Mary Barnard, American Imagist

Acknowledgments

xi This book would not have happened without the immeasurable support shown by Elizabeth J. Bell, literary executor for the estate of Mary Barnard, and her husband, Bruce Bell, over the past ten years. From the moment I stepped off the plane at Portland International Airport in summer 2003, a complete stranger, they have done nothing but encourage and assist me in my happy Mary Barnard projects. Through email, letter, phone, and cherished visits, Betty has gone above and beyond to read my work, offer clarifications, suggest directions, and fuel my research with such golden materials that I have never once forgotten the great privilege afforded me. Heartfelt thanks are due to Bruce for his wisdom, insight, good humor, and, it must be said, his knack of selecting the very best wine to round off a hard day’s scholaring—and for teaching me to drive on the wrong side of the road. Both have become dear friends to me and my family. Neither this friendship nor my interest in Mary Barnard would have evolved without Ellen K. Stauder at Reed College, who introduced me to Mary Barnard’s work in 1995 and then to Betty Bell in 2001. Thank you for quietly watching as I got on with it and for generously giving your time to the Mary Barnard Centenary at Reed in 2011. Thanks are due to other friends and colleagues in the Pacific Northwest: to James Anderson, Mary Barnard’s publisher and long-term champion, for enchanting Barnard conversations and for the gift of letters that I’ve since donated to the Beinecke; to Thomas Donovan, a close friend of Mary Barnard’s, who did me the kindness of alerting me to the KBOO radio recording of Barnard reading; to Anita Helle and Peter Sears, for their profundity of knowledge and their magnificent contributions to the Mary Barnard Centenary; to Mary Barnard’s friends, including Anita Bigelow, Dorothy Blair, Harris Dusenberry, Sue Hennum, Cynthia Kimball, Mary Acknowledgments xii / Ackowledgments Pat Peterson, and her cousin, Suzanne Ila Gray, all of whom have helped to illuminate my picture of Mary Barnard through the generosity of conversation and, in the case of Sue Hennum, through a wonderful sharing of papers accompanied by the world’s most delicious blueberry pie. Thank you to Robin Tovey, James Kahan, and all at Reed College who enabled the Mary Barnard Centenary to take place and to Reed alumnus Constance Puttnam for kindly talking to me about her correspondence with Mary Barnard. On the other side of the Atlantic, I cannot forget the thanks due to friends and colleagues at Goldsmiths, University of London: to Helen Carr, for supervising my PhD thesis on Barnard (and for all the “after sales service”); to Maura Dooley, for examining it so warmly; to Chris Baldick and Caroline Blinder, for their early encouragements; and to Padraig Kirwan, for keeping my spirits high and my coffee cup filled. Thanks are due to scholars and poets across the two nations: Richard Deming, Nikolai Duffy, Suzanne Heyd, Emma Kimberley, Emily Jeremiah, David Murray, Katrina Naomi, and Eric White. Your interests in my project gave me the confidence to keep doing it. This may be a slim book, but it is one built out of archives. In addition to those provided by Betty Bell, I have enjoyed substantial assistance from Gay Walker and Mark Kuestner of Special Collections at Reed College Library and from Patricia Willis, Nancy Kuhl, and all the staff at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. I was greatly honored to receive the H.D. Fellowship in American Literature at the Beinecke over 2007 and 2008 to complete the research of this book. An earlier version of the discussion of Mary Barnard’s “North Window” in chapters 1 and 2 was originally published in Western American Literature; an earlier version of section 2.3 in chapter 2 was originally published in Paideuma. A shortened version of chapter 3 is due to appear in the “Hellenism Unbound” edition of Synthesis scheduled for Fall 2013. Thank you to James Peltz, Jen Stelling, Laurie Searl, Anne Valentine, and Catherine Chilton at SUNY Press. Thank you, finally, to Louise, for being there from the beginning, and to Zachary, for arriving at the end. This book is my gift to you. cd Grateful acknowledgements are due to James Anderson, for permission to print from the unpublished transcript of the address given by him at the Memorial Service for Mary Barnard, Vancouver...