PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

FURTHER CHANGES IN LH'S TRANSLATION OF GUILLEN

WAKE FOR PAPA MONTERO

OLD READING: juice of the sweet cane / in the gourd of your warm-flush

NEW READING: juice of the sweet cane in the gourd / of your dusky quick flesh [de tu carne prieta y viva]

OLD READING: the blood you / lost down the drain / of a knife wound?

NEW READING: the blood you've lost, / gone down the black / drain of a knife-wound [la sangre que te hace falta / si se te fué por el caño / negro de la puñalada]

OLD READING: But brighter than the candles / lighting your body / is the red shirt / that lighted your songs / and the salt of your music / and your black gleaming hair.

NEW READING: But brighter than the candles / is the red shirt / that lighted your songs, / the dark salt of your music, / your glossy ironed-out hair [¡Y aún te alumbran, más que velas, / la camisa colorada / que iluminó tus canciones, / la prieta sal de tus sones / y tu melena planchada]

'Black gleaming hair' doesn't really get 'melena planchada' — the idea of glossiness and plastering-down-with-grease, or something. OK?

OLD READING: The children picked it up

NEW READING: The kids picked it up [Los muchachos la cogieron]

OLD READING: Tonight I bring it / to put under your head / like a pillow

NEW READING: and I brought it tonight / to be a pillow for you! [y la traje esta noche / y te la puse de almohada! ]

21 X 1941

Dudley Fitts

Good Shepherd Community Center
5120 South Parkway
Chicago, Illinois

April 20, 1942

Mr. Dudley Fitts
Adams South
Andover, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Fitts:

I sent you immediately in answer to your wire, the
one copy of a Jacques Roumain poem which I was able to secure
here in Chicago. I also suggest that you write either the
Crisis or Opportunity in New York for a copy of the one other
Roumain poem which I have published in translation. To secure
the original French of these poems, I suggest that you write
Mr. Roumain directly by Air Mail, addressing him simply: Port
au Prince, Haiti.

I would be delighted to let you have my translations
without fee since you say that your appropriation is running
low.

Have you any translations of Lúис Palé's
Matos in your book? I have done two or three of them. I
think he is an amusing but difficult poet to translate -- a
kind of Caribbean Carl Van Vechten or Ronald Firbank in verse.
I would be happy to send these translations to you should you
desire them.

I will be back in New York early in May and it may
just be possible that I can find in my several trunks of mate-
rial translations that might be of interest to you.

LH:og

## GUINEA

by
Jacques Roumain

It is the long road to Guinea
Death takes you down.

Here the boughs, the trees, the forest.
Listen to the sound of the wind
in the long hair of eternal night.

It is the long road to Guinea
where your fathers await you without impatience.
Along the way they talk.

They wait.

This is the hour when the streams rattle
like beads of bone.

It is the long road to Guinea
where no bright welcome is made for you
into the dark land of dark men:

Under a smokey sky pierced by the cry of birds
around the eye of the river
the eyelashes of the trees open on decaying light.

There, there awaits you beside the water
a quiet village, and the hut of your fathers,
and the hard ancestral stone
where your head will rest at last.

Translated from the French
by Langston Hughes

HAITI

GUINÉE

C'est le lent chemin de Guinée
La mort t'y conduira
Voici les branchages, les arbres, la forêt
Écoute le bruit du vent dans ses longs cheveux
d'éternelle nuit

C'est le lent chemin de Guinée
Tes pères t'attendent sans impatience.
Sur la route, ils palabrent
Il n's attendkr.
Voici l'heure où les ruisseaux grelottent comme
des chapelets d'os

C'est le lent chemin de Guinée
Il ne te sera pas fait de lumineux accueil
Au noir pas des hommes noirs:
Sous un ciel fumeux perce de cris
d'oiseaux

Autour de l'oeil du marigot
les cils des arbres s'écartent sur la clarté pourrissante
Là, t'attend au bord de l'eau un paisilbe village,
et la cas de tes pères, et la dure piegre familiale
où reposer enfin ton front.

Jacques Roumain

HAITI

QUAND BAT LE TAM-TAM...

Ton coeur tremble dans l'ombre, come le
reflet d'un visage dans l'onde trouble

L'ancien mirage se lève su creux de la nuit

Tu connais le doux sortilège du souvenir:

Un fleuve t'emporte loin des berges,

T'emporte vers l'ancestral paysage.

Etends-tu ces voix: elles chantent L'amoureuse
douleur

Et dans le morne, écoute ce tamtam aleter telle
la gorge d'une noire jeune fille

Ton âme, c'est ce reflet dans l'eau murmurante où
tes pères ont penché leurs obscurs visages

Ses secrets mouvements te mèlent à la vague

Et le blanc qui te fit mulâtre, c'est ce peu d'écume rejeté, comme un crachat, sur le rivage.

