Correspondence - Jay Macpherson to A. Purdy

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Victoria College Toronto 511. v. 59.Dear Al:You are quite right to concentrate on the Ryerson chapbook, particularly if you hope to get a grant out of somebody, and I'm glad they want it out for fall. Am returning your poems: if some seem to be missing, shout, & I'll turn all my piles of paper over.Am far from congratulating myself on being out of it; am only embarrassed at the delay. There seems to have been one crisis after another among friends & colleagues, which has meant extra work plus an unprecedented round of hospital visiting & similar errands. At present I am still over my head in uncorrected exam papers, and wondering how the devil I am to compose a paper for Saskatoon & get it to Queen's by Friday, whihi seems to be expected of me. Trust I can get Emblem no 6 out, or at least under way, before I leave in June, but am now not sure - some recent poems by Dorothy Roberts. Am really sorry not to have something to go with them, but may hold up distribution & look around a bit.If you find after all that you have more than one respectable collection - or if you have a sudden burst of writing after sending off the Ryerson ms. - do keep me in mind: I shall be glad to take up the project at any time again if it seems feasible.Yours,
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Dear Al:I was naturally rather disturbed to get your note of Sept. 13 about withdrawing permission to publish the poems. Rather than reply immediately, I wrote in haste to Bob, in order to enquire if your letter to him contained any more comment, and also to make sure that I was speaking for both of us in what I wrote. Bob's reply came after a fortnight in the form of copies of the book, of which I'm sending you along a few.Do you still feel the same way about the poems when you see them in this form? I'm no critic, as you know, but I find them very attractive and also find Bob's format sympathetic. It occurs to me also that your dislike of them has something to do with the kind of writer you are: very prolific and various and very much in process -the list of publications on the cover flap indicates that much: it may be part of your rhythm, so to speak, that you want to keep moving away from older work. Part of what I mean is, I can't find any cause in the poems themselves.Please don't think it a breach of confidence that I did consult the critics most available to me as to whether they found the poems in any way substandard. Prof. Frye read the booklet through with a broad smile and pronounced that "The Death of Animals" by itself was worth the price of admission: Milton Wilson responded in a note, from which I quote:It may be two-or-three-year-old Purdy, but it's still good, authentic Purdy, and it would be a great pity if readers weren't able to get hold of it. I think that anyone interested in Purdy's poetry would want to read it. These are very much the reactions I expected: I wonder if they affect your views at all.There's not much more I can say on a subject so personal, but a few more practical considerations come to mind. I'm not claiming at all that the book represents a high point in your production, just that it's respectable and genuine. Surely the growth of most reputations is cumulative, based on steady solid production quite as much as on outstanding moments: if we can be sordidly practical, the Blur if normally distributed would be reviewed and out of the way by the time your new book appeared, but would have kept critics and readers reminded of you in the meantime, and out of what experience I can claim I'm convinced that this is to the good.However, naturally neither Bob nor I wants to do anything against your wishes, and if you are entirely set against it we won't make any move to distribute it or get it reviewed. If you still feel that way, let me bring up one more consideration. Bob's investment of time and effort (and I think some expense, apart from what I put into it) has been very considerable: this and the earlier Nowlan book are by far his most ambitious undertakings, and I think this one is the more successful. He not only undertook to publish the Emblems, he persuaded me to revive the series after no. 6, when I thought I'd quit, the reason being that he wanted to do some work on a larger scale than single sheets, both to learn more about printing & design and to have something he could show around to demonstrate what he could do: at the same time he wanted to put the effort into something that was worth it,as a general contribution, hence his getting together with me. That being so, I don't feel that we have the right
