Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Wick Green, Petersfield, Hampshire. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/146
Wick Green
Petersfield

14 4 1910

My dear Gordon,

This is not in answer to your letter but to
write a highly impertinent request.
I want to find out under what
circumstances certain live poems or
poems addressed to women are composed, whether
during or after a love passage or in an
interval of calm or without any inference of
individual love. Presumably all four - Now
do you feel able to make in prose a statement
as to the conditions under which any particular
poem of [illegible] ever was written. It is just
possible there is one which you [illegible] ever treat in
writing without difficulty of any kind. I
will not disdain the source of whatever you say
& I will disguise your adroit words &
probably use only my own conclusions drawn
from them. If this is impertinent -
Also do you know if [ illegible] in letters
in autobiographies of poets & that throw light in
methods & times of composition?

Yours ever
Edward Thomas