Earlier

 

The poems here were written in my early 20s.

One of the best teachers I ever had (including Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan) was David McKeen, DLitt (Oxon) who was a wonderfully learned and generous man.

He wrote me in 1970, of the first poem of those below. “[This] is a real triumph, by far your best […] it states directly what is implicit in the fact that you write such verbally subtle poetry as you do.” This poem was one of a group of 15 I submitted to Prof. McKeen. He liked four. The first three following are of those four.

Prof. McKeen’s was the first praise I received for my poetry.

What’s below are scanned from typescript pages made on an early 20th C. Royal and, later, on a 1972 Olympia. The Royal was a stubborn beast formerly owned by a Col. of the garrison of Quebec City, and it shared with him, I’ve always believed, some of his upright heft. I never liked the squareness of the Olympia’s typeface, but it’s price ($150.) and newness sold it to me in ’72. Why not re-key/type the poems? They wouldn’t be the same.