Remember, our friend from Pitzer College who got Bertie over there – and she's now staying at 17 Doorly Park, Sligo and will be there for the Yeats Festival. She has been trying to persuade me to go over then, especially to be there on Aug 18th when Michael Longley will be speaking about Bertie and John Hewitt. But I'm afraid I don't feel up to travelling around this year. Except for a quick week with friends in Cornwall at the beginning of August, i'm just going to stay here and try and get myself and my work sorted out. Lucy is going to France with friends, so she'll be alright till September when she's starting at a Technical College in King's Cross, hopefully to do her 'A' Levels. I have been having quite a correspondence with Patric Stephens in Hillsborough. He sent me a poem of Bertie's 'Herod's Storm' which has been omitted by the OUP. It was published in the New Statesman in 1942, but I have never seen it before of heard Bertie mention it. Just at the moment I can't find the copies I made of it but will send you one as soon as I do. It's going to be published in a little poetry magazine called Pegasus (No2), edited by a friend of mine, Olga Gibb. Patric also pointed out a shamefully long list of misprints in the OUP edition. He has also sent it to the poetry editOr there, Carol Buckroyd, and she has promised to get them right in the next edition. Quite a number of them were already there in Europa and in Awake! It's very annoying, though some of them are really variants and it's hard to say now which version Bertie favoured. Did you see the review of the poems by James Simmons in The Honest Ulsterman? Pretty rough stuff. Oh well. I suppose some people must be allowed to dislike his work! Now I hope you will forgive my long silence; I really did think I had written to you in April! You must blame it on my state of health at the time. I feel quite normal again now. Much love from Marianne
