring out irregularly a magazine called Birth which they hawk at street corners until it’s time to « work » again – to get money to live and bring out « Birth » – he’s an oriental-looking Jewish fellow with masses of dark curly beard, she’s a lovely little creature with (a) lively sense of humour and lack of affectation.

I brought back stacks of American poetry : I met Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Hebert Gold, Seymour Krim and others ; and toured thousands of miles meeting hundreds of people, and discovering I hope truth. And now I want to get it into my lectures, into writing, I might even make poems again and stop being sterile and dull. New blood around ; it’s done me good ; justice must now be done.

I don’t know where you are : so let me know when you get this. I’ve no address in London except King’s, as I’m flat-hunting & temporarily living in Brighton again. Up to here in work now the university year has begun, with lectures and so on, review-writing, courses in other colleges, Times Literary Supplement stuff, etc., etc. I’ve never been so busy. So should you come over, leave a message at King’s, will you.

Meanwhile, as ever –

Eric_

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 1960-2023