Monroe-Phillips County ArArchives History - Letters .....Peterwelborn1jun1978 June 1, 1978
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Steven W Copeland swc112260@me.com November 23, 2013, 4:25 pm

Dear Miss Lily:

     Time is whirling me about like the interminable spring wind, and threatens 
to scatter both the sense and the artifice of my speech; so please be good 
enough the leaves together. From a work here and a line there, you may still be 
able to divine my meaning.

     How I rejoice in your letters! You have come to fill a large place in my 
thoughts. I wish I knew how to tell you so. How can any life be so full as 
yours? Everything that can joyously comes into existence through you. And with 
such an example, how can I fail to learn to love life? I have searched for the 
right metaphor, for something to which I could liken the power and the joy of 
your feverish activity. But I fear that I have failed. Perhaps it does not bear 
comparison: except it be with the coming and rising in all things, the sudden 
rush of color to the tip of the branches on the mountains touched by the firey 
breath of the god. Whatever desires I have had to have lived another life than 
that which life has given me, you teach me to renounce; even the longing to 
which I have succumbed, to have called you mother when I truly was a child, 
that too is redeemed by the depth of your affirmation of existence.

     It seems we have been trying our best to imitate your schedule! Upon my 
return from Arkansas I fell ill for the first time in three years--nothing 
serious, only a virus--but the days it cost me during the most crucial week of 
the semester were irreplaceable. On the first day of my return to work I 
received a call from my Philosophy professor, Mr. Louis Dupre, informing me 
that he had been summoned home to Belgium on urgent family business. His 
departure left me only five days to complete my paper on the role of dreams in 
Cartesian philosophy. I cannot conceal the fact that the constraint under which 
this put my thought was, in my estimation, most unfortunate. Not that I found 
it impossible to pull together the scattered thoughts I had formulated earlier 
in the semester, but that I felt it important to give additional time to a 
thesis which might, I think, have been an original contribution to Cartesian 
studies. Above the seemingly endless dispute over the validity of Descartes' 
proofs of the existence of God and the material world stands the problem of the 
impossibility of taking Descartes in earnest. The problem is that Cartesian 
doubt has, in our time, turned upon itself. That alone of which Descartes was 
primitively certain, the Cogito, has become for us an object of doubt. After 
the doubt about things, we have started to doubt consciousness. But that by 
which Freud had accomplished the destruction of the kingdom of the Ego seemed 
to offer me the opportunity of finding a way back into an earnest consideration 
of the self--dreams, which seem predestined by their ambiguity to be the nodal 
point of thought. Focusing on dreams, I found it possible to read Descartes 
through Freud, while still discovering again that place where consciousness and 
meaning coincide. Thus, I was able to "place" Freud in the history of 
reflective philosophy as one of its moments. The paper was complete on the eve 
of his departure, but I regret the haste in which it was completed.

     Without pause I threw myself into the work that lay ahead. There was a 
German final to be made-up, a test which the rest of the class had taken during 
the week of my illness. A major paper on the Epistle of James had only been 
undertaken when the virus struck; so I resumed my research precisely where it 
had been interrupted, but within three days I was forced to break-off again in 
order to move to the summer apartment. As you know, we have been living for the 
last nine months in the lovely old country home of one of my professors at the 
Divinity School, Mr. Charles Forman. Our agreement was that he and his family 
should return to the house during the third week of May. Now began the process 
of gathering and cleaning. Soon we discovered that we should have to pay the 
price for the luxury we had allowed ourselves of spreading out over the entire 
place. Everything was complicated by the fact that neither of us could afford 
to take a day off from our respective duties; for by this time your kind check 
for tuition had arrived and classes had already begun. Diane was, if possible, 
more preoccupied than I was since she has begun her new job on May 15 as the 
director of the Community Soup Kitchen. I would like to tell you more about her 
new career, but she insists that I give her the honor, and since she has her 
letter to you half-composed, I will remain silent.

     Amidst all the confusion of the last days of May I dashed-off a hurried 
letter to you in appreciation for the extraordinary help you have given me this 
summer. But since you have not received the letter, I have begun to suspect 
that it was lost in translation from one abode to the next. I shall probably 
find it in one of the boxes I still have left to unpack. But it is a great 
embarrassment to me, and I hardly know how to make amends.

     We have good news from both publishers to which I sent letters of enquiry 
regarding "The Mad Queen". I have been instructed to send full manuscript 
copies immediately! But since you mentioned a possible revision I have delayed, 
hoping that it would arrive in a few days. Now--a certified letter arrives this 
afternoon bearing just what I had looked for. I am very pleased with the 
changes. Everything hangs together so much better. I have only had time to read 
through the new ms. once, so I will have more to say about it later. But as 
your Reader I must tell you that I think the book is much improved, even though 
I have some affection for the poems that were excluded. I continue to feel 
that "Einstein: and "Theorem" together with "The Second Law" are the finest 
poems in NUMBERS AND OTHER INTANGIBLES. In fact, "Einstein" is such a perfect 
sonnet that I cannot help but wonder whether it was the first composition of 
this section which inspired all the rest.

     I have removed the checked poems on you list from the proper manuscripts 
and they are ready for inclusion in The Delta Country. Since The Delta Country 
was only a suggestion when I last wrote to the publishers, they have not yet 
been told of its existence. But the reception given "The Mad Queen" guarantees 
it a reading. I think your selections from "The Green Linen" are among the 
finest in that book. In fact, the charm of these poems, several of which I 
could almost recite from memory, contributed largely to my suggestion. Unless 
you have already typed these poems, we would be honored if you would turn this 
small task over to us. Since I have only had time to glance over the new book, 
I will have to reserve comments about the design of the complete manuscript for 
my next letter.

     I have saved the only piece of distressing news for last: the 
manuscript "Nine sextillion Ancestors" does not contain the poem "Blackberry 
Picking," nor can I remember having ever seen the poem, though the title has 
aroused my interest. Finally, two poems on your checked list for the Delta 
Country are absent from "Nine Sextillion Ancestors"--"Marsh Pools" and "Study 
in Purple: the Vetch Field". But I have "February Weather Journal" in my copy 
of poems "From the Arkansas Delta".

     Once again, I want to express my gratitude for your help in my summer 
language study. Your kindness to me has been so very great. I am more honored 
than any of my peers, that the first citizen of my native state should show 
such an interest in my career.

     I am not afraid of those "lions of the East", no matter how they roar! 
Now--to the adventure!

                                            With all our love,
                                            Larry

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