Archive of Correspondence from Iowa Poet Marvin Bell to Charles Simic [Charles Simic] Marvin Bell Archives and Collections,Iowa,Manuscripts and Autographs,Poetry,Signed

Iowa City, IA, Spain, Vermont, Tangier: 1970-1977. Archive of fourteen pieces of correspondence from the Iowa poet Marvin Bell (1937-2020) to the late Poet Laureate Charles Simic (1938-2023). Previous mail folds, some wrinkling, else Very Good or better. Collection is comprised of twelve typed letters signed and two autograph picture postcards. The correspondence is concentrated around 1970 to 1972 between the two up-and-coming poets. The first half of the letters relate primarily to the frustrations of organizing a reading of Simic's poetry at the University of Iowa, where Bell taught for forty years. A date was agreed upon, and then abruptly cancelled just a couple of weeks before the reading by Paul Engle, organizer of the Iowa Poetry Workshop. The reading eventually took place nine months later. In the days leading up to it, Bell wrote "I ll need you soc sec no, and a fact sheet for publicity purposes if you have one. Also, your signed and sworn-to statement that you will not steal Robert Bly s thesis from the library here in Poet City." The letters become more intimate after this initial meeting, and in one of the last pieces of correspondence, dated August, 1972, Bell confided in Simic that he felt he might never write poetry again after the silence with which his collection "The Escape Into You" was received. "It has just sunk from sight." Bell eventually rallied, however, and went on to publish more than 20 books of poetry, was awarded a Guggenheim and two Fulbrights, and was named the first Poet Laureate of Iowa. Of special note is Bell's description teaching students at Goddard University Simic's most recent poetry collection "Dismantling the Silence": "You are, of course, the great stone poet. When they were putting together the Goddard journal, I told them I had a poem by Simic for it, and handed them a small stone. Big giggles. Love for your work. Also, I taught DISMANTLING THE SILENCE in my seminar here, which allowed us to place a small stone on the table and chant Come out Charlie Simic, Come out. Some people thought you appeared. They liked your poems. I was renewed in my feeling that it s a superb collection If you were an imagist and not what you are (Lee says a mystic, which may be true, but I ll settle for now just for metaphysical), I couldn t be as amazed and moved by the poems as I am. One girl in the seminar, after we d studied your book, said she felt you had things in common with pre-Raphaelite painters. She had a convincing explanation, and spoke partly of the light in which you place objects in your poems." A detailed inventory of the collection available upon request.