Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
Letter: January 13, 1963 |
(Page 1)
Sunday, Jan. 13, 1963
Tamara:
I write you this letter not because I am in the mood to, but because I can think of nothing better to do. Most of my letters will be, consequently, more valuable then this, the first. However, I want you to keep all of them, don’t lose or destroy any, and when you leave home I want you to give them back to me. You may be surprized [sic] to see how they will show my development. I know this because I have often kept a journal, and looking at it later was please to see myself unfolding with its pages. It’s very interesting. But enough of this semantic nonsense. Bullsh*t. Bullsh*t, bullsh*t, bullsh*t. Did you even feel like uttering some expletive over and over? I know you have. One thing you should know: I will never put exclamation marks at the end of sentences. I may feel like making a wordless point of putting something like this: !!!!!!!!, but I think that
(2)
an exclamark at the end of a thundering, angry sentence sort of detracts from the sentence’s power. My exlamatory [sic] sentences have their exclamarks built in, and there’s something faintly phony about having to emphasize your emphasis with exlamation [sic] points. So remember that.
Looking over this letter so far (well, not rereading it but mulling it in my brain), it seems to resemble the beginnings of many of my unfinished novels. I am a lion at heart, I guess, but honest in soul. If you know what I mean. What I mean is that I am honest lion. An honest hypocrite. No.!!!!!!! (Now I’m all caught up in a semantic tangle); even worse, ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ (not i’s but upside down question marks. (?). (I ((love (((you ((((dear(((((madly))))))))))))))).(!)_
[handwritten in blocked letters]
I (Rather) pREFeR thiS TO oRdeRED, everYDAY pRoSe, Don’t YoU(?), HaLLeLuAh to tHe ImmORTaL e.e.cuMMINGS!
(3)
[free-form on page] But seriously, darling, don’t you think this sort of writing is much more fun to read than regular prose that just runs across the page, like this.
I have invented picture poetry. For example, turn over ———>
(4)
[saxophone shaped; in script] tenor saxophone chiming golden in the sun how beautiful it sounds; you agree?
(5)
Isn’t it fun to be unselfconscious?
Love (shubop)
makes (shubop)
the world (shubop)
go [scribble] (shubop)
[hand-drawn graphic]
I
ON
LYH
OPED
EARTH
ATYOU’L
LREPLYT
OTHISLET
TERIMMED
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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