the “brilliance, finish, and freedom” of Ida’s work in his
Sewanee Review
review of
Bringing Up the Rear.
Ida was a Brahmin, too, every bit as much as Cal; but she had none of the self-protective entitlement he’d had to work so assiduously to shed; it just slid off her back like rainwater. Lowell could only look on in stunned confusion.
Then there was a July 23, 1960, letter to Sterling from the manager of the Chelsea Hotel, enclosing a bill for almost $12,000:
Miss Ida Perkins and her coterie left hurriedly this morning after more than a month here at the Chelsea without settling their account. As she provided your name in case of emergencies, I am sending it on to you for satisfaction.
Or this one, from Sterling to A.O., dated February 28, 1970:
Dearest Arnold:
My spies tell me the powder at the Summit is peerless this season, but I haven’t been able to get away, largely due
to the run on Ida’s work. We’ve reprinted
Half a Heart
thirteen times since the National Book Award, and my salesmen tell me the stores can’t keep it on the shelves. And
all
of her work is going gangbusters. E. S. Wilentz collared me in front of his shop on Eighth Street this morning and wouldn’t stop chanting, “SEND. ME. MORE. BOOKS.” It was embarrassing—and sublime. Of course we don’t
have
books to send him at the moment, but the printer promised another twenty thousand next week. Twenty thousand! Our cynical old sales manager Sidney Huntoon says it’ll be “Gone today, here tomorrow,” once the excitement dies down, but in Ida’s case, I don’t think so for once. The old girl is the absolute toast of the town. You should have seen her on
Dick Cavett
, making eyes and getting him to laugh uproariously. And her show with Audrey Dienstfrey and Her Kind was a sellout at Boston Garden. Audrey screamed and wept and made an enormous scene—envious, no doubt—but now they’re joined at the hip and Audrey won’t let her new soul sister out of her sight.
You’d be proud of your consort. I certainly am. We’re minting money, for once. Ida seems to be enjoying it all—at least most of it; I don’t think she’s wild about being mobbed in the street. Luckily, she’s coming up to the farm for the weekend to hide out, bringing that ingrate Hummock and maybe young John Ashbery along. Yawn. Maxine has orga
nized a little golf tourney for everyone that ought to be a riot, since most of the guests aren’t exactly star athletes.
In other news, I’m sorry to report that we’re going to have to let
Elegy for Evgenia
go out of stock for the time being, as demand has fallen below the acceptable threshold for a reprint. Here’s hoping the situation turns around shortly.
I trust all is otherwise serene in La Serenissima. Keep the faith; we’re holding on as usual here.
Ever thine,
There were ecstatic reviews and the inevitable pans, particularly of
Barricade
and
The Brownouts,
published in Ida’s so-called Anti phase. There were endless award citations: four National Book Awards (and a photograph of Ida arm in arm with fellow winners Joyce Carol Oates and William Steig at the awards dinner in 1992); two Pulitzer Prizes; the Feltrinelli, Lenin, Nonino, Prince of Asturias, Jerusalem, and T. S. Eliot prizes; the gold medal for poetry of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a letter from 41 offering Ida the Presidential Medal of Freedom (with a carbon of a reply from Sterling politely declining on her behalf); a list of thirty-nine honorary degrees, from 1960 to 2005; copies of full-page advertisements for various titles; articles in
Flair
and
Vogue
about her idiosyncratic fashion sense; bills from Bergdorf Goodman for thousands ofdollars, primarily for shoes; travel agents’ invoices from the triumphal 1967 West Coast tour, during which Ida had cavorted naked in the big pool at Esalen with Pepita Erskine, after spending the weekend in Watts with Eldridge Cleaver. A photo of sunburned, shirtless Allen Ginsberg and
Sewanee Review
review of
Bringing Up the Rear.
Ida was a Brahmin, too, every bit as much as Cal; but she had none of the self-protective entitlement he’d had to work so assiduously to shed; it just slid off her back like rainwater. Lowell could only look on in stunned confusion.
Then there was a July 23, 1960, letter to Sterling from the manager of the Chelsea Hotel, enclosing a bill for almost $12,000:
Miss Ida Perkins and her coterie left hurriedly this morning after more than a month here at the Chelsea without settling their account. As she provided your name in case of emergencies, I am sending it on to you for satisfaction.
Or this one, from Sterling to A.O., dated February 28, 1970:
Dearest Arnold:
My spies tell me the powder at the Summit is peerless this season, but I haven’t been able to get away, largely due
to the run on Ida’s work. We’ve reprinted
Half a Heart
thirteen times since the National Book Award, and my salesmen tell me the stores can’t keep it on the shelves. And
all
of her work is going gangbusters. E. S. Wilentz collared me in front of his shop on Eighth Street this morning and wouldn’t stop chanting, “SEND. ME. MORE. BOOKS.” It was embarrassing—and sublime. Of course we don’t
have
books to send him at the moment, but the printer promised another twenty thousand next week. Twenty thousand! Our cynical old sales manager Sidney Huntoon says it’ll be “Gone today, here tomorrow,” once the excitement dies down, but in Ida’s case, I don’t think so for once. The old girl is the absolute toast of the town. You should have seen her on
Dick Cavett
, making eyes and getting him to laugh uproariously. And her show with Audrey Dienstfrey and Her Kind was a sellout at Boston Garden. Audrey screamed and wept and made an enormous scene—envious, no doubt—but now they’re joined at the hip and Audrey won’t let her new soul sister out of her sight.
You’d be proud of your consort. I certainly am. We’re minting money, for once. Ida seems to be enjoying it all—at least most of it; I don’t think she’s wild about being mobbed in the street. Luckily, she’s coming up to the farm for the weekend to hide out, bringing that ingrate Hummock and maybe young John Ashbery along. Yawn. Maxine has orga
nized a little golf tourney for everyone that ought to be a riot, since most of the guests aren’t exactly star athletes.
In other news, I’m sorry to report that we’re going to have to let
Elegy for Evgenia
go out of stock for the time being, as demand has fallen below the acceptable threshold for a reprint. Here’s hoping the situation turns around shortly.
I trust all is otherwise serene in La Serenissima. Keep the faith; we’re holding on as usual here.
Ever thine,
There were ecstatic reviews and the inevitable pans, particularly of
Barricade
and
The Brownouts,
published in Ida’s so-called Anti phase. There were endless award citations: four National Book Awards (and a photograph of Ida arm in arm with fellow winners Joyce Carol Oates and William Steig at the awards dinner in 1992); two Pulitzer Prizes; the Feltrinelli, Lenin, Nonino, Prince of Asturias, Jerusalem, and T. S. Eliot prizes; the gold medal for poetry of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a letter from 41 offering Ida the Presidential Medal of Freedom (with a carbon of a reply from Sterling politely declining on her behalf); a list of thirty-nine honorary degrees, from 1960 to 2005; copies of full-page advertisements for various titles; articles in
Flair
and
Vogue
about her idiosyncratic fashion sense; bills from Bergdorf Goodman for thousands ofdollars, primarily for shoes; travel agents’ invoices from the triumphal 1967 West Coast tour, during which Ida had cavorted naked in the big pool at Esalen with Pepita Erskine, after spending the weekend in Watts with Eldridge Cleaver. A photo of sunburned, shirtless Allen Ginsberg and
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