As my manuscript progressed through the early 1960s I came across a reference to a Stafford contribution to Aperture, the photography magazine. In the James Pirie Stafford bibliography it’s item E285. As I build my chronological spine for the project I consult and usually make a copy of Pirie’s year-by-year listings of Stafford’s appearances in journals, periodicals and the like. This item intrigued me because of Stafford’s own attraction to photography (as well as my own) and for the somewhat unusual alignment (for him at the time) of poems with visual images.
It’s still unclear how the connection was made, but Stafford’s stature had risen when he won the National Book Award in 1963 and by early 1964 he was corresponding with Minor White, the magazine editor, and others at Aperture. I’m inclined to think White invited Stafford to respond to a series of photographs, and Stafford eagerly complied. No matter how useful it could be, I decided I needed to have a copy of the magazine and had little trouble turning up the issue online.
White introduced the issue with a note about “transactional photography,” which seems to suggest that the photographer and ultimate viewer are present together in the moment. It seems as though the phrase these days implies more of a commercial arrangement between photographer and customer. I’ll let my friends in the photography world mull over the finer philosophical points here. I do seem to recall that pairing photos with poetry was not uncommon in the 1960s. In researching my Evan S. Connell biography, I found at least two photography books from the early 1960s and ‘70s to which he contributed or compiled selected poetry and prose. It must’ve been a thing. As the whole poetry-in-the-schools movement took root in the U.S. in the mid-1960s I think we were inundated with volumes of poetry, made to go down easier alongside photos and art works. In my personal “archives” I still have a little sprial-bound “book” of my own photos of Boston alongside samples of my insipid poetry. But enough about that.
In a letter to Stafford dated Feb. 19, 1964, Minor White responded to Stafford’s submissions: “Straw, feathers, dust, will work very well for the inside front cover,” he wrote. (See images below.) And he emphasized that each text, as with each photograph, would speak for itself and “should just be there.”
White chose to end the volume with a single line from Stafford: “The centers of stones need your prayers.” White’s comment: “WOW!…Hardly need the rest of the poem.” Curiously, while listing the six preceding untitled poems and fragments in his bibliography, Pirie missed this last one.
For his part, Stafford seemed fully absorbed by the idea of this project. As he wrote to an Aperture staffer earlier that month, “it would be great to achieve an inevitable and beautiful coherence which would loom for the viewer without being driven at him.”
Not sure at the moment whether any of this will find its way into my Stafford biography. The chapters from this period are already crammed full (of all good stuff, I might add).
