[A Welsh poet at work: Harry Guest.] Three Autograph Poems: ‘Climbing a Volcano’ (two drafts), ‘At Shoreham’ (holograph), and ‘Sentence’ (fragment); with covering Autograph Letter Signed to Claire Freiburger; and transcription from Abelard.

See Tony Lopez's obituary in the Guardian, 11 April 2021.The letter was sent, with Items One and Two at least, while Guest was Lecturer in English at Yokohama National University, 1966-1972. All four items are neatly written in black ink in a close hand. The first three items are in good condition; Item Four is in fair condition, on aged paper and with wear to the outer edges. The parallel drafts of ‘Climbing a Volcano’ in Item One present an excellent example of the working process of a poet in the pre-digital age. ONE: Autograph Manuscript (2pp, folio) on one leaf. The recto carries two drafts, with additions and deletions, of a poem that featured in ‘Penguin Modern Poets 16’ (1966) and Guest’s 2002 collected poems ‘A Puzzling Harvest’. The two versions are placed in columns side by side, and the page is headed ‘6 THE VOLCANO’. The 50-lines of the left-hand column constitute an earlier, rougher draft, in ink and pencil. It begins: ‘No previous epics can support / the splendour that’s ignited by / original adulteries. The lava-stone’. The right-hand column carries a later version of 60 lines, neater and with fewer alterations. It begins: ‘Justification. Or bygone epics / that support a previous ignition. The lava-stone’. On the verso of the leaf is the nineteen-line draft of what Guest describes in Item Three below as the ‘fragment of “Sentence”’. It begins: ‘To drop ourselves to casualness, yards away / banalities exchanged as your body / then yards away quivered on mine’. This third line has not been deleted, but has a variant beside it: ‘your body quivered still on mine,’ and the word ‘ourselves’ has been added to the first line. ‘Sentence’ appears in Guests 2002 collected poems ‘A Puzzling Harvest’. TWO: Holograph (2pp, 8vo) of poem ‘AT SHOREHAM | for Lynn’. Dedicated to his wife and signed at end ‘Harry Guest’. 34-line poem, with six split lines. Begins: ‘Nightfall and my hands awake. / A white bird wings upriver, / Greets the water and / Glides to silence where the / Scars of sunset heal.’ The poem was published in Guest’s collection ‘Arrangements’ (1968). THREE: ALS to Claire Freiburger. 1p, 8vo. He explains that he received her letter the previous day, and that he is ‘only too glad to contribute - it is a cause very near to my heart’. With reference to Item One above, he says that he is ‘enclosing a draft of “Climbing a Volcano” (Section VI of “Metamorphoses”) which happens to have a fragment of “Sentence” on the reverse side.’ He is also sending a fair copy of the poem (not present), ‘[j]ust in case’. He has done a fair copy of ‘At Shoreham’ (Item Two above): ‘of course if this is no use please chuck it away’. He ends by wishing ‘the Committee all success’. FOUR: 26-line autograph transcription by Guest of the planctus beginning ‘Vel confossus pariter / morerer feliciter / cum, quid amor faciat / maius hoc non habeat’. 1p, 8vo. Headed ‘PETER ABELARD. | Planctus.’