Add MS 88998/2/54

34 communications from Tom Raworth.

• (1). Cambridge, 11 December 1982. Autograph card, with envelope. 'The North Wales mountains sounds like an excellent idea. East Anglian flatness is a peculair drain [...] How nice to know we're not Slow Motion's and Sexton Blake's idea of "Contemporary Poets".' Envelope reply annotation indicates that Harwood posted All the Wrong Notes to Raworth by return.
• (2). Cambridge, 14 January 1983. Autograph postcard, with envelope. Having received All the Wrong Notes.
• (3). Cambridge, 3 February 1983. Autograph note (1 sheet), with envelope. 'Did you get a copy of Poetics 2, with [William] Corbett's review of your and Judith's book? - if not, tell me and I'll xerox it for you.'
• (4). Cambridge, 16 February 1983. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope. Two quotations, from Ron Silliman and from William Empson, followed by comment: 'Plus ça change..... Sharing our feelings, I skim over that stuff....'
• (5). Cambridge, 11 April 1983. Autograph card, with envelope. 'Would you like me to drop a note to Debora Daley, who runs a good reading series in Buffalo, and tell her you'll be over in the summer?'
• (6). Cambridge, 6 June 1983. Autograph card, with envelope. A 'Bon voyage' card as Harwood prepares to depart for Bolinas.
• (7). Cambridge, 15 August 1983. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope addressed to Harwood and B[obbie] L[ouise] Hawkins in Bolinas. 'Back after a few days in Paris, first visit since the spring of '68 (I thought it was safe to venture back now). Stayed with old friend Pépo, doing construction work between bursts of photographs of enclosed societies.'
• (8). Cambridge, [9] May 1984. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope addressed to Harwood and Bobbie Louise Hawkins in Bolinas. 'I'm taking advantage of a brief burst of what I think I remember as energy to respond. Actually I feel as if pressing on my chest were 18 tonnes of books by Larkin, Heaney and Hughes, and I had to READ THEM before I could take a breath.'
• (9). Cambridge, 5 August 1984. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope. 'Ive been running through my Charlie Parker albums at 45 rpm, and a high proportion of them sound terrific and much more as I remember first hearing them.'
• (10). Cambridge, 30 July 1985. Autograph letter (1 sheet), with envelope addressed to Harwood in Brighton. The letter takes the form of a series of speech bubbles against a pink background.
• (11). Cambridge, 6 June 1988. Photocopy autograph letter (1 sheet), with envelope. The copy letter, addressed to 'Michael', concerns the anthology The New British Poetry, ed. Eric Mottram et al (Paladin, 1988). Letter copied to John Muckle, Mottram, Harwood, Barry MacSweeney, J. H. Prynne, Asa Benvenviste, 'Uncle Tom Cobbly, et al.'
• (12). Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, 22 June 1988. Autograph letter (1 sheet), with envelope. News of heart problems.
• (13). Cambridge, 24 August 1988. Autograph letter (1 sheet), with envelope. Having received (presumably) Harwood, Crossing the Frozen River: Selected Poems. 'Good book - thanks. I read it again this morning from the back (the way I hit a lot of books) - liked the echoes from pieces I remember from magazines over the years.'
• (14). Cambridge, 8 September 1990. Autograph brief letter written on a flyer (1 sheet) for the subscription publication Infolio (ed. Raworth). With envelope.
• (15). Cambridge, 2 January 1992. Typed letter (1 sheet). 'Saw Bill and Beverley [Corbett] in Boston who told me the miserable news of your burglary.'
• (16). Cambridge, 19 June 1993. Autograph postcard. Thanks for Harwood, In the Mists.
• (17). Cambridge, 13 September 1993. Autograph postcard. Refers to the death of Piero Heliczer (1937-93).
• (18). Cambridge, 28 January 1994. Autograph postcard (an original collage), with envelope. 'I go to the US/Canada at the end of the month [...] the trip's only possible because someone in Chicago took a fancy to some collages and sold a bunch.'
• (19). [Cambridge], [?June 1994]. Raworth's personal card, with undated autograph message on the verso. 'Back from half-a-year in Chicago [...].
• (20). Cambridge, 27 June 1994. Typed letter (1 sheet), with photocopy (1 sheet) of Raworth's obituary for Joe Brainard, The Independent, 17 June 1994. Letter refers to Brainard's death.
• (21). Cambridge, 4 July 1994. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope. 'I feel a little better (or not so bad) [...].'
• (22). Cambridge, 3 January 1995. Autograph postcard, addressed to Harwood in hospital.
• (23). Cambridge, 30 January 1995. Autograph postcard, addressed to Harwood in hospital.
• (24). La Gare de Lyon, Paris, 6 February 1995. Autograph postcard. En route to Venice. 'Hope you're home by now'.
• (25). Cambridge, 25 May 1995. Autograph postcard.
• (26). Cambridge, 20 June 1995. Autograph postcard. 'The Trigram evening was well-attended - and it was interesting to see history distort slightly ("Trigram was the only small press to print it's own books") - but if one was there one was there, and I find "ephemeral" more important than living in the past.'
• (27). Cambridge, 3 December 1995. Autograph postcard.
• (28). Cambridge, 6 June 1997. Typed letter (1 sheet), with envelope. With news about the ill health of Ed Dorn (1929-99).
• (29). Cambridge, 21 June 1997. Typed letter (2 sheets), with envelope. 'Also these days I note an interesting revisionism happening... a sort of re-taking-back into the academy that period from the late fifties through most of the sixties when one of the things I thought interesting was that the people involved in writing [...] were not only anti-literary-establishment, but anti-university to a great extent.'
• (30). Cambridge, [December 2003]. Christmas and New Year 2004 card.
• (31). Hove, 2 September 2009. Autograph letter (2 sheets), with 3 colour photocopy sheets of the 'new garden' at Arundel Castle - 'all that looks stone is chiselled wood. The gold coronet spins and dances on the fountain.'
• (32). Hove, 13 September 2009. Autograph postcard.
• (33). Hove, [December 2012]. Undated typed letter (2 sheets). Reports on the launch of Ed Dorn, Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2012), which was held at the London Review Bookshop, 29 November 2012.
• (34). Hove (new address), [?2013]. Autograph postcard (appears to be in Val Raworth's hand). 'We didn't move very far - lost the view but have a little backyard.'