Whitman's "Live Oak, with Moss"--Putting it into an American Literature Anthology Where Every Teenager could Read the Sequence

Some posts need to be repeated.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Memories on a great day for gay rights--Whitman, Parker, Sendak, and "Live Oak, with Moss"

Diary Entries:

5 March 1992 Xeroxed Oak Leaf cluster for e/o [in class] from SB [Studies in Bibliography]—Thought later, at home, of putting it (the 12 [poem sequence]), in [next edition of] Norton Anthology of American Literature.

12 March 1992  MS [Maurice Sendak] called 9:30—good talk. Told him my “Live Oak, with Moss” idea (NAAL)

Read all 12 parts to him on the phone.

5 April 1992 Wonderful hour long call from MS. Grateful to me for opening him to WW.

6 April 1992 Want to emphasize the joy of Maurice’s reading of WW. I gave a great gift to the man who has everything--& he says it is already changing his life—he feels it will s/h affect Dumps. [We are all in the Dumps; with Jack and Guy]

18 April 1992 Julia Reidhead [at Norton] said OK on “Live Oak, with Moss.”

The 2313 MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE, p. 110: On 18 April 92 Julia Reidhead agreed to print Live Oak, with Moss in NAAL. [First time this gay love sequence was printed in an American literature anthology. I still believe printing it was the most important thing I ever did for the profession.] {The bracketed comment is in Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative.}

26 June 2013. Relief and hope.