Paterson (Revised Edition) (28 page)

34–35     By nightfall … work went on     Taken from a longer article, “Draining the Lake at Lakeview,” that appeared in
The Prospector
, 28 August 1936, 4. In all printings of the poem the opening date is given as “nightfall of the 28th.” I have restored “the 29th,” the date in the source and in the apparent transcription typescript, Za186. The change occurs in the retypings.

WCW reproduces about two-thirds of the article, and not all the omissions are marked by an ellipsis. He omits the opening twenty-two lines concerning the contract to drain the lake. A sentence summarizing the details is cut on the galleys.

Other omissions: between

drawn off—a black crowd:     “Mr. Van Riper had prepared a wire screen and nets and endeavored to rescue the fish in the earlier part of the day and Mr. Regnor and others had nets ready; but they were only moderately successful. The fish did not run into their nets to any extent, although they got all they wanted before they left. But a crowd of men and hoodlums gathered.”

bottom—some hundred:     “It was an exciting scene after 4 o’clock, for the bottom for”

dam—the whole:     “had been drained so that men could wade in the mud, and the fight for the eels began.”

still there—There seemed:     “gleaning the remainder. One man passed the eight o’clock train from Paterson on his way up with a snapping turtle in one hand, three great eels in another and his boys with all they could carry.”

the eels—Those who:     “It was a funny circumstance at the lake on the night of the 29th, that”

roadway—Little boys:     “All Madison Park seemed to be out.”

and eels—four wagon:     “and the heaps everywhere comprised one of the queerest sights to be imagined. Mr. Mace who was present, and had with the others watched the affair, said.”

carried away—At least:     “The man who secured the larger ones gave the smaller ones to little boys to carry away”

in the mud—Night:     “Sometimes two men racing after one big eel and finally tumbling down upon him together causing great amusement to those on shore.”

WCW also omits the final five lines.

Other differences between
Paterson
and
The Prospector
:

the water mostly had/the water had mostly

into the nets/into their nets

a black crowd/a black cloud

strike at them/strike them

Those who prepared the nets/those who had prepared nets

he filled it/he filled it with eels

the men/and the men

All verbal differences and omissions are present in the Za186 typescript, although only the last is a revision marked by WCW.

35     Shortly before … all that day     Adapted from a much longer article in
The Prospector
, November 12 1936, 1, 4.

WCW originally intended to include a longer adaptation from the article, but cut the following, which preceded the present two paragraphs, on the KS galleys:

The bells ringing out the hour of worship on Sunday morning, August 15, 1875, had scarcely done tolling before the news of a drowning of three men had spread throughout the city; and at once and thenceforth throughout the day crowds wended their way to the grounds to learn the shocking particulars.

About twenty minutes past ten, application was made to Mr. Oswald Bleackly, who kept a small grocery and spruce-beer store at No. 345 Totowa Avenue, by James Grogan—a man about forty years of age, well-known in social circles as a skilled cricketer and employed at the Phoenix Mill as a “loom fixer”—for the use of his boat to take two friends on a short row up the river. Mr. Bleackly, had but a few moments previous denied the same request from a neighbor because of the danger of such amusement when the stream was swollen about the Falls, and on this application from his fellow workmen offered similar objections, claiming it was unsafe in the present condition of the river to venture out especially at such a perilous location as that occupied by his boat.

The only reply to the advice was a hearty laugh, as Grogan, confident of his own power and strength stretched out his brawny arm, exclaiming, “O, a fine fellow like me afraid to go on the water? I am young and not to be compared with you.” The attempt to prevail upon the three to give up their proposed enjoyment was useless, and disliking to refuse his intimate friends when they pressed him to allow them the privilege, he finally consented. So the three with oars, rudder and key started down Wayne Avenue to the river. The boat borrowed was a well-built, flat bottom craft, painted a light pink color, red striped, and amply capable of holding the party.

The boat lay chained to the west bank of the river about thirty feet above the Society’s dam below the carriage bridge. (Spruce St.)

