The 1941 meeting of the MLA was held in Indianapolis at the traditional time at the end of the year. Cleanth Brooks is listed in the proceedings. McLuhan is not listed, but Indianapolis is the closest major city to St Louis. It is likely that he would have driven or taken the train over to the event, presumably with SLU colleagues.

It is not known if McLuhan made the trip or, if he made it, if he met Brooks there. But at some point in 1942 or 1943 (years in which the MLA did not hold its annual meeting) the two did meet and established a kind of working association that saw Brooks help McLuhan publish his ‘Edgar Poe’s Tradition’ paper early in 1944. And then his ‘Analogical Mirrors’ paper a few months later in a Kenyon Review issue edited by Brooks.

Of course there are other possibilities. McLuhan could have written Brooks about his 1938 anthology, Understanding Poetry.¹ Or about his 1939 Modern Poetry and the Tradition. It is easy to imagine both as course books in McLuhan’s poetry classes. But if he did, this correspondence has not not survived.² Or Brooks could have lectured during this time at one of the universities in St Louis. But until decisive evidence emerges, that end of year 1941 MLA conference provides the most ‘likely location for the start of a friendship that lasted the rest of McLuhan’s life.³