In 1974, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann takes a guest professorship in Austin, Texas. In his seminar sits Hartmut Schnell, a student who has emigrated from Germany. They become friends. After his return in May 1974, Brinkmann is asked for material for a paper that Hartmut Schnell wants to write about his poetry. This serves as the occasion for Brinkmann's fascinating and extensive letters about his work and daily life in the last months of his life. Among other things, Brinkmann describes the development from his early poems, "Snapshots," to the final "open" poems, written in the associative style of Ezra Pound, Burroughs, and Kerouac. He is working on these poems for the legendary collection "Westwärts 1 & 2," which will be published in May 1975. In one of his last letters dated March 4, 1975, he asks Hartmut for the translation of some poems from it.