Center Span: Poems and Letters

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A LETTER TO KURT VONNEGUT

June 24, 1981

Mr. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

c/o Donald C. Farber

Conboy, Hewitt, O’Brien & Boardman

600 Madison Avenue

New York, New York, 10022

Dear Mr. Vonnegut,

I am forty one and for twenty years have been writing a masterpiece. Thanks to you it is now only two pages long. At one time it was over fifteen pages. It has to do with something Nietzsche said, that if you can harbor chaos within yourself, you can give birth to a dancing star, or maybe it was if you cannot harbor chaos within yourself, you cannot give birth to a dancing star; I don’t remember which. A close friend recently told me when you reach forty unpublished, people stop referring to you as a promising young man. This is exceedingly true.

Time is running out so I must ask you to cease and desist writing or my masterpiece will shrink to one paragraph. Soon my friends will refer to me as that promising recipe writer. You are rushing my stuff into print first. I don’t know how you do it, but it is common knowledge that your former profession of public relations is very sneaky.

I am not threatening legal action---yet. I don’t have a lawyer. I did once. His name was Bill Kuntsler. He advised me about organizing 500 draft card burners in Central Park some time ago. (April 1967) You may have seen my picture in Time Magazine. I was standing behind a Green Beret as he burned his draft card. I talked him into it. The FBI also had about 500 agents there, and when the draft cards turned to ashes, they swept into action---so to speak. With little brushes and dust pans they gathered up the remains into tiny envelopes. These were sealed and the agents left. Funny they walked right past several mailboxes. Incidentally, Time Magazine had no photos of these Federal janitors. Later, after I was fired from Cornell, those little envelopes were given to a federal grand jury (I’ll bet they would have preferred money). They invited me to tell stories. I didn’t go. Instead, I went to Scotland to work on my masterpiece. That’s when it reached fifteen pages. But then you published SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, and I started finding my stuff in your books.

I’m surprised you’re not in litigation with Mike Royko of the Sun Times. A month ago he had a letter to God about violence and religion---good anthropology stuff. I’ll bet you’re pissed that he has a daily column and gets his stuff in before you. The