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Merrill's Notes

Night 1

1) "The Themes . . . . A kind of verse notebook." Ink, pencil, draft paper."

Night 2

2) "The Broken Home." Ink, pencil, draft paper. Verso of 1.

Night 3

3) "Explain: Dahin! Hamam . . . a journal . . . with interpolations." Ink, pencil, draft paper."

Night 4

4) Notebook entry. Ink. 

Night 5

5) Notebook entry: October 1961, May 1963. Ink. Verso of 4.

Night 6

6) Notebook entries, April 14 & 16, 1962. Ink.

Night 7

7) Notebook entries, undated. Ink.

Night 8

8) Notecard. Ink, pencil.

Night 9

9) Notecard. Pencil, ink. Verso of 8.

Notebook entries and jottings preliminary to the poem. Manuscripts 1 and 3 describe the poem as a journal written over a series of months. Manuscript 7 contains a draft of the description of the wen on the hand of the writer's grandmother. See the webpage "'Rigor Vitae'": The City and Wen" on this site for more drafts of the passage on the wen.