Letter from E.J. Pratt to Lorne Pierce, 24 January 1949

Calvert C. Pratt
Waterford Bridge Road
St. John's, Nfld.
040
January 24, 1949
My dear Lorne:
I should be glad to offer the poem entitled Newfoundland in the revised form as it appears on 165 in the Collected Poems. It is the only substantive poem that I have written on the country itself and as it is in the form of an Ode, it might send your purpose. I haven't anything quite new and as I am marking twice as hard as at any other time of my life I cannot see any leisure ahead.
The feeling against Confederation is running so high down here that I wouldn't touch the issue (or comment on its benefits etc. etc) with a pole as long as from Gander Air Port to London and back to Ottawa. In my addresses I steer clear of it as I am no economist anyway. There is the reason why a poem like Newfoundland would be much preferable to a Foreword which, [where?] any teeth in it at all, would have to refer to the union, the future and so on.
I shall be back in Toronto after few days. They arranged a schedule here for me three times as big as was formerly agreed on.
As Ever
Ned.