The Trejo mss. consists of letters and manuscripts relating to Ernesto Trejo and Philip Trevine's translation of Jaime Sabines' Tarumba. Included are a 140-page manuscript (mostly ribbon-copy typescript, with several holograph pages, most of which are heavily corrected and annotated by Levine and Trejo) and a file of 39 letters, totaling 74 pages.

After Trejo moved to Mexico, he and Levine began corresponding about their translation project. The correspondence appears to cover 1976 through 1979; although the letters are dated, they do not include years. The result is a remarkable look at the two poets grappling to understand a third.

In most cases, Trejo translated poems into English by typing them out on typing paper, old letterhead, and sometimes on scraps from other sources. He would send them to Levine, who would mark changes in pen, along with comments. His changes sometimes help Trejo, who was a native Spanish speaker, to capture English idioms: "...going down my mouth" Levine changes to "...going down my throat." Other edits are about language. For example, Trejo wrote, "I crave you and close my eyes willingly." Levine revises it to "I want you and shut my eyes on purpose." Levine fills up the rest of the page with an evaluation of the poem: "It seems very close to being right," etc. In all, Levine must offer more than 1,000 changes and comments.

The letters from Levine are long--he rarely leaves any room on a page, often filling both sides of the paper, and he favors 8-1/2 X 11 inch lined paper for his holograph letters (31 title, 65 pages). The letters are mostly newsy, keeping Trejo up-to-date on the American poetry scene while he's in Mexico. They also comment on the translation in progress and Trejo's own poetry. He mentions Charles Wright, Robert Jones, Czeslaw Milosz, Gary Soto, Luis Omar Salinas, Robert Mezey, Peter Everwine, John Berryman, Larry Levis, Rafael Alberti, Pablo Neruda, Galway Kinnell, and many others.

Trejo was just getting his start in poetry, and Levine seems wistful at times about his own early days and returns to them often:

Dec. 23 [1976] "I remember when I was 18 years old & in my 2nd semester at the university a student called me a Trotskyite, & I had to ask him what that meant, & he couldn't or wouldn't explain... My friends in the [Iowa] poetry workshop all considered me a red just because I said our country stinks."

Feb. 16 [1977] "I recall that as a child I discovered that my father had trouble with the law, & I was deeply shocked. One day I asked my mother, & she told me that my father was a kind man & a man who kept his word. I finally discovered that he had deserted from the English army--into which he had been drafted even though he was not English--during WWI, & he'd come to the U.S. on a fake passport. He'd lived 7 years under an assumed name. Once again--in my imagination--he seemed bold. Heroic. What he really was I shall never know, for it pains my mother too much to talk about him."

Aug. 4 [1976] In this letter, he reveals that he contributed extensively to a translation of a Dutch poet, Rutger Kopland: "I hlped [sic] his translator--a Dutch woman--put him in real English--they both know English very well, but they have no ear for it, and since he writes very much in the vernacular, their lack of feel for spoken American English makes it very difficult for them." Levine probably arranged for the publication, too, as the translation in question is almost certainly An Empty Place to Stay, published by the same press as his and Trejo's translation of Tarumba.

Also included is a 3-page holograph letter written to Gary Soto, probably the best Chicano poet and a student of Levine's. Levine sent the letter to Soto when he was staying with Trejo in Mexico. Soto left it behind and it ended up with the other Levine letters.