Free Airmail by Robert Bly Page B

a little to a meaning of “resilient” that applied to Kennedy: he was mentally agile and flexible —he had not only one rabbit in his bag, but a number of rabbits of various colors. He was rarely at a loss for an act: he could usually think of something (at a press conference as well as in foreign relations). For the “skapet” choose any form of furniture or even closet that suggests something aristocratic or at least wealthy. You are right: a middle class suggestion must be avoided. What do they call those huge pieces of oak furniture in castles? I see them sitting around in European castles, dark, lowering, with ornate doors, holding God knows what.
    The reading in Chicago and Milwaukee went well! Paul Carroll read a fifteen minute poem, called “Ode to the American Indian.” He had typed it all on one long sheet of paper, which lay in curls and heaps at his feet. Everyone turned pale. I’ll send you some clippings of them when I get home from this next group. The reporters, who were political reporters, seemed to be astounded that poetry was read all night. They couldn’t understand that.
    Tomorrow I go to the East for ten days of read-ins. Tuesday at Harvard, Wednesday, Columbia, Thursday three different schools in upstate New York—Jim Wright, and Galway and I go by airplane, hopping about like World War I aviators—Friday, Queens College, Saturday, Oberlin, Sunday, a big one in Philadelphia; Ginsberg will be there too with his long Indian beard and saffron Buddhist robe.
    I’m glad you like Joan Baez! I love her voice, so dark and well-like. And wonderful passion in the songs! She has refused for years you know to pay her income tax out of protest against the war.
    Write soon,    our best to Monica and
    the little across the rivers!
    Robert   
    4-6-66
    Dear Robert,
    I’ve forgotten whose turn it is to write, yours or mine. Thanks for your last letter in any case! I’m terribly curious about your experiences on those propaganda tours (saw something in the Times Lit. Supplement about them—the lead story). Among other things I’ve been uneasy at the thought of those airplanes you travel in “like World War I aviators.” Eric Sellin sent the program for Philadelphia—a splendid collection of names. Are there any poets or other cultural figures who take the other side, who do readings to express their support for an aggressive policy in Southeast Asia?—In spite of everything I have a feeling that a slight climate change has taken place in the U.S.; one can’t look upon developments so totally pessimistically anymore. Maybe it’s just that summer’s coming, I don’t know. It could also be McNamara’s speech on China. Naturally the Oregon primary was a bad blow; I was unhappy as a wet dog all the next day. When the Viet Nam anthology comes out (remember it should have appeared the 3rd of May) you ought to send me some copies that I can send on to some reviewers in the press here—we give all too little publicity to the American opposition to the war. There’s nothing to be done about the professionally anti-American intellectuals (of the Artur Lundkvist type) but the shy and shamefaced friends of the U.S. (me, for example) ought to have a little encouragement.—I also hope that you pull back now and then into idleness and silence, so that the YOGI gets a chance to blossom and not just the COMMISSAR.
    For the moment I’m developing a big activity, or at least that’s how it feels. The job here in Västerås is going fine; I’ve also taken on some probation work (I am on a small scale a probation officer), in order to reconnect with the old criminal psychology, and am writing the last two poems in my fall book, which will be called Klanger och spår and come out on October 13. I sent you that long poem about Grieg, didn’t I?—I’d been thinking all along that I’d write it in the third person: “he” did this and that etc., but while working on the translation of the three presidents