CEDRIC DOVER
3 ST. PETER'S SQUARE
LONDON. W. 6

January 26, 1947

Dear Claude:

I enclose a synopsis which will make my *Singing Brown* project clearer I hope. I would be grateful for a photograph of yourself - preferably in some homely, occupational or communal activity - for the book, and any new poems you care to send.

Did you receive my reply to your letter? And what did you think of my offer to try to place a selected edition of your poems, as well as the story of your boyhood which you are doing?

Are you back in Chicago? And, above all, are you definitely feeling better?

3.

10. Answering the Call

The proof of patriotism. Negroes in two world wars.
Poems of their attitudes, feelings, conditions.

11. There's No Place...

Negro poets on their city, their home-town, their
little bit of country.

12. Down the Avenue

Harlem the pulse of Negro America. Poem - snapshots of
its sights, sounds, people.

13. Langston Hughes: Man With a Mule

Profile.

14. Ever and Forever

Discussion on the supposedly inferior sensitivity
of the Negro linked with poems by Negroes on true love.

15. Parting's Sweet Sorrow

As handled by Negro poets.

16. Life's Little Joys

Life as 'a pint of joy to a peck of trouble'. Cottages
on the hill, cabins in the clearing, where 'mammy says de
blessin' an' de co'n pone's hot.' Poems of domesticity.

17. Tone the Bell Easy

The end of the personal road. Poems of death.

18. Paul Laurence Dunbar: 'Keep A-Pluggin' Away'

Critical profile.

19. The Heart of a Woman

The feminine angle. Poems and short portrait-studies.

20. Tears in Things

Nostalagic lyrics. The Negro's advantage in such
poetry,

21. Claude McKay . . . . .

Profile.

22. Singing Brown

The cult (with poems) of brown paganism.

23. The Big Brass Bed

The real paganism. Negro poems of 'the right true
end of love' extensively compared with English poems on
the same subject.

24. The New Negro

Story of the 'Negro Renaissance'. Origins, importance,
limitations.

4.

25. <u>Ebony Towers</u>
Poets of the ebony tower. A reflection of the Negro Renaissance. Examples.

26. <u>Countee Cullen</u>: 'Pain is No Patriot'.
Critical study.

27. <u>Freedom Road</u>
Early Negro poetry and the Abolitionist Movement.
Civil War poems.

28. <u>Uncle Tom's Cabin</u>
Discussion centred around Harriet Beecher Stowe and her book. Importance. Repercussions. Creation of stereotypes.

29. <u>Spirituals: The Rainbow Sign</u>
The story of the spirituals. Origins. Influence. Musical importance.

30. <u>Spirituals: Wheels Widin' Wheels</u>
The spirituals as poetry. Revolutionary content.

31. <u>James Weldon Johnson</u>: . . . . . .
Profile.

32. <u>Stand Right Steady</u>
Secular songs. Ballads. Worksongs. Blues.

33. <u>Paul Robeson: Old Man River Himself</u>
Portrait of the greatest Negro folk-singer.

34. <u>That Trumpet Sound</u>
Religion in the Negro scene. Poems inspired by it. The reaction against religion - anti-religious poems.

35. <u>Looking for a Box Car</u>
Origins and poems of 'The Great American Bum' as a background to the understanding of Negro 'travelling men'. Negro poems of wandering and escape. The beginnings of poetry pointing industrial conditions.

36. <u>Lice in Jail</u>
A continuation of the economic picture. From unemployment to chain gangs. Folk songs illustrating the conditions and set-up.

37. <u>Screaming Moonlight</u>
Lynching the culmination of oppression. The lynching picture - extent, depravity, causes, effects. Anti-lynching poems.