Scribner’s wanted it also, and I added one thing to theirnmanuscript that wasn’t in Spottiswoode’s. It took about fivenminutes. Three pages of manuscript—you’ll see it in thenbook, if you open it up: Roman numeral I, beginning (and anlittle epigraph); about midway through, II, middle; and innfront of the last 20 pages, III, end. When they accepted itnthey said that I certainly had improved it a whole hell of a lotnand had profited from their criticism. But rejection is mynmiddle name — we could clutter up this whole interviewnwith rejection stories.nBell: It seems to me that in your third novel. Do, Lord,nRemember Me, the oral quality becomes much stronger. Innstructure it looks forward to the historical novels more thannthe others do. Any reason for that?nGarrett: One difference from the earlier books was thatnsome of the pressures on me to write more conventionallyndid not exist. With Do, Lord, Remember Me I had no desirento make it simple. I had a job. Therefore I was liberated tontry stuff I wanted to do. The version that was printednrepresented half of that book. Fifty percent of it was cut out.nI was under contract to Little, Brown, and I sent in thisnnovel and didn’t hear from them for a long time. And backnit came two days before Christmas, 1963, with a very shortnletter that said, “Goodbye, we don’t need this. We find thisnriovel to be scabrous and orotund.” I will never forget thenterm, “scabrous and orotund.” I had to go get a dictionarynto find out if that was good or not. That was Alan D.nWilliams, and at some point he said, “Don’t give up. Somenday you will make a dent in the American consciousness.”nEver since then I have seen it as a fender, this huge fender,nthe American consciousness.nBell: What is the first thing you began to write, poetry ornfiction?nGarrett: Poems. Back in the early 40’s, high school andncollege. My first exposure was reading out loud to annaudience, and I did that for quite a little while before gettingnanything published. That was always the primary basis ofneverything — the oral. And that makes for a different kind ofnpoem, in a way.nEarly on, in some kind of collegiate contest, MariannenMoore was one of the judges, and she got to be a friend.nThat was in her reclusive stage. She was asked to introduce anyounger poet that she liked the work of at the Museum ofnModern Art, and since she didn’t know anybody else, shenintroduced me. In those days, I thought that was perfectlynnatural: of course I would be taken to the Museum ofnModern Art and introduced by Marianne Moore. I went onnthe fumes of that a long time. It was much later, four or fivenyears, that I ever thought about publishing anything.nThe prevailing mode of the time was the poem asnfinished object, more like a piece of sculpture — you walknaround it. The poems that I was trying to write were meantnto give the impression (it’s equally artificial) of spontaneouslynhappening now. The poem is making itself up even asnyou are doing it. The two presuppositions are utterlyndifferent, in what you are aiming for. And you can miss verynbadly; with the wrong cut or shift of tone, you can blow thenwhole poem.nThe characteristic poetry of the period was poetry builtnaround the line as unit. And in the poem I’m talking about,nthe poem that’s working itself out, to have a finished linenwoiild go completely against the grain of what you arenpretending is happening. So nothing falls into place untilnyou get to the end. The lines tend to tumble and tend to benunfinished.nBell: Was there any reason for your shifting from a highnstyle to a comparatively colloquial voice in the verse?nGarrett: Looking back now, the clearest line that I cannsee has to do with the relationship of the prose and thenpoetry. That is, when I was writing short stories ornquasi-realistic novels about the Army and politics and stuff, Inwas writing rather formal, old-fashioned sorts of verse.nWhen I started working on these long novels, working withna language which, while I hope it isn’t stilted, is certainlynremoved from colloquial day-to-day English, the verse gotnloose. To satisfy my own need to be in touch with my ownnlanguage at the time that I am living, I wrote more andnmore what you might call casual and colloquial verse. It alsonhappened to be, unfortunately, opposite from what anyonenelse was doing at any given time. I have never been in syncn(I would gladly be in sync if I could) with whatevernmovements were going on.nBell: What do you think of these movements and things?nGarrett: What’s bad about it is that each group pretendsnthat none of the others exist. The performers and careeristsnat the moment seem to have closed their minds to everythingnexcept what they are doing — money-changers in thentemple.nBell: Why is that?nGarrett: Well, there’s one practical fact: it is worthwhilennow for the first time in the 20th century to be a careerist innpoetry, because there are a few rewards, for the few, whichnare significant. Teaching jobs and grants and prizes and sonforth. Until this present generation of poets, poetry had notnbeen anything but a means toward downward mobility.nThere wasn’t anything in it for anybody.nStill, there aren’t enough jobs or grants to take care of allnthe poets. So there is a temptation to belong to a groupnwhich has some power and prestige and is able to rewardnyou. And there is a temptation to close one’s eyes tonanything outside of that. I do know, for example, that itnmakes my friend and esteemed colleague Charles Wrightnextremely nervous to hear or talk about poets he doesn’tnknow. He doesn’t want to hear that there are unknownnpoets in Texas right now. I remember Jim Dickey categoricallynasserting that there couldn’t be life in outer space, butnwhat he had in mind was that he didn’t want there to be anynpoets out there. Right now, writing stuff he didn’t knownabout. It’s sort of like a small trough with a lot of pigs tryingnto get up there, and it makes these people nervous, it takesntheir concentration away, to have in the back of their mindsnthat right this minute, at desks all over America, poets theynnever heard of are writing in styles they don’t know how tonuse. That’s enough to really throw the old writer’s block onna lot of people.nNow the next aspect of this, which is much more seriousnthan pure careerism, is that it is either you make it or it’snback to the old cotton field or assembly line for a lot of thesenguys. So I have known a lot of young poets coming out ofnIowa or somewhere who very patiently wait their turnnbecause if they don’t they’re going to be out in left field,nsomewhere that no one is looking at them. You get in annnJUNE 1988125n