Serialization-- Special Excerpt from Chapter 4 --This Fantastic Struggle: The Life & Art of Esther Phillips (c Miles 2002) --
Special Excerpt from Ch 4
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Rather than immediately continue with Chapter 3 (next in line to be serialized), below you will find a very small special excerpt from Ch 4… The reason?
Writer and archivist Andy Martrich of Hiding Press contacted me recently, as he is preparing a book on little-known American poet Merle Hoyleman. Early on in his research, he was told that my book This Fantastic Struggle: The Life and Art of Esther Phillips, was "essential for understanding Merle.”
Hoyleman had written the obscure but acclaimed Letters to Christopher and was a “mysterious presence in contemporary poetry,” but a very close friend to Esther, as decades of literary correspondence between them proved.
Martrich drew from their letters and cited my book at length in the preparation of his manuscript—
“Like many other women at the time, Hoyleman was the victim of a lethal combination: a notoriously subpar and sexist mental healthcare system and vindictive family members opposed to alternative lifestyles like the dedicated and creative one she was leading. Miles elaborates on this point in This Fantastic Struggle, particularly in the context of Esther Phillips’ institutionalization at Harlem Valley Hospital from 1942-1949.”
Before that unfortunate period in Esther’s life, she had left her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to settle in Greenwich Village, NYC during the Depression. But even though in separate cities, Esther “remained a crucial presence in Merle’s life,” writes Martrich. (Every bit as was Merle in Esther’s.) “Phillips and Hoyleman lived minimal, bohemian lifestyles, wholly dedicated to their art regardless of the cost— nearly constant unemployment, severe poverty, hunger, and estrangement from family. For a time, the two found much needed support in each other and within their circle.”
“Hoyleman was unnecessarily—and probably illegally—committed, misdiagnosed, and subjected to abuse at Mayview State Hospital [outside Pittsburgh]. Even more disturbing is that Mayview then rescinded their claim of Hoyleman’s insanity and sent papers for her release to her brothers, who never responded. Consequently, Hoyleman had to endure another three months in the hospital.” (Miles 275)
Look out in ‘24 for Martrich’s book on Merle!
Here below, though, I share a bit from This Fantastic Struggle— indeed a book whose 2nd Epigraph (not first poem by Miles) is a piece of correspondence to Merle from a third party, and serves as the very introduction to Esther’s story. (See earlier Substack serialization). This passage, however, is where Merle Hoyleman is first introduced in the main body of the book as one of Esther’s good friends in Pittsburgh before she even left for NYC:
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According to one of Merle's 1950s journals, she met Esther in the summer of 1933, shortly after arriving in Pittsburgh from Oklahoma, with her brother Rhese. Esther of course was just peaking artistically, at least as far as Pittsburgh public attention was concerned. Beginning that summer, she visited Merle often, who was living in central Oakland, on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.
As friend James Van Trump defined her, Merle Hoyleman was indeed a writer. For four decades, she published prose and poetry in small literary journals, some prestigious. In 1937, her work sat amidst the likes of Jean Cocteau, William Carlos Williams, and Gertrude Stein in the anthology New Directions in Prose and Poetry. Never would there be a larger forum for her writings, though she pursued that goal her whole life, attempting to publish her larger works in their entirety. In 1941, an opportunity to publish in book form materialized. Friend George Marion O'Donnell, of Oglethorpe University, wrote an introduction for the proposed manuscript but the project was not to be. (Merle would have both friendly and professional ties with the dashing young O'Donnell over many years; from time to time she told him about Esther's plight as an artist.) O'Donnell's anthology introduction is an apt reflection on Merle's "poetry of the imagination," and a learned glimpse of this abstruse woman writer and dear friend to Esther, one that can be found perhaps no where else.
During the 1930's, the literary world was unduly preoccupied with ideas. . . . It seems significant that . . . Miss Hoyleman's poetry has been published only in fragments, mostly in obscure magazines. In the thirties one might experiment with Marxism but not with metrics--much less with mythology. . . . For Miss Hoyleman belongs among the writers who try to make poetry with images and words, not--“my dear Degas”--with ideas. Moreover, at first sight her work appears strange. (10)
Merle saved O'Donnell's words and used them decades later when she self-published those few long poems that comprised the original ill-destined manuscript, including "Asp of the Age," which became the new collection's title. It would be 1966 before the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh acquired the specially bound, primitive-looking, orange-covered oversize book, printed from the author’s manuscript, with original prints by Margaret Cray Brown. It was a work obviously much labored over by yet another person [like Esther] so known to frequent its marble halls, making use of the wealth of cultural information there.
