SOURCE: "Robert Lowell and Free Association," in Mosaic, Vol. XIX, No. 4, Fall, 1986, pp. 121-32.

In the following essay, Wallingford examines free associational thinking as an important element of Lowell's creative process. Wallingford notes that free association, a technique derived from psychoanalysis, permits Lowell to both engage and reflect upon his own unconscious thoughts.

In a letter he wrote in 1949 to George Santayana in Rome, Robert Lowell describes a process of thought which sounds remarkably like the psychoanalytic technique of free association:

Dear Mr. Santayana:

I was just nodding and I saw an image of a fat, yellowish dog receding down the center of a country road—the center was grass and the ruts clam-shells; so much for flux.

I had hoped to send you a book of my poems as a sort of Christmas present; but no. One thing written brings up another—somewhat as the dog-image. Should...