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to ask him now not to show the finished product around, especially as all his friends know he's been engaged on it for such a length of time. So, I am asking really two things:first, do you still feel just as you did when you wrote about withdrawing permission, considering that the job was then in effect finished? or, seeing that the poems have now in a sense become independent of you in a very decent little whole which moreover reflects the devotion to them of another party, does your heart soften towards them to the point at which you could bear to see them make their very modest way around?second, if it would really make you unhappy to see them included in the same canon as the four books listed on the flap and the forthcoming M&S one, would you be willing on Bob's account to let them be treated as strictly a piece of private printing? that is, to let them be given away to printing friends and submitted for review or comment wherever private printers send their work - I believe there is the odd exhibition and magazine. That way I don't think you'd find copies turning up under your nose to embarrass you. Which brings to mind another compromise possibility:third, would it occur to you to restrict or eliminate Canadian distribution but allow us to dispose of copies where possible through US or other outlets where the name of Purdy is not generally known and so no harm could be done to his reputation? The point to that is, we might recover some of the original investment, and more important, we could dispose of the edition without resorting to physical destruction.I hope, however, that suggestions 2 & 3 will not really be invoked. I'm not trying to wangle you or put pressure - this letter isn't in any way calculated - but I want to do the best thing by you and Bob both so far as can be, and also by the poems themselves, which can't be left out as a factor. Both of us by now know them much better than any other part of your work - in working with them we have got fond of them and moreover believe in them - they ought to be allowed to take their chance. For heaven's sake, dear man, how much of a shadow do you think a privately-distributed booklet can cast?Don't apologize for what you call "display of ego": I know all that (if that's the name for it) better from myself than from other poet's. I'm not at all the same kind of poet-in-process that you are: half my work was good and the other half I used to think of as faked, anyway missed its mark - you could draw a straight line between the two kinds - the best stuff had a sort of clarity, but not what yours has, which is vitality: any genuine Purdy poem has a sort of kick to it which is its title to life. But even with the best of mine, there was none that I didn't at some time hate and want to get entirely disconnected from, and if my book had stayed out of print a year longer I don't think I'd have let it appear at all. So I know the feeling, and I'm apt to think of it as more one of the hazards of the writing life than anything to go by; and that one of the few cases where other people's opinion can be useful is in deciding about old work that one has got away from oneself: if one is so happy as to be able to keep at it, one's job is writing, not brooding over one's past with an axe of judgment.Don't, another thing, think my remarks about the costs of production are intended to put any moral pressure on you: they cover mostly type, which Bob would have needed sometime anyway: Bob's contribution to the venture is imagination and hard work, and the financial end is my affair: since I am a single lady with a salary and a textbook
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income and the mortgage mostly paid off, it isn't something that causes me any worry. Nobody ever went into private publishing for the money: I write off expenses and treat any intake as a happy windfall all round It's obvious that I can't be so cavalier about what Bob has put into the venture, but if you can digest that fact I guess we can. Let me assure you that no amount of compunction for anyone else would make me struggle now to preserve a piece of work I didn't value on its own account. The Emblem Books got started out of an interest in the problems of Canadian poetry, not in poets or printers, and let me conclude by saying that as editor of the series I'm still enormously interested in The Blur In Between.With all the best to its author,sincerely,Jay
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Dear Al:You're very welcome to more copies of Blur, & more after that if you find you want them. There isn't an assigned number of give-away copies: printer & author "both know that a copy given away represents no intake, anyway none direct; hut if ever I were dealing with a very rich author, the arrangement might not he as self-regulating as far so far it has proved. When i started putting out pamphlets, the main idea was that a very low-cost job would allow a lot of free copies -those are usually the ones the author is most interested in, naturally -and though now the job is not strikingly low-cost if one counts in the printer's time, still that's the last principle I would let go of. Private publishing has few advantages, but that's a very real one: I remember working out Boatman royalties for the first year against what it cost me to give away what I thought the necessary number of copies, and my by now foggy recollection is that it came out something like even. Cost of the book being so high. Thanks for Vancouver order: got all the others off & am about to start circulating round bookshops - also, got Canada Council lists of newspaper reviewers & cultural publications, & shall get a start on reviews from that. Will send on list as soon as I can: it's a bad time, what with end of term coming up, & I don't think reviewers will do much for us in the Xmas season. But will leave that to them. YrsJ
