Enclosure – Letter from LR to RG about his Hostage poem

Dearest Robert
March 1 seems right for answering your letter of January 16. Let's call it a World birthday (the world seems to forgotten that it has one).
About your Hostage poem.
You're wrong about the guns. You tried to ×××× this the Joke, but the joke isn't that you're a hostage in this fortress, I think, but rather:
The fortress fancies it is besieged, the guns are its own. You beg the commander not to fire: 'The enemy is a friend'. You're wrong really to do that: the guns must be spent. Then only do they ×××× [indecipherable] the fortress windows for looking out of. Don't pretend you haven't had[LR] guns of your own and[LR] ×××× [crossed out] locked away – set them all ×××× [indecipherable] off.
Yours for love and peace to the poor sun-gods and all that bottling up
Laura

Hands Referenced

    • Annotation: ink correction of enclosure letter
    • Character: regular
    • Ink: black

People Mentioned

  • Robert

    Graves, Robert
    [1st person]. (1895-1985). Poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and author of his diary. eds.

  • Laura

    Riding, Laura
    (1901-91) American poet. Laura Riding (née Reichenthal; then Laura Gottschalk).

Organizations Mentioned

  • Editors

    Editors of the Graves Diary Project.

Bibliography

    • Title: Hostage [poem; published as Dawn Bombardment]
    • Title: Poems 1938-1945 [1945]
    • Author: Graves, Robert
    • PubPlace: London, Toronto, Melbourne & Sydney
    • Publisher: Cassell
    • Idno: A58
    • Date: 1939-01-10