From a dirty hand Words are very powerful You aren t sure of that Think of all the things you won t say Wonderful remark in a note I had this week from William Carlos Williams He spoke of the disease of wanting to write poetry said he had been off poetry for many months and he said I feel clean and unhappy One reason for keeping this kind of notebook you can put on record the retort you couldn t think of at last night s party Photographs of Henry James in his middle years should be commented upon Gone is the shy aesthete of the youthful portrait by LaFarge This bearded man has a fierce look even a bestial one Here is perhaps I don t know James at his most generative Again this man disappears in the shaven bald final James the famous James the Grand Lama I noticed when Lindsay thirteen read aloud a passage from a hunting book the other day he pronounced genital as genteel I d love to see a literary history titled The Genital Tradition Contrast business ethics and the ethics of art Nobody writes a poem hoping it will wear out in four or five years Between 1951 and 1966 the distinguished American poet Winfield Townley Scott kept a series of notebooks in which he set down his thoughts on poetry literature the literary scene and life in general Shortly before his untimely death in 1968 he made a selection of the entries he thought were best and gave it the title a dirty hand These perceptive notes some tart some gentle some boisterous some wistful give us a remarkable insight into the workings of his creative mind George P Elliott has said of Scott In a very solid way I think he was as rock bottom American a poet as we have had since Frost The introduction is by Scott s good friend Merle Armitage who also designed the original edition of this book