Jacques Roumain

HAITI

WHEN THE TOM-TOM BEATS

by
Jacques Roumain

Your heart trembles in the shadows
like a face reflected in troubled water.
The old mirage rises from the pit of the night.
You sense the sweet sorcery of the past:
A river carries you far away from the banks,
Carries you toward the ancestral landscape.
Listen to those voices, singing the sadness of love.
In the mountain, hear that tom-tom
panting like the breast of a young black girl.

Your soul is reflected in the whispering waters
where your forefathers bent obscure faces.
The secret movement of the water
carries you into the darkness,
and the white that made you mulatto
is only a bit of foam thrown away,
like spit, on the face of the river.

Adaptation from the French
(Haiti) by Langston Hughes

The one other poem of Jacques Roumain's that I have translated
appeared (with this one, I think) some years ago, in either THE
CRISIS or OPPORTUNITY, the former 69 Fifth Avenue, the latter
1133 Broadway, New York. I am sure the editors could send them
to you. This translation is slightly changed, and somewhat free.
Regretfully, I cannot supply you with the original text. This
material is all in New York in storage now, and I won't be there
until May.

L. H.

Langston
Hughes

Dear Mr. Fitts,

Since you are seeking a line by line translation, of course,
you may make changes in the Pedroso poem. I am.herein re-
turning it to you. Maybe for the white storks, we could say:

"in single line against the screen of an alabaster sky."
"Picturing", however, seems better to me than a literal render-
ing of "siguiendo"---since poetry, even in its own language, is
seldom literal.....Here are the poems of Francisca (Hellie Cam-
pobello) of Mexico City. I also have her book, FRANCISCA, YO,
should you wish to borrow it. KINDLY RETURN TO ME THESE TRANS-
lATIONS as they seem to be the only copy I have on hand. I am
also enclosing a letter I wrote Irita Van Doren about them, as
it has an interesting remark from a critic about the poems.
(Please return also.).....I have never translated Ballagas.
His best work depends on rhythms too difficult to put into
English, I think.....I do have a few translations of Pales
Matos, YUM YUM, etc. in case you haven't enough of him......
Do you have Rebiero Couto of Brazil? I have in mind to do a
translation of his charming little poem about San Benedito.

634 St. Nicholas Avenue,
Apt. 1-D, c/o Harper,
New York, New York,
June 18, 1942.

634 St. Nicholas Avenue,
Apt. 1-D, c/o Harper,
New York, New York,
July 4, 1942.

Dear Mr. Fitts,

I am sure Francisca will be delighted to have you print her poems.
When last I was in Mexico she and her sister were conducting dancing
classes in Mexican folk dances at a downtown studio. I once had her
address, but can't seem to locate it now, but I think she could be
reached through the writer and critic whose comments on her poetry
I sent you, and who first introduced me to her work and helped me
translate it: Jose Antonio Fernandez de Castro,

Embajada de Mexico,
Mexico, D. F., Mexico.

He is a Secretary there, First Secretary, I believe.....I am glad
you like her poems. You would love her little book of stories of
the Mexican Revolution as seen through a child's eyes, CAETUCHO.
It is very simple and moving.....I have no more biographical data
about....I've just written Mr. Hayes a letter in answer to his
questions about Roumann and Francisca, and given him what leads I
could.....Does the book include Eugenio Florit? He's a Cuban poet
working in the Cuban Consulate here.....Pablo Neruda of Chile? And
Reibero Couto of Brazil? (Teriffic jobs for translators!)

I never heard of an "Aulullen". Latin proof readers are somewhat
careless. And Latin poets are not the only ones who can't spell.

All good wishes to you on the proofs of this book.

P.S. I believe you sent me a check for the Guillen poems.
Am I to share that with him, or was he paid direct? Kindly let
me know, in each case where payment is made.

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPYING: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Dudley Pitts
Adams Hall
Andover, Massachusetts

ALTERATIONS IN THE TEXT OF LANGSTON HUGHES'
TRANSLATIONS FROM NICOLAS GUILLEN

I. DEAD SOLDIER

lines 6 & 7: He was dead in the road / and some other soldiers
saw him

lines 11 & 12: When the Captain comes, / all he says is: *Bury him!*

line 16: *THEY PICKED HIM UP FROM THE STREET.*

II. EXECUTION

line 1: They're going to shoot

lines 5-9: There are four soldiers / silent, / and they're tied, /
the same as the man they are going to kill is tied.

line 15: *They've got six balls of hard lead!*

Stanza three: Change the verbs to the preterite, to agree with the
spanish: thus, 'They fired', 'They killed'. Rearrange
the final lines thus: There were four soldiers / silent, /
and an officer gave them a signal, / lowering his sword;
there were four soldiers / tied, / the same as the man
that the four came to kill was tied.

III. SONG IN AN HAVANA BAR

Title: CANTALISO IN A BAR

STANZA 2, lines 1 & 2: All these red Yankees / are sons of a shrimp.

STANZA 2, last 3 lines: you eat and you drink, / but not I, but not I!

STANZA 3, first lines: Though I'm just a poor negro, / I know the
world's going wrong; / and I know a mechanic /
who can fix it up right.

lines 6 ff.: rearrange thus: When you get back / to New York, / send
me some poor folks, / poor like me, /
poor like me, / poor like me! / I'll
give them my hand, / and I'll sing with
them, / because the song that they know /
is the same as that I know.