In another of Merle's manuscripts, Letters to Christopher, what O'Donnell calls "a loose novel of character," Merle has the protagonist, Phoebe, writing a series of letters to a beloved. O'Donnell comments that it is a work of "very high human-psychological and literary excitement, page by page," with the letters of Phoebe as "a kind of impressionist interior-monologue in disguise."(11) Perhaps not so oddly enough, the same could be easily said about decades of correspondence between Merle and others with whom she would feel a strong connection throughout her life, including Esther.
According to records on microfilm at the art museum, John O'Connor (now the acting assistant director) personally called upon Esther in her studio/apartment on Tuesday, May 19, 1936, at 10:00 A.M., approximately seven months before she would leave Pittsburgh for New York City. (12) His visit was in preparation for the June 4-July 26 "Exhibition of Paintings by Pittsburgh Artists" to be held in the third floor gallery at the Institute. He would have walked the few blocks from the museum to her garret apartment at 415 S. Dithridge Street.
Notations in museum records show that he viewed two paintings: Colored Girls and Green Sweater. However, what would end up in the show would be Mattie, which sold for $300, and Portrait of Mildred, which was not for sale. (13)
At this time Merle Hoyleman was spending her days doing what she did best--writing, and frequenting the department store and hotel cafeterias, where she drank coffee and talked literature with the passersby. Though she also spent much time at Carnegie Library, she was much more wont to interact with people in a dynamic environment, than to simply hang around the library, as Esther did. A letter written to friends years later perfectly captures what made up her days in any decade, as well her shrewd discourse.
Planned to go to town early and sit in Wm. Penn Lobby [a prestigious downtown Pittsburgh hotel]. I enjoy surveying the crowd there--such a ‘hodge-podge' of humanity. Last time I was there some old buck wanted to take me to dinner. I gave him a run for his money too. (He didn't anticipate it either.) I dressed him down. He frankly admitted he couldn't stand me for daily diet--but I HAD A MIND AND KNEW HOW TO USE IT. (14)
Esther would call upon Merle at her home in Oakland, likely taking with her a change of clothes, and laundry. While there, she surely bathed and ate well, as she did at friend Mary Shaw's. Esther, who seemed to [another friend in their circle] Dorothy Steinberg "to have little social graces, and [was] not good at reaching out to other people," developed a strong friendship with Merle. Steinberg, who admittedly was not a close friend, said that Esther was "never a well-organized person mentally, was rather extravagant in her lifestyle, and very casual in manner." (15)
Merle and Esther, like Van Trump, Shaw, and other artists, were indeed fringe characters--offbeat and unconventional in appearance and thought. With Merle and the others, Esther no doubt felt artistic and social camaraderie. Steinberg recalled that closeness between Merle and Esther, and later wondered if moving to New York did not hurt Esther simply because she broke close ties she had with people who liked and understood her, who appreciated her artistic drive. Other friends, who knew and understood Esther even better than Steinberg, expressed similar feelings.
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NOTES (as numbered in original chapter)
10. George Marion O’Donnell, Introduction to Merle Hoyleman’s Asp of the Age. Self-published. “Printed from the author’s manuscript in an edition of 326.” 1966, Wood Printing, Toronto. The piece “Asp of the Age” originally published in Hound and Horn, fall 1931.
11. Ibid.
12. From notations in “1927-1936 Correspondence on Microfilm.” (Carn. Mus. of Fine Art admin. library; Pittsburgh, PA., text-fiche).
13. Exhibition of Paintings by Pittsburgh Artists, 1936.
14. Merle Hoyleman to “Sara and Ted,” 29 Oct. 1952, Pittsburgh, PA. The draft of this letter, on which Merle then printed “NOT SENT,” was found among her collected papers.
15. Steinberg interview.
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