They were all in exuberant spirits at the prospect of a splendid morning’s enjoyment, and loosing the chain that bound the boat to the shore pushed out into the stream before they had made any preparations whatever for guiding the boat in the strong current that was dashing down with its oily wave but a few feet distant. Quickly all hands went to work at manning the boat, perceiving the immediate danger in which they had placed themselves, and with the crowd of spectators on the bridge and along the opposite shore shouting warnings to beware of the current, they exerted themselves to the utmost to bring the oars into working order to “back water.” Not a man but Grogan, in the boat, was used to boating, nor had any knowledge of the use that might be made of rudder or oar in turning a craft, or the ensuing accident might possibly have been averted. They were soon impelled toward the rushing current through their own efforts to prevent getting farther from shore, and the bow of the boat turned down stream toward the dam. Here the three men jumped from the boat, sending it with a new momentum dashing on faster than ever. It overturned and a second afterward it had shot over the dam, at that place about six feet in height, and righting again below the rocks it passed toward the basin on the west shore and half filled with water remained safe out of the current. The men in the meantime struggled hard to reach the banks but they too one after the other followed the boat and were carried over the dam. The current there was rushing at tremendous speed and fully three feet in depth. (This dam of which the narrator is speaking, lies above the Falls proper not more than a hundred feet or so from its brink).

The alarm and consternation among the many visitors on the grounds was now intense and all ran towards the falls to catch a glimpse of the helpless castaways as they passed over, but their curiosity was disappointed as the bodies, on authentic statements, were not seen after the three heads disappeared in the wild seething mass in the basin under the dam.

The remaining
Paterson
text follows
The Prospector
to “the body being lodged,” but then omits and summarizes some material. WCW makes the changes on Buffalo E13.
The Prospector
reads:

the body being lodged in a very curious manner between two logs, one a very large one that had been placed across the chasm by the workmen, and lodged across it in a very extraordinary manner. It was in the “crotch” of these logs that the body was wedged. From the position of the body it was thought impossible to remove the body without risk of life, but the river was rapidly falling which later made possible the recovery of the body.

A coat of one of the men was also found lodged in Broomhead’s water wheel at the West Street bridge.

The news of finding the body hanging on the edge of the Falls, attracted a very large number of visitors. The sight of the human body hanging over the precipice was indeed one which was as novel as it was awful in appearance.

37     Your interest … product.     In a notebook in which he began the notes for his
Autobiography
WCW records: “Pound’s story of my being interested in the loam whereas he wanted the finished product” (Buffalo D7). WCW instructed on the KS galleys that the nine lines from “What do I care” to “ruin” “must all appear on same page.” But both the NC and fifth and subsequent printings of the 1963 text (1969) split the material.

38     a tranquility/a still tranquility IST

38     “The 7th … ensued.”     From BH 50. WCW keeps the quotation marks that are in BH, but omits the source BH provides—
“Smith’s History of New Jersey.”
On the KS galley WCW cuts two further passages describing earthquakes; one another passage from BH, and the other a longer piece that KH annotates as “Mt. Pelee—eruption of Mount Pelee” (UVA). For the eruption of Mount Pelée, “which wiped out the last of my mother’s family,” see A 71.

40     “In order … morality”     WCW cites the 1880 New York, Harper edition. This passage was added to Book I very late and does not appear on the galleys or typescripts. On the KS page proof WCW noted: “center this note on a page of its own at end of book.” See WCW/JL 112–114, 116. The passage follows its source save for the spelling of “meter,” the addition of quotation marks, and “communicated” for “communicate.” The verbal and spelling differences are as in the version sent by WCW to James Laughlin on June 14, 1945.

The first edition carried an “Author’s Note”: “The present is the second of four books on a single theme, PATERSON; the first appeared in 1946, the others will follow shortly.”

43     the Park     Garret Mountain Park, Paterson

44     the ugly legs … beeves and     WCW quotes from (and slightly alters) his early poem “The Wanderer,” first published in 1914. These lines appear in the section originally titled “Paterson—The Strike.” See CP1 31, 112.