IV. WAKE FOR PAPA MONTERO

line 5: dead, white moon.

STANZA 5: They were waiting for you in a tenement,

STANZA 7: Only two candles / burn away the shadows. / For your
little death

LAST STANZA: Today the moon dawned. . .

SAME, at end: and I brought it tonight / to be a pillow for you!

7 September 1941

My dear Langston Hughes:

Some weeks ago your agent, Maxim Lieber, wrote me about
your translations from Nicolás Guillén, suggesting that I might want to use some
of them in the anthology of hispanoamerican verse that I am editing. The manu-
script has just arrived, and I am delighted with the poems. I only wish that I
could include them all; but my space is limited, and there's an awful lot of ma-
terial to cover. I should like, then, to use the following poems: DEAD SOLDIER,
SONG IN AN HAVANA BAR, WAKE FOR PAPA MONTERO, and EXECUTION.

I hate editors who insist on rewriting my poetry, and I
beg your indulgence if I seem to be rewriting yours. My first aim, though, in
this book is literal fidelity; after that has been achieved, the english version
may be a poem in its own right. The alterations which I propose on the enclosed
sheet are all in the interests of getting the english text as close to the spanish
as possible. I am printing the spanish text opposite the translation. Will you
check these changes against your original text, and, if they seem fair to you,
OK them and send them back?

One place in the VELORIO worries me: you have the lines
'Nobody could find the knife, / but they brought you home dead'. My own text (it
is not an authoritative one: Guirao's ORBITA DE LA POESIA AFROCUBANA [1936]) o-
mits these lines, and the stanza ends 'dicen que él era tu ecobio, / pero te
trajeron muerto. ..' You must have a definitive text; will you, then, when you
accept (or reject) my emendations, send me the spanish of these two lines?
In the same poem, the refrain '¡Ahora sí que te rompieron. ..': I wonder if
something like 'They certainly got you this time, Papa Montero!' wouldn't be
closer than your 'Tonight they got you'. Check?

Finally, in the Cantaliso poem, what is a 'guiro'? You
translate it 'souvenirs'. Is that all right in Cuban?

If, in spite of all these changes and general impertinences
of mine, you are still willing that I use these four poems, I shall make the finan-
cial arrangements with Mr Lieber. I should be grateful, however, for an early re-
ply one way or the other — the book is nearly done, and I want to get it off to
the printer as soon as I can.

Faithfully yours,

DF/rg

Dudley Fitts
Committee on Publications

23 April 1942

Dear Mr Hughes:

Thank you very much for the poem, which I like tremendously. I have written, in my horrible spanish-struck French, to M. Roumain, asking if he can send me the original text; and, in my less horrible English, to the editors of CRISIS and OPPORTUNITY.

It is characteristically good of you to offer me the poem gratis, but as long as the appropriation holds out I want to pay my way, and while the sum I can pay for the poem is absurdly small — five dollars —, I have nevertheless sent the voucher in to HQ.

Yes, I am using five poems by Palés Matos: 'Elegía del Duque de la Mermelada', 'El pozo', 'Lagarto verde', 'Claro de luna', and 'Náffigo al cielo'. He interests me, although I can't get steamed up about him as I can over Guillén or Pedroso or Ballagas. How abt Ballagas, by the way? I had him down for three poems, but the difficulties he presents have stumped us all and I am afraid that I shall have to leave him out. I particularly wanted his 'María Belén Chacón', but can get nowhere with it. How do you handle the dialect stuff in translation? I can't seem to strike a balance between Uncle Tom, or I guess I mean Remus, and Gilbert Murray.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
COORDINATOR OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS

NEW YORK OFFICE
444 MADISON AVENUE
NEW YORK. N. Y.

Adams Hall South
Andover, Mass

5 May 1942

Dear Mr Hughes:

Thanks ever so much for your help -- I was beginning
to despair of getting the Roumain texts, as he has not answered my
letter.

There are one or two questions... I don't know the
vagaries of Haitian French, and wish to make certain that a few
words are right. In Guinée, stanza 2, line 4: you have Ills-attend-
should this be (Ils attendent?) It is attendent in the 2nd line of that
stanza. Next to last line: pieere or (pierre?) And is the general
lack of punctuation right? If so, shall I follow suit in your transla-
tion?

In Quand bat..., line 3: au creux: shd it be sa-creux?
Line 2: l'onde trouble: shd it be troublée? Line 1: come : comme?
Etends-tu ces voix: Entends-tu ces voix?

Can you tell me the date of R's birth? I have enough
data, otherwise, in your note about him in Pereda Valdés' ANTOLOGIA.*

And finally ( a silly request) -- I find that I've
forgotten to make a carbon of this letter. Will you return it, please,
so that I shall know what I asked you?

I have one poem by Pedroso, 'Mañana', and should like another. Don't
need any more Guillén...probably too many of his already.

DF

*except, Is he still in jail?