“THE TRUTH OF THIS WHOLE PAGE STANDS JUST AS TRUE AS ANY HOLLER IN ANY LAND ON EARTH”:EXTRAORDINARY 1946 AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY WOODY GUTHRIE, FEATURING A LENGTHY LYRIC POEM AND EIGHT ORIGINAL SKETCHES

GUTHRIE, Woody. Autograph letter signed. [Stroudsburg], Pennsylvania: October 8, 1946. Eight pages on four sheets of paper (measuring 8 by 14 inches), neat cursive on recto and verso, staple bound. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $16,000.

Original signed autograph letter, this eight-page letter written entirely in Woody Guthrie’s hand, signed by him and dated “10-8-‘46,” vibrant in imagery that captures “Guthrie’s importance in the American literary tradition… [and] strong impact on songwriters of the next generation, most notably Bob Dylan” (Santelli), featuring Guthrie’s pensive yet whimsical long poem to intimate correspondent Charlotte Strauss, with eight original sketches of a man adrift in a swirl of hearts.

In the autumn of 1946, Guthrie and his wife Marjorie shared a house in the Pocono Mountains near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania with two other families, spending weekends together and allowing Guthrie time alone during the week to work. This eight-page letter to his close friend Charlotte Strauss—at once elegiac, Whitmanesque and undeniably the voice of Woody Guthrie—is especially poignant in a cascade of closing poetic stanzas accompanied by his sketches of a man adrift in a swirl of hearts. As the letter’s vivid lyricism makes clear throughout, “Guthrie’s importance in the American literary tradition cannot be separate from… an uninhibited stream-of-consciousness style [that] would have a strong impact on songwriters of the next generation, most notably Bob Dylan” (Santelli, 88). Here Guthrie writes of autumn’s vibrant colors, bright as any “on the slopes of Montana” or seen in the “glows of our Oklahoma sunsets.” Where “sky lights dance all over every leaf,” he writes, “I can hear in all of these colors my own first and true song.” This is the eloquence and vision that Guthrie shared with Whitman, both seeking an American voice that would “roll with the strong cadences and ‘varied carols’ of the American people” (Santelli, 70).

Guthrie’s letter reads: “—-‘sburg, Pennsylvania 10-8-‘46 Page One

These colors up here in the Poconos make me feel like I’m sinking down and jumping up new. The red is red like paint in a bucket poured, splashed, smeared all together with funny yellow leaves, dull brown ones, bushes dobbed purples and all crazy kinds of shadows, all kinds of sun sprays and sky lights dance all over every leaf. I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I’m here, glad to eat here, glad to walk here on these ponds and drifts of dead leaves. I doubt if you Pocono folks really ever can know how lucky you are to have these painted leaves all around here you here. It might take my mouth and my voice to tell you what you see here. I’m just a roadwalking stranger here, myself. You watch me walk past or through your trees and leaf piles and paid me no mind, gave me no footrace nor wild run. You may have asked yourself what sort of a work can such a man as me do? I can tell you about your Poconos because I fought the Kittytannies to sleep with your Alleghehanies [sic]. I sung songs and told stories to your Delaware from her tail down to her mouth. I always done all right for myself. I always tried to do right by you. Most times you done all right by me. When it all worked together we all done allright by one another. I feel the same as you feel when I walk along your apple hills here and taste all of these pretty colors. And I sing to your Delaware girls and they taste of every sweet flavor and scent of your leaves. I see leaves that fall and leaves that hold tight, I see girls that do the same. I can just look out across these going hills and sing to every woman in Pennsylvania.

[two inch loss to right corner affecting several words in first two lines of text]

2 [page number circled] 10-8-‘46

I know your Sambo Creek b— [text missing] built Rockwell dams with my bare [text missing] here to make wading pools and pools to strip naked and swim in. I dug your loose shale rock and your mud all full of grassroots, and I saw your bull frog, tadpole, water bug, water spider, saw your little fast water snake this late in October. I found your black crawfish and your little red sandy mud lizards buried away, I guess, for the whole cold season which is going to come any day now. I saw the sharecropper kids walk down your hill trails and heard them ask me could they swim or wade in my pools? I said these pools are not mine, they are yours, go ahead and splash them dry. They asked me could they go over to that tree there and pick up some green walnuts. I said yes, go ahead, and pick all your dress and apron can hold. The boy carried a little dead watersnake on a long stick and they asked me all about the snake. I told them it was justa snake was all I knew. They asked what kind of a snake it was. Then one of the boys said, aww, it’s a dead snake. This same little girl taught me how to lift up these flat rocks and rotten logs and how to twist the tails off of little baby lizards. I’ve seen these kids around the place here several times, but they didn’t waste very many words on me up until today. The three of them come every day at a certain hour to carry off our garbage and to feed it to their hogs. I would say from the looks of their faces, eyes, hands and bare feet, that they ought to be fed a whole lot better, lots better stuff, and lots more of it several settings every day. When will some of you Pennsylvania writers and singers sing and write about the real people back here in these hills of ours? Yes, I call them our hills already and my name’s not even on any mail box. My name is down on the paper at your unemployment office as a ‘character singer’ and a ‘literary writer’. I guess I sing about characters and write about literature or something.

