Matt Roth: Perhaps it would be useful now to clarify what we know regarding these amphisbaenic rhymes.We know […]:Wilson's "Pickerel Pond" poem ...He then responded with a clever poem of his own… In a 6 Feb 1949 letter, VN offered a new quatrain... [...]) We still don't know the origin of Red Wop/powder or nab/ban, but since they come after the Nazitrap/partizan rime, which we know VN invented, we may infer that these too are VN's contributions… we still don't know for sure what Red Wop meant to VN. We have, however, learned that Wilson's poem contributed something to "Pale Fire" (spider/redips, pot/top). Indeed, there are a number of amphisbaenic figures in the poem, even beyond those employed by Hazel. My favorite: how "Retake, retake" (487) turns round to become "skaters" in line 489. Almost as if JS is trying to rewind the scene.

  JM:  Matt, what an efficient organization you brought out about chronologies and innuendoes in connection to “red wop/’ and a focused re- reading of EW/VN letters. The example of /’amphisbaenic technique” using pets and steps , written by Wilson doesn’t seem to belong to the “Pickerel Pond” verses. I may not have spotted them, but should they be something else, this suggests to me that there are more poems where Wilson employed this technique, duly recognized as his innovation in various sites in the internet. We shouldn’t base our deductions solely on the PP poem, nor on their epistolary revelries.  On the whole I think you are absolutely correct in your line of argumentation ( delightful  posting/spotting of “retake” and “skaters’).

Kinbote did not invent “world golf” nor did Wilson  invent “anagrams” and palindromes -  this we know with certainty - and his amphisbaenia is still quite puzzling by its emphasis on syllabic sounds rather than on individual letters (as in his example for “Proust/Rope Utes” and not “Stupor.”). My interpretation (open to all sorts of vehement protests) is that if VN addressed Bunny by ’red wop”  he was then being intentionally critical and cruel, towards his friend (everyone should read what Wilson  set down against Bend Sinister and its nazitrap bans, or follow VN’s impatience with Wilson’s political stand in relation to the USRR).

 

PS: My new Outlook program corrects spelling mistakes automatically. Pity that I still find it a nuisance when I compare it to the more primitive model. I’ll probably end up by pestering you all with my scandalous spelling and drop tyrannical innovations. Please, bear with me.