Effusive Praise for Katherine Hoskins

[Praise of the Poet Katherine Hoskins in a Typed Letter, Signed]

Williams, William Carlos

Notes: A terrific short letter dated July 8, 1957, to the poet Katherine Hoskins, praising her "rare sensibility and courage and poetic ability" and written in response to reading her collection Villa Narcisse (Noonday Press, 1956).

Hoskins never achieved much popular success (even by the standards of contemporary poets), but she was a poet's poet who had the appreciation of Wallace Stevens, Malcolm Cowley, and Robert Lowell. Lowell (referred to by his nickname "Cal" in this letter) gave Williams a copy of Hoskins's book. With this letter, we can add Williams to the list of prominent poets who admired Hoskins' work: "We are not working similarly toward our objectives in the arts, you are in many ways more subtle in your approach but in your contempt for the academy (that's not well put) we have much in common. You are a master of the telling phrase that has a sting in its tail for all bigots. Admiringly yours..."

About 180 words typed on a small sheet of letterhead, 6 by 7 inches. Signed in full in ink. With the original mailing envelope.

Williams, the son of an English father and Puerto Rican mother, was a physician in Rutherford, New Jersey, who helped define American modernist poetry beginning in the 1920s. He won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States, but never took the office because of (alleged) Communist ties.

Edition + Condition: Folded once for mailing, else fine.

Publication: Rutherford, NJ: 1957.

Item No: #360743

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