Letters: Allen and Louis

“There are many mansions in the house of poetry,” i writes Louis “Paterson’s principal poet” ii to Allen, many times.
Allen, maintain your posture when you meet Edith, sit well with Sitwell.
Don’t be maudlin when you chat with Auden . . . at Oxford.
Spring has sprung; the thaw has come to Robert Frost (at Paterson State Teachers’ College). iii
What’s a father to do? “I keep pounding my typewriter, not wishing to rust on my laurels, and now and then have poems punished in the papers and magazines.” iv
Louis, Father Polonius, “I can mend the hardening of my platitudes and prevent the shrinking of my latitudes.” v
And the bearded bard sayeth, “The only poetic tradition is the voice out of the Burning Bush.” vi
“Keep writing.”
“Keep writing.”
“Keep writing.”
“Keep writing.”
“Keep writing.” vii

i Ginsberg, Allen and Louis. Family Business: Selected Letters Between a Father and Son. Ed. Michael Schumacher. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2001), p. 53.
ii Ibid., p. xxiii.
iii Ibid., p. 108.
iv Ibid., p. 156.
v Ibid., p. 101.
vi Ibid., p. 155.
vii Ibid., p. 162.