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15 Berryman St. Tor. 5. 13. i. 64.Dear Al:Well, my conscience is clearer than it has been: review copies are despatched to the following:Vancouver Province, V'ver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Sask Star-Phoenix, W'peg Free Press, ''peg Tribune, Kingston Whig-Standard, London Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, O Journal, Peterborough Examiner, Tor Globe & Mail, Tor Star, Tor Tely, Montreal Gazette, Mtl Star -(no use trying Maritimes, not interested in rest of Canada: before I forget, shall I or shall I not send one to Belleville Intelligencer?)Alphabet, Canada Council Bulletin, Canadian Art (on Bob's account), Canadian Author & Bookman, Can Library, Can Literature, Can Poetry, Cataract, Culture (Quebec City, say they do extensive 2-lang reviewing), Dalhousie Review, Fiddlehead, Mountain, Region (London, Ont: arty gang of kids, quite pleasant), Something Else (Ottawa -Hawkins, etc), U of T Quarterly, Tish.That with your list of 6 makes 38. Probably most of them won't pay off, but I think most reviewers have interested pals they give books in particular categories to, so it's a sort of distribution, if not exactly lucrative. And some of these places are fairly conscientious.Where possible I addressed the envelope to the individual book-reviewer by name (Canada Council kindly prints list of these - Belleville appears* to have reviewers for music, art, theatre, film, but not books.), Also, changed date in pencil on title-page to 1963 a.nd in most cases added a note explaining why I thought this work was of local interest, usually stressing that Mr Purdy was a well-known poetry reader in their area: also pencilled in price at bottom of front flap. Any suggestions of more places? what about the US? anv places or persons who would know you?Shall shortly go round & enquire about some of the copies I placed in Toronto bookstores - also, I owe the kitty something for copies I've given away where not strictly necessary - so something in the order of five or ten dollars may sometime materialize. Sorry to have No, but No, suggestions about quick money-making: I know more people looking for it than offering it. Do the stuffed shirts at Queen's take any interest in local writers? or anything current? not that there's a goldmine in reading, but I'm very much struck with how well your recent poems read aloud - like the sestina, which is a real stunner.Am out of copies of Blur at home, but shall collect half-a-dozen from the office & send off: thanks for your labour in despatching review copies, which also made me get a move on, but you're not expected to do it from your own stock.All the best,Jay
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Victoria CollegeToronto 5 Nov. 4.Deer Al:That sheet looks very efficient: food idea, and I appreciate your willingness to do some peddling (I'm terrible at it).' Suggested alterations: Wind also 1.50 from now on (rather than put up yours to 1.75) - that looks a funny thinpg to do, but it's based on more realis-tic assessment of costs, & I can't think of any catch: customers had their chance earlier at lover price. 40% discount if you think that's what they'll expect: if anyone for convenience in arithmetic suggests 58 1/3, don't discourage him: in the past I've used both systems,Could you drop the last three items from the list? I'm no longer selling the one by me, as its content is reprinted in The Boatman, and citing out-of-print titles Just tantalizes: if you want some indication that the series contains more titles than those on the list, you could quote the numbers with the titles, as on the back over: I don't sea any need to change the order of the titles accor-dingly if you did that.I'm particularly grateful for your Montreal efforts, as I haven't been there in years am out of touch: shall, remember the Seven Steps: same is true of the Rendezvous here, in ay experience. Martin Ahvenus here, whose store in Gerard you mention, is very receptive to Canadian poetry & will go to trouble for it: I don't know the Vanguard.Sorry about misprints, which I also noticed. It's not really what you call sloppiness, I think, but a sort of word-blindness that Bob has: I notice it ir letters - what he says is clear, but sometimes one has to juggle the letters a bit - "I can't see it in a clear light' came out recently as "in a clean like" - it's a trick in the mind. Accordinglv after the Nowlan we arranged that I should proofread next time, but owing to some oversight that stage of the process got skipped: the book in the end was ready while I was still expecting proof. I guess everyone has his blind spot, and that's Bob's: I'm sure, though, that it has nothing to do with either carelessness or lack of reel interest.90 days sounds fine: am more & more impressed with your business-like approach.2 copies of Nowlan herewith, oneto keep + one to show - I'll sendreview list shortly, + thanks forsuggestions. I see you're reading inDge. at the Embassy - I'll geton to them + See it they'll displaycopiesyrsJay
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16. xi.Still have a few copies, I'm ashamed to relate: think, though, that saturation point has more or less been reached: have given a number away (only to people who wouldn't have become customers), but sales remain between 70-80, so far as I can make out - & Nowlan exactly the same. You may get a bit more after this, accordingly, but it won't be much or soon: and if you could do with more copies, shout.I've got the Cariboo Horses, but haven't read yet - too much duty reading in front of me, & I seem a bit off books. A friend in Hamilton reports that he much enjoyed your reading there. No news of me to pass on - YrsJay