Selected Letters of Edwin Arlington Robinson

ROBINSON says he realized at the age of five that he was a man who was never going to be able to elbow his way to the ‘Trough of Life,’ and these are the letters of such a man. He speaks of ‘the chills and silences that appertain to the poetry business’ and one suspects that they extended themselves to the whole business of his living. But it is impossible not to respect his reserve, his modesty, and his courage: ‘ I have little but the mere wish to write what I have to write, and to let it go its own way. It a man’s work is good for anything, it will find a way to those who read it; and if it isn’t it won’t.’