10-8-‘46 3 [page number circled]

I can hear the birds of the night calling all around me in my good trees. I can hear birds with names I never will know. I’ll always know you by the sounds of your songs, I guess, and maybe never know you by your name in a book. I can hear the cricket’s little scratchy fiddle song right here somewhere under my floor. I can hear him rub his legs together and sing out what he believes in. I can hear him sing up and sing loud, and hear him sing like he feels. Makes me wish I could rub my legs together and make music. I’d never have to buy fiddle strings nor bow harps. Never have to buy no guitar strings, no new mouth harp every month or so. I only wish I knew how to talk or to sing cricket lingo. Then I could listen to him all of the time in every country on the map, and be able to understand the cricket in every foreign tongue across the oceans and all around the world. All I can say here tonight is sing on, little cricket, sing on. Stay away from that saloon down yonder on the road where that sign on the old well says, No Singing. The weeds, bushes, and vines sway in the breezes here tonight and they scratch on all of my window screens. Scares me so much it keeps me jumping and twisting and turning to look. I’ve not lived in this house but a week or so, not long enough to get used to all its screaks and sounds and noises. So, well, every time I hear some rap, or knock, or stomp, or bell, or rub, or a scrape, or a bump or a bang, my finger nails itch and my hair raises up, my mouth flies open, and I tremble and shake all over, like a scared dog does. Like you’ve seen a scared horse do out along some stormy pasture. Sambo Creek is pretty and Sambo Creek is spooky, ghosty and scarey [sic]. Sambo Holler is prettier than its name, but Sambo Holler is a scarey place to a newly come stranger in an old and rambling farm house. I’ve learned to get scared easy and to like it. I’ve learned not to get too scared of anything outside of my own self.

4 [page number outlined] 10-8-‘46

I don’t [sic] guess I could change the colors on one little leaf and make it any better to look at. I couldn’t retouch even one limb or twig, or stump or tree trunk and make it look any better to a squirrel or nicer to a chipmunk. These are as bright as the flaming Indian bush leaves on the slopes of Montana. These are as fiery and as easy to the eye as all of the glows of our Oklahoma sunsets. All of the colors of Californias [sic] palms and cactus are here somewhere up and down this Sambo Holler. The art museum did not steal all of our best colors. The library didn’t pack all of them down from these mountains. I’ve walked in a hundred studios and galleries and seen most all, but not all, of these wild jumping hills of the Pocono Ridge. I see all of New Mexicos [sic] purple shades and gold hues here. I see the tans and flat greys and browns of Texas here. The blues and greens and tricky clear colors of Colorado I can sing out to in my good old Pocono humps. North Africas [sic] sandy, whitish, dusty colors are all here. The colors up from out of the Mediterranean are all here. You can hear the same mountain sounds, whoops, barks, yells, grunts, hellos and all of the same sounding songs here, if you look with your clean eye. New York Citys [sic] metal and brick colors are here where the sun can get a better shot at them. It seems to me that the colors do make a music of their own. They make the birds, bugs, bees, dogs, sheep, cattle, and all of our crawlers and creepers make their own music. It makes me see the deep places of music and it hurts my heart to feel and to hear most of the music of our neon bulbs. Here you can hear the tale and see the story of the hill people, the valley people, the farming people, and the busy city people. I think I can hear in all of these colors my own first and true song. I can see my song splashed out here in front of me. And I can hear it. My first and last song. I can hear your song the same. I can hear them meet and travel and roll down across the grass roots. I guess all of these leaves of things are my note books and my songbooks. These must be a good big part of my school books. And here is where I have watched the people and wrote the people down here in my hand.

10-8- ‘46 5 [page number circled]

And this is the color of the place where we had the child and the next child. Here are all of the colors where the other child died. And I see the colors of places where some got lost, some got hurt, some got knocked down and some got killed here. There are as many of thee to come to mind as I see colors out across yonder. As many hunted here for the same thing I hunt here for. Yes. We did all hunt for the same things here. And the things we hunt for are the same every century. The same in every color of every running season. We hunted here in our old centuries for this same thing. We hunt here in our new century for it. We will walk here and talk here, fall here and hug here, kiss here, feel here, and roll with the clouds here in our centuries that are still spun in our webs and laid full of our seeds are born and spun and seeded and hung up again. And all we hunt here for is our own self and selves. To see one another better and our own self better. To find health here, food and air and water to grow on, new ground to break and harrow and plant and argue and debate and fight on. These same tree frogs have sung and will sing just about the same music note in each of our come and gone centuries. The word we look for here could be called love. It could be called unity. It could be called most anything, any word. It could be called truth or could be called light, spirit, life, new birth, rebirth, or any other sound meaning the same on every tongue. This is our word together which none of us will ever hear or know apart. It drives and herds us to come together and to work for the best good of all of us. And this is why you come here and why I come here. To find some one little word, or glance, or look, or breath, that we have not yet found in any other place. But the place is everywhere and the truth of this whole page stands just as true in any holler in any land on earth as it stands for us and our Poconos.

