I couldn’t wait till tomorrow to post this quote, written by Patrick White in a letter [from “Dogwoods”] to Geoffrey Dutton on October 30, 1961:
“I am reading your Whitman with great interest . . . I had only seen photographs of W. as an old man, so the photograph on the cover of your book is particularly interesting. There he is – trying to seduce even the anonymous reader with that repellent mouth and his bedroomy, woman’s eyes. Even his brand of mixed-up homosexuality is irritating; one longs to hear of his having an honest-to-God root with one of his bus-drivers instead of sitting there fumbling with the tickets.”
How fantastic!
I am not sure if this is the image White speaks of, but it is evocative.
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