Our 30 Year Old Friendship: Letters from Louise Bogan to Mildred Weston

This book celebrates the works and days of two significant women of letters, one from "back East, " the other from the Inland Northwest. Both have birthdays in August: the centennial of Louise Bogan's birth is August 11, 1997; Mildred Weston celebrates her ninety-second birthday on August 3, 1997. Poet and critic Louise Bogan lived at the epicenter of the nation's literary life for the three decades spanned by this collection of letters and postcards from New York, Seattle, Chicago and Arkansas, to her friend in Spokane, the poet and teacher, Mildred Weston. Since Miss Weston's share of this correspondence is not available, the young poet Beth Oakes visited her at her home in the Spokane suburbs. From their conversations, which took place on many afternoons in the spring and summer of 1995, Ms. Oakes has distilled Miss Weston's commentary on what Louise Bogan refers to in her last letter, written shortly before her death, as "our 30 year old friendship."