45     The body is … aided     As Weaver 206 notes, from Beckett Howorth, “Dynamic Posture,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
131, 17 (24 August 1946), 1402–03. Weaver reprints Fig. 6B. Page 1402 is pasted onto a sheet now filed with Buffalo E22.

45     Despite my … condition     Extract from a letter from Marcia Nardi, see note to p. 7. WCW and MN had continued to correspond since MN’s first letter, of April 9, 1942, extracts of which appear in Book I, and subjects had included MN’s writing and her search for employment. The two met for dinner in New York City in June. MN’s share of the correspondence became increasingly dominant, and on February 17, 1943 WCW sent a short note (HRC):

Though I have tried to find work for you I have not succeeded, under present circumstances my best advice would be for you to apply to one of the Federal Employment Bureaus and let them instruct you.

There’s nothing more that I can do or say. This brings our correspondence to a close as far as I am concerned.

But MN continued to write to WCW. A handwritten draft, or copy, of a letter to WCW among MN’s papers at HRC, dated February 22, 1943, begins: “This is no continuation of the correspondence you wish ended. It is merely my own ‘last word’ in that correspondence.” A postcard on March 5 tells WCW that she has found employment, “a job that I like (and one connected with books)” and that she has used his name as a reference (Yale uncat.).

The three paragraphs on p. 45 of
Paterson
are from a long letter transcribed in the Buffalo E5 and E19 typescripts. Further extracts from the letter appear on pp. 48, 64 and 76. The original letter (April 1943?) is not filed with any of WCW’s correspondence or typescripts, to my knowledge. The Buffalo E5 typescript has some characteristics of a transcription. A blank space is left, for example, the word added in manuscript, possibly where MN’s difficult handwriting could not be deciphered. In a section that WCW does not use, MN refers to the job and to using WCW’s name in applying for it, and so this letter certainly dates from after the March postcard. Extracts from another, later, letter appear on pp. 82 and 87–91.

On the UVA typescript KH notes “letter used almost verbatim, made him change it somewhat,” and see Reed Whittemore,
William Carlos Williams: Poet from Jersey
(Boston, 1975) 291.

46     
I asked…. occupation
     As Sankey 76 points out, noted as the “Temple incident” on early typescripts, e.g. Yale Za187.

46     No fairer day … Dean and     From
The Prospector
, November 12, 1936, 5, excerpted from a much longer article on Dean McNulty. The Buffalo E20 draft contains considerably more of the
Prospector
text, covering the Dean and Dalzell’s escape, and Dalzell’s trial and acquittal, material WCW marks there to omit. On E20 the cut-off point was to be at “bewildered.” The E21 draft matches the final version, incorporating this and other excisions.

Most of the differences from
The Prospector
occur with the E21 version:

than May/than on May

garden/gardens

cheek…. Some     WCW cuts “which inflamed the already hostile mob. Coroner William S. Hurd tried to calm the mob by making a speech, and while he was talking,”

[to]     WCW adds the square brackets on Buff E21 after E20’s “out of the barn and he succeeded in reaching the house of” is revised to the final version.
The Prospector
reads “out of the house” for “out of the barn.”

Following “half furlong away” WCW cuts: “Chief of Police Graul arriving with the aid of policemen could not quiet the raging mob.”

“a great beast” WCW’s addition.

join/join in

The crowd then/The mob then

While in
Prospector
has “While at,” change caused by typing error. “While it” on E20 that becomes “While in” on E21. This is one example of many in the typescripts of a change made on a subsequent typescript without consulting the original.

Sergeant/police sergeant

of Saint/of the St.

Joseph’s/Joseph

seating/seated

Dean and In the
Prospector
and E20 the sentence concludes, “his display of Christian charity, for he was the highest prelate of the Catholic Church in Paterson and the man he was befriending had been prominent among the Orangemen.”

47     Chapultepec! grasshopper hill!     See Sankey 77, who reproduces a photograph of a carved grasshopper from Chapultepec.

The line is omitted in the selection from Book II published in
Partisan Review
(Feb. 1948).