6 [page number circled] 10-8-‘46

This ridge and this valley along Sambo Creek are full of the animals and peoples that heard the song of all of our colors here. They grabbed axes, plows, saws, hammers, nails, cement, sand, rocks, gravel, machinery and tools and raised up these houses you see scattered. Sambo Creek is a pretty little creek. Its [sic] a rocky little creek. It’s an awful cool and clear little creek. Its sounds are keen and high and low like the music the rains play. And the only reason why I can walk here and really listen and hear and see all of this is because I listen in love. And my love takes the sounds of the music on to the one that knows me and listens for my music and brings me her own. I done this same sort of passing on when I washed my dishes in the kitchen of the ship in the days when I was a Merchant Mariner. And now are my words laid in the ways of a fable? Are they said in the fashion of the proverb? Are they dancing to skin drum poetry or to the plaster cracking on a school wall? A wall or a hall or no place at all. My love will catch all of this and digest it into all of the honey and milk that I can drink.

[following in verse stanzas]

Will these apples reach the glory,

Or this falling down house,

As these letters by me,

And by Charlotte of Strauss?

I’ll rest a little hour or two

Yes, I’ll rest an hour or two

And rest here an hour

And an hour or two

And then, baby, wake up,

And come straight for you.

I’m oh glad, so glad oh glad

So glad I’m so glad

Glad oh yes glad glad glad

That I took a little

Quick rest

To rest up my head.

A hundred songs

I’ve got to send

Down to that Delaware

River’s bend.

10-8-’46 7 [page number circled with lines at sides]

Charlotte of Strauss

Charlotte of Strauss

Charlotte of Strauss

Charlotte of Strauss

[verse stanzas spaced as shown]

A thousand verses

Ought to go

Down where those

Big high maples grow.

Seven thousand

Ought to run

Down that river

To the rising sun.

A whole big bundle

Ought to flow

Down this Delaware’s rim

I know.

Several more

And then some more

Ought to ease down

This River’s shore.

How many should go

I cant [sic] say

Down to sweet old

Bristol’s way.

More than

I have ever wrote

Ought to go down

To join her thoughts.

When I can

I’ll throw them in

The Delaware here

And float them down.

Watch for the

Loose leaves fell from trees

Because my songs

Sound best on these.

Listen for a wild wind

Passing you by

This is the way my

Wild songs fly.

Go down where

The maples grow

And say you’re coming

Yes or no.

But not no.

‘Cause I can’t take no.

And I wont [sic] take no.

Wont [sic] have no.

Dont [sic] want no.

Had too many noes [sic]

On my river already.

[following lines written at an angle]

If you do say no

You go say it

Way back

Way back

Over in back

Of that old dark

Hill

Yonder

Where nobody

Cant [sic] hear you

And where you

Cant [sic] hurt nobody.

8 [page number circled with lines at edges] 10-8-46 C of S

[verse stanzas spaced as shown, sketches of six hearts and three sketches of a man’s shape outlined, at left and right margins]

And dont [sic] say to wait

Wait is worse than to

Say no.

Wait hurts

And a no feels good

Wait makes you sick

A no cures you all over

The word wait

Works okay

In lots of conversation

But

Not

In

Our

Conversation

Because

Loving and waiting

Are two

Different people

Love waits

When the waiting

Is a part of the road

But

Love dont [sic] wait

Till the weather clears up

Nor the bills are paid up

Nor it

Don’t [sic] even wait

Till

The head clears up

I’m the worlds [sic]

Worst waiter

I hate to wate [sic]

Or to wait I hate

I hate

Waiting

And waiting

Hates me

If I ever waited

On anything

Or anybody

Or any train

Or any letter

Or any earthy event

I’m sorry I done it

Sorry I waited

I never advised

Anybody anywhere

To wait

On anybody

And I ain’t gonna start

This late in life

So dont [sic] wait

On me.

The same Woody.” New Grove, 856. From the estate of Charlotte Strauss, whose revealing and often passionate correspondence with Guthrie began in 1945, intensified as he completed his tour with the Army, and continued over several years.

Text fresh and bright, light creases at foldlines, small bit of loss to upper corner of first leaf slightly affecting some words. An about-fine document of key significance to the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie.