Dear all; I got this query from a friend and he wondered if I might share it here. Any ideas?



I'm having trouble locating a comment by Ezra Pound about how to build the ideal table of contents for a poetry magazine.  As I remember it, he writes that the ideal TOC has three parts: 1/ regular contributors who can count on their work being accepted, and who the editors trust to send their best work; 2/ famous poets who will attract readers; and 3/ unknowns, who send work unsolicited.  Pound thinks that this last group is especially important because it makes readers think that they have a real shot at getting in the magazine.

Anyway, I remember reading a letter to this effect in a book or, more likely, an archive. The closest I've been able to come is a letter to Creeley about the Little Review, in which Pound writes:

The Little Review was effective, circulated, because it was intelligent in one half and chicken-headed and loony in the other 1/2

		every local idiot though he had a chance of gettin' in.

This is from Creeley's selection of his letters from Pound, Agenda 4.1 (1965): 15.

I would be grateful for any leads -- and in life-long debt for a pdf of the letter.

Thanks --

Josh