To whom it may concern:
James Hoekema as served, for the past six months,
as my editor at George Braziller. We have worked
closely together getting the typescript ready for
pubication, and it is now in galleys.
I cannot praise Mr. Hoekema enough. When he was originally
assigned to me, I was somewhat skeptical, since Jim's
field is art history rather than poetry, and my book
is on Frank O'Hara's poetry. However, Jim quickly
assimilated the relevant material, and his editing
job has been meticulous, careful, discriminating,
tactful. He made very helpful suggestions about revision.
At every stage of the game, he suggested improvements
for the sake of clarity, brevity, or just for a more
"elegant" style.
As a copy-editor, Jim was remakable. He caught every
error, figured out what should go where, condensed
or altered footnotes, suggested additions or deletions
-- in short, he did a superb job on the manuscript
even before it was sent out for the actual copy-editing.
He was wonderful about assembling the figures and
typing legends; he contacted museums and galleries.
He did everything possible.
Most important, as the link between author and publisher,
Jim was wonderful. He kept me fully informed of all
proceedings, phoned every time there was a question
about a certain passage, an additional footnote,
and so on. He was gracious, patient, thoughtful.
Personally, he is charming and seems to get along
well with everyone.
I would say that Jim Hoekema, as a relative beginner,
is an outstanding editor. I've worked with other
editors and found none as helpful and discerning
as he is. He is a fine stylist, and any change in
a given sentence or paragraph is likely to be an
improvement. He workd very hard on my Bibliographical
Note, reorganizing it and getting it into suitable
format. That was a job! In fact, the whole book was
a big job.
Jim deserves the best; he's going to be an oustanding
editor. I recommend him with great pleasure.
Marjorie Perloff
Florence Scott Professor of English
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90007
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