PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Adams Hall
Andover, Massachusetts

5 October 1941

Dear Jakob:

Yr letter, &c. Leave us be reasonable. I can't invent poets and poetesses from Honduras, Dominican Repub., Nicaragua, Panamá, and so on. The reason for the lacunae is that to date all my research has not availed to find anything printable from those places. De Perayra has ordered books, but they have been slow in arriving. When they do arrive, no doubt the blanks will be filled. Meanwhile, for your catalogue, instead of doing what is impossible -- committing yourself to the printing of some horrible stinkpot simply because Paraguay has got to have its own peculiar odor represented, -- can't you word your announcement in such a way as to imply 'and others, of other countries'? The names that I sent Erskine, starred, were all important. You do not, customarily, advertize every name in a large anthology. Why do so in this one? Just the big ones. The Brazilian part is being done by Poore, and I have no answer to letters asking for his poets' names. You had best get in touch with him yourself. I shall do all that I can to see that every country is represented, but I definitely WILL NOT include shit, to soothe a few bruised brows in the Pan American Union while the Athenaea of South America rock with laughter.

JPB wrote days ago that you had signed the contract. I hope so. I hope also that you feel confident enough of the Republic's solvency to send me those fivehundred bucks that have shorely been due me for some time. I must, as a m. of f., have them by the fifteenth of this month in order to meet a note which otherwise I have no way of meeting.

Ciau, amico, Chow!

Yggdrasil F. Fleem, S.J.

febrero 7 de 1942

Distinguido amigo mío:

Le agradecí mucho por su amable carta del 23 de noviembre, y espero que me perdoné el no haberle contestado antes.

He seleccionado, y tengo traducidos, los siguientes poemas de usted: LLAVABA LA LAMPARA, LOS GATOS BLANCOS DE LA DUQUESA, y PORCELANA DEL NORTE. También quisiera incluir su DANZA DE LA CAMPINA porque pasa tan bellamente al inglés; mas si usted prefiere, lo dejaré. Uno de mis traductores está haciendo una versión de EL TELEGRAFISTA MUERTO. En cuanto al poema que me mandó usted en manuscrito, he gratado yo mismo de traducirlo; mas a causa de la onomatopeya compleja & lujuriosa no resulta bien en inglés.

Al escribirle el verano pasado o ití los nombres de Vallejo, Oquendo de Amat, y Martín Adán. Le aseguro de que aparecían, con usted, en mi lista original, y siento que no los haya mencionado en mi carta. Es muy difícil obtener poemas de Oquendo — ni en la Biblioteca Congresional ni en la de la Universidad Harvard no se encuentra un ejemplar de 5 METROS — y tengo solamente unas poesías en manuscrito que me envió Emilio Adolfo.

Espero que usted tenga razón diciéndome que José María Eguren me daría su permiso de incluir unos poemas suyos, pues he seleccionado tres aunque todavía no he recibido contestación a mi carta de julio.

Usted me pide los nombres de personas a quienes interesaría su libro. Bueno, creo que sería buen idea la de enviarlo a los siguientes: 1] Archibald MacLeish, Bibliotecario del