John Clellon Holmes letters to Richard Douglass

American poet John Clellon Holmes wrote these letters, filled with encouragement and critique, to a young poet named Richard Douglass, who identified with the Beats.

John Clellon Holmes began this correspondence with Richard Douglass in response to a letter from Douglass regarding the renewed interest in the Beats and Holmes's book Go, which was soon to be re-issued. Holmes also offered to be of help in Douglass's pursuit. It is obvious the pursuit was writing, for in the five letters which followed, Holmes critiqued the poems and short story sent to him by Douglass.

In these letters, Holmes focused on specific poems, discussing both problems and positive points, but always encouraging Douglass to continue to write because he believed that Douglass had talent. He suggested Douglass train himself to read his own work critically, to write about what he knew, and always to "RE-WRITE." Among the critiques, the admonishments on spelling, punctuation or over-writing, were more philosophical expressions from Holmes on poetry and writing. For example, in the July 18, 1976, letter, Holmes wrote: "Poetry is not merely self-expression. It’s communication. Communication is self-expression that succeeds."

In a November 7, 1976, letter, Holmes replied to Douglass's inquiry about Holmes's relationship to the Beats and what the Beats were trying to accomplish. Holmes said: "They (we) were trying to reconnect with the oldest American literary tradition - transcendentalism, a belief that the human being is more than the sum of his social conditioning and toliet training." He continued with his thoughts on Jack Kerouac and the confusion that the media caused Kerouac. Holmes wrote that the Beats protested the "cultural sterility and conformity" of the 1950s by "acting as if we were whole human beings. This was shocking at the time. A sign of how bad it was."

Holmes directed Douglass to other resources, such as books written about the Beats to satisfy some of Douglass's curiosity on the subject. After critiquing a Douglass short story, he suggested the young writer read short story writers, such as Chekhov, Katharine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, Maupassant, Frank O'Connor, and Isaac Babel, to learn more.

In addition to the six letters written by Holmes, the collection includes two letters written by Richard Douglass to Philip Ciapponi of Chloe's Books. In the first letter he enclosed copies of the poems he had sent to Holmes, and in the second letter he enclosed a letter from Elizabeth Van Vogt (sister to John Clellon Holmes) written to him.