Arts and Letters

Back in the early twenties
Met a young giant.
As I remember it
He was lounging against a wall
Chatting with cronies
Somewhere in the theatre district.
Tall. Six foot seven I heard later.
Lean. Gangling. Watchful.
A lot of structural steel In that suave leaning tower.
He put out a hand that had a grip in it.
Spoke slowly. Said few words.
Syllables carefully articulated.
Made rounded sentences when he made any.
Mordant.
Kindly.
A long head. A long face, looking down.
Astute.

Next meeting.
He'd written a play and I went to see it.
I said to myself
Some of these lines are better than Shaw.
Just as witty and more blood in them.
High tension. High voltage. High comedy.
We talked a bit.
He smiled slowly from up there where he lived.
Six foot seven.
He was somewhat dazed
The play was a hit.
He could quit writing for a boss.
Could write as he pleased.

When Petrified Forest opened I was in
San Francisco.
Read about it.
Sent him a wire.
That does it. That's the kind of play
I'd like to write.
Later Idiot's Delight was on
With the Lunts—
The whole town infected with its laughter.
It took all the prizes
And deserved them.
Never heard such a glissando of wit.

Bob was president of the Dramatists' Guild
in 1937.
After a tough session
Bob and I sat down with Elmer Rice
To have a drink (not that we drank much).
One of us said
Why don't we produce our own plays?
Well, we were pleased with the idea.
Talked with Sidney Howard and Sam Behrman.
They came in with us.
We made up the Playwrights' Company.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois was Bob's
first contribution.

From that time on
We met regularly.
It seemed sometimes
That was what our office was for.
We put on plays
But what mattered most
Was talking things over with tough-minded men
Working at the same trade.
Alchemy was our business.
Trying to transmute Broadway into gold.
The result was (and is) mostly frustration.
Or fool's gold.
Sometimes there was a glint of the real metal.
We tried not to fool ourselves.
Bob made a sort of center,
A rallying standard.
If he wasn't there nothing was transacted
Except transactions.

When he was there
The sparks flew.
Mostly in fun.
Sam and Elmer were fast with their rapiers,
But Bob was quick also,
And his reach was—
Well, figure it out,
Six foot seven.
One of the playwrights said
About a play of his:
"I can't put it off.
I'll be sitting on tenterhooks
Till it's produced."
"What," I asked,
"Are tenterhooks?"
Bob turned to me gravely.
"The upholstery of the anxious seat,"
he said.

The earth is now altered.
The city is emptier and colder.
Some of its meaning has gone
Out of Broadway,
Out of Fifth Avenue.
Out of the familiar windows along the street.
Somewhere, at a frequented table,
Someone is ordering a Dubonnet cocktail.
No doubt.
Someone is speaking slowly,
With laconic wit.
But it's not Bob, and the earth is diminished
and not the same.
Sherwood is dead.
Those who were younger than he
Are still younger.
Those who were older,
I among them,
Are much
older now.