[V-Letter from Karl Shapiro to George Barker, written in publication year of Shapiro's 'V-Letter and other Poems'.] A V-Mail [Victory Mail] letter (i.e. photographic print of autograph letter), praising Barker and criticising current 'War Poetry'.

An interesting communication from one noted twentieth-century English-language poet to another, and of additional significance as a V-Letter written in the year of publication of Shapiro's first successful collection, the Pulitzer Prize winning 'V-Letter and Other Poems' (1944). (See Diederik Oostdijk, 'The Wartime Success of Karl Shapiro's V-Letter' (2006).) The present item is a V-Mail [Victory Mail] letter: a 13.5 x 11 cm photograph print of an autograph letter bearing the censor's stamp. (At the time of writing Shapiro was on active service.) In fair condition, lightly aged and folded once. The V-mail process would have ensured that the original letter was destroyed: the present document is therefore the only surviving version of the text. Addressed to 'Mr George Barker | c/o New Directions | Norfolk, Connecticut | U.S.A.' Dated February 1944. The address is in parts hard to read: 'Sgt. Karl Shapiro | 33006969 | [13th Port. Sang.?] Hosp. | [APD 928 c/o Pan?] | San Francisco'. Shapiro begins the letter: 'Dear Mr. Barker. The letter I wrote you several days ago – if you have received it – must have seemed rather wild and whirling.' He feels that he should tell Barker that he was 'recovering from a malaria attack at the time', and that his 'thoughts were disarranged' and his 'perspective abnormal'. Now that he is better he would like to say 'in sober language that the Elegies [Rilke's Duino Elegies?] are a boon to us who are readers and writers, and do me a a bucket of cold water in the face'. 'War Poetry' on the other hand has been 'a deadly disappointment' to Shapiro: 'all ex post facto experience and birds on singing-trees'. It seems to him that Barker alone has 'escaped the bogs of Language and [Fame?], but more than that. Rilke's task of not-understanding the other war, although not evasion, was inapplicable to the soldier's case.' Barker has 'earned [his] way to the heart of the war – like the Four Hundred'. The letter concludes: 'I merely want to add my praise to all those other praises you have won.'