In a typical letter to Bishop from 1948, when Lowell was 31, he unpacks his overstuffed psyche item by item, from his feelings about a William Carlos Williams poem (” ‘Paterson’ has been like water to me”) to his thoughts on the dissolution of his first marriage, to the novelist Jean Stafford (”looking back, it seems strange that we could survive it, and now the conclusion is allaying and satisfying”) to a statement of his renewed commitment to work (”sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing — I suppose that’s what a vocation means — at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction”). In letters that swing incandescently back and forth between Christian theology, literary chitter-chat, romantic effusions, travel plans and world-historical musings, this note is of no particular interest except in the way that it positions Bishop as Lowell’s all-purpose one-woman audience. He tried everything out on her, all of his songs and bits. He seemed to believe she was stronger than he was, the stouter soul and perhaps the better writer. Possessed of thoughts and imaginings and moods too turbulent for one flimsy human skull, he splashed and crashed against Bishop, his chosen seawall, even though she, too, had her fragile, mortal moments. ”About a month ago,” he dished with slightly unseemly relish to Mary McCarthy, ”Elizabeth B. came over here, while I was still at Harvard, had a few vodkas, and had to be taken upstairs without clothes by Lizzie and Nicole.”
![According to Leigh, the night Kelly won the Academy Award (for The Country Girl) she also won Marlon Brando, taking him back to her place, where their adult plans were interrupted by a scathing phone call from Judy Garland shouting, “This is Judy Garland, Judy Fucking Garland. You bitch! You took what was rightfully mine. [Garland was also nominated for “Best Actress” for her work in A Star Is Born, and favored to win.] Tonight was my last chance for the Oscar. You’ll have many more chances in your future. This was it for me. I’ll never forgive you.” Or in other words, “What don’t you fucking understand? You and me are done professionally.” In this way, Garland was clearly the Christian Bale of her time.- This Recording](http://21.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kucnk5P8Sv1qzn1fuo1_500.jpg)
