The Press: Desert Flowering

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A literary rose blossomed in the desert last week. From Tucson's University of Arizona, after six years of planning, came the new Arizona Quarterly.* Its ambition was as big as the outdoors: to please, at the same moment, London litterateurs and "the intelligently alive men who run cattle" in Arizona.

The first issue succeeded surprisingly well, though cattlemen may scratch their heads over such lines as: "It was that they were there that held distances off"; and Londoners will probably be unmoved by the fact that the Owl Drug Store in Phoenix now stands where the Central Methodist Church used to. But both Londoner and cattleman should enjoy Neil E. Cook's recollections of embracing a girl in a steel-stayed corset: "like putting your arm around a bunch of lath."

The desert baby (first issue: 1,000 copies) is co-edited by two men born in Arizona ghost towns: Frederick Cromwell, 36; Harry Behn, 46, who wrote movie scenarios for Hell's Angels and The Big Parade. Both hope to draw more heavily on Yaqui and Papago folklore than on the literary curiosa that usually deadens quarterlies. Best bets in Vol. 1, No. 1:

¶Desmond Powell's remembrance of a desert journey with the late Thomas Wolfe: "For one week I saw [him] consume a large steak each morning for breakfast, while lesser men sat around and ate crunchies and tweeties. ... He could recall the smell of a particular apple tree, the feel of a particular door. . . ."

¶Schoolteacher Inez Thrift's experience in an aircraft factory: "After a few days I occasionally felt a oneness with my machine. . . . And the picking up and quarter-turning of each part fell into a rhythmic pattern. . . . "The bee's kiss now,' as I bore down firmly on the reamer. 'The moth's kiss now,' as I lightly burred the edges. . . ."