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Uploaded ![LOTUS PRESS
P. O. Box 601
College Park Station
DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48221
September 27,
Professor James A. Emanuel
P.O. Box 593
Scarsdale, New York 10583
Dear Professor Emanuel:
I must apologize for my failure to respond to your note of query
earlier. I was so involved completing Lance's book and also try-
ing to complete my sabbatical year project that I just had to let
some things wait.
I am well acquainted with your work and would be interested in con-
sidering publication of your post-1970 poems. In considering the
submission of this work, you should keep in mind that it probably
would not be published until early 1979; that, however, would be a
firm date and not subject to the usual publishers' delays.
I do not know how much Lance told you about this very small company.
It is a sideline with me; I am a full professor in English at Eastern
Michigan University and, at the same time, try to keep up with my
own writing somehow. I am seeking to avoid getting in over my head
financially as a publisher by taking on only the books which I can
pay cash for as I go along. This cash comes out of my own pocket
in large outlays; it dribbles back in very slowly. Nevertheless,
this whole publishing venture is a labor of love and I enjoy the
challenge. I cannot pay royalties as such; the best I can offer
is twenty-five complimentary copies to the author and a 20% discount
on any additional copies which the author may wish to order. There
is no requirement that he order any, nor do I expect him to contribute
financially in any way. I send out announcements of publication and
list the book in the usual places. Several distributors are handling
our books and the exposure is increasing all the time; distribution
is, however, still a problem for any small publisher. In the event
that an author's book sells especially well, we will be happy to share
the profits with the author. If you are still interested in submitting
your manuscript, I will welcome the opportunity of considering it.
I appreciate your comments on 0 Africa, Where I Baked My Bread,
which are included on the enclose leaflet.
Thank you for your comments on my three poems. It is unfortunate
that anthologists tend to select the same few poems for reprinting,
especially when their selection does not represent a poet's best
work.
Sincerely,
[Signature - Naomi Long Madgett]
Sorry I
ran out of space. Lance is sending you an autographed copy of his book.](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/2/b/f/2bf967af-a049-431a-be5b-e95ca4a1559c/attachment/bcc44d421ea6ab2262664c1d284eb7d1.jpg)
Letter from Naomi Long Madgett September 27 1977
Marvin Holdt at Le Barry
James Emanuel at his Montparnasse apartment in Paris Photo
MY FIRST NOVEL, PAGE ONE
![183
[*”At Bay”: Using the images common to a confrontation between police and a lawbreaker, this poem examines the feelings of the “underdog”.*]
At Bay
My sirens
Ain’t never stopped screamin’
My searhlights
Ain’t got to no sky
My pistol
Ain’t hung up for dreamin’
My tear gas
Ain’t made nobody cry.
Come on, cops.
Ain’t but one way
To live and to die.
1966
1968
183
[*I Touched the Hand of a Solider Dead: an anti-war poem set in the Philippine Islands. The sampaguita is the national flower there.*]
I touched the hand of a solider dead
On Bukidnon hill.
I touched a cold and lonely hand. [*This line reflects my seeing (I thought) a human hand in the water near Manila Bay as the troopship I had been on for 36 days, the General Anderson, neared its destination*]
It was quite still.
It looked not like an enemy,](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/a/3/d/a3d663c6-be19-4e1b-a1f3-83cbb38529fa/attachment/98596816ed1861884b982849fca588f0.jpg)
I Touched the Hand of a Soldier Dead (with annotations) 1
Draft, LEFT UMBRELLAS
After the Poetry Reading, Black (with annotations) 3
Firing Squads
![1st draft, 55 Sinclair Rd, London, 22 July 1978, 2:08 p.m.—3:13; 3:50—5:32.
Changed 24 July, 11:40 a.m.—12:07
THE ONE YOU CAN’T FORGET: A TRAIN FROM LONDON
Riding backwards, [too late to change,]
I felt her opposite me,
[her lipstick something I remembered
Warm as wine spilled on my lips]
strange her [second] doubled self [a shadowed] in tranquil window-box outhinged,
glassframed, [and] floatfixed in my lucid eye
that saw it sharp as Paddington and Royal Oak
[outside] gliding outside, photo-real
[from] on stations [for each mind] to cling to,
like friends at destination Reading, [friends to cling to,]
[minutes left] twenty minutes left for [patchwork] picture[s], patchwork,
[clicking back] clickbacks to those lively whiles and [times] aches between
now focused on a dizzy track of life outside
that snatched my window-watching to [a] its stream
that [climbed] flashed across the glassy face and arms
of her whose placid self
ranged with me knee to knee,
her outdoor countenance alive
beneath the hordes that slivered her:](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/3/e/4/3e49d202-48a5-4ee7-9f75-d9879ccbc888/attachment/ea5d906662758acda118bf16f2f6052c.jpg)
THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET: A TRAIN FROM LONDON