Dear Barney Rosset,
I have a sheepish request. "[antipasto à go go]," which you ran in this issue (the beet-beat poem), I regard as something between a calling card and a trick pony; it leaves me equal parts proud and chagrined. It started out as an extended one-liner, grew up into a real poem, morphed into an actual monolog, in stanza form (a hat trick of its own).
To cut to the chase, as presented to /Evergreen Review/, to me the poem still had a residual low-grade cuteness problem.
I am attaching a revision, which adjusts the body of the poem (leaving aside the two opening and two closing stanzas). Nothing is altered in the rudiments; each stanza is still recognizably itself. But, I believe the narrator takes over in a way subtly lacking before. (For what it's worth, before sending it, after a couple of feedback pals agreed, I sat on the revision for a week to make sure the changes didn't move around at night.)
With continuing thanks,
Kurt Lipschutz (klipschutz)
Note: The revision that accompanied this letter is the version now on view on page four.
