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PARTISAN REVIEW
many out of town people in town. I told him I had seen his
Studies in Love
and Life [Love and Life and Other Studies]
and his article on Duchamp in
The
Transcript.
He nearly sank down in a fi t, when I spoke of
Studies
qf
Love and
Life!
He said, I feel as if I ought to go home. Those are worthless things I
did them when I was 18. I hate to think there are any of them about etc.
Where do you see them? etc. He also deprecated
The Transcript
article and
said,
"It
was very tired, it dragged towards the end but I couldn't do any
better so I let it go." He then explained how the pictures of Duchamp and
some other celebrity had been mixed and how
The Transcript
sassed him for
objecting to the slip till Duchamp himself remonstrated. He gave me the
back numbers of
Others
and told me about half a dozen people in N.Y. said
he "couldn't live with him" when I asked him what Floyd Dell was like,
said Duchamp was a lovely fellow and Alanson Hartpence. Said he knew
Horace Holley and Mr. Kerfoot and Mr. Stieglitz. He said, "did you tell
Mr. Stieglitz you knew me?" I said "no, I didn't know he knew Mr.
Kerfoot or you or any of the men who are interested in poetry." He then
said how good Mr. Stieglitz had been to him, and given him things and
how he (A.K.) had printed Mr. Kerfoot's criticism of
Others
in the
November number and so forth. He then said the madame and he wanted
me to come to dinner some time. He said, "I have to go round to the stu–
dio of a man who lives near here, Mr. [Adolf) Wolff's, perhaps you have
seen his poems-he has been at Blackwells Island for a while and has just
come out. What plans have you for tonight? Could you come round with
me for a moment to his studio and then go on to the house for supper?
We have nothing prepared but I can go out and get a few chops. I am sure
you wouldn't be intruding at Mr. Wolff's. We have nothing private to talk
over and 1won't be there long." "Mr. Wolff," he said "is changed in a great
many ways since being on Blackwells Island and he has put lots of what he
saw, into his poems. Here is one." He read a poem on identification and
another about men carrying buckets, bent like patriarchs and so on. I said
I would ask Hall if it would be convenient for me to go home with him.
"But" I said, "if you have been sick perhaps I'd better not go. Suppose I
come another time." "Not at all" he said, "we want you and it's not a party
it's just us," and so forth. Hall was loath to consent but I got assent after
introducing Alfred to her. On the way to Mr. Wolff's, Alfred said, "Are you
often here?" I said, "no this [is] the first time, to go round by myself. I have
been through New York on the way to other places and my brother used
to be here or near here teaching and he took me round once to make a
call but I didn't know where I was." "You have never been to N. York
before!" Alfred could hardly take in the enormity of it. He said "I'd like to
see your brother when he comes. You say he's often here? Send anyone
round. Remember we want your brother when he comes to town, etc." At
