correspondences

my brother in rhyme jonathan hayes sent me a link to a zoom reading for the publication of the collected letters by my man thom gunn

gunn's letters are published by FSG

i bought - was it last year? - the Faber edition of gunn's letters

i couldn't wait for FSG or anyone else to publish these gems

i've been slowly slowly slowly reading them because i want to savor these missives by a man who loved life & poetry

surely a writer's letters are as much a biography as they are a literary text for any writer thinks that maybe if the writer is lucky their correspondence might be published & so write letters with an eye & ear to future readers

same goes for email in our 21st C

but what about texts?  

i'm sure texts too 

i sure as hell have become a pretty prolific texter 

even a poet as steadfastly old school as seamus heaney was a prolific texter indeed his last text to his wife right before he passed away read noli timere 'don't be afraid'

be pretty cool to see published in the near future the collected letters, emails, texts nay tweets & blog posts by our favorite writers

i recall in the late 1980s i attended a lecture & reading by the biographers of jackson pollock

they said pollock didn't write many letters & was taciturn as hell so gathering texts from pollock to piece together his inner life was quite the challenge 

& these biographers warned that with the advent & ubiquity of the telephone used instead of writing letters the example of pollock was a harbinger of things to come for most of us don't write letters anymore

same goes for email & texts?  unlikely for in the late 1980s who would have imagined email, texts & social media

but are these digital platforms sufficient for literary matters?  

well, as the old saw has it, does a bear shit in the woods?