A cheap boulevardier.

May 26, 2011 9:10 AM

One day last year, while working on a biography of the publisher Scofield Thayer, I opened a folder of papers related to his magazine The Dial. The folder contained undated letters from the poet E.E. Cummings to Thayer, early versions of a couple Cummings’ poems and one poem by Cummings I couldn’t remember ever seeing before. It was called "(tonite" and, until I came across it, it was unknown.

James Dempsey discusses Scofield Thayer, E.E. Cummings, their relationship, and a heretofore unknown, unpublished poem.
posted by shakespeherian (4 comments total)

...The Awl just broke the news of an unknown Cummings poem. Too weird.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:23 AM on May 26, 2011

[The crowd falls silent as Horace Rumpole once again mounts his hobbyhorse.]

Hey, you know what you might could do, James Dempsey, is link to the repository where you found this cool thing.

Scofield Thayer/Dial Collection finding aid, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
Digitized items from the collection.

[And... dismount.]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:30 AM on May 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

Aside from the omission of the collection that the author used for this research from the Dempsey post, I love this post and the link. Cummings has always been one of my favorite poets and knowing more about him is always a good thing.
posted by blucevalo at 10:34 AM on May 26, 2011

if only PG Wodehouse could write a Broadway musical based on the relationship between Thayer and Cummings!

What a marvelously lurid tale of sycophancy, a honeymoon of horror and desperation, cuckoos in the nest, and descent into imprisoned madness.
posted by ohshenandoah at 11:54 AM on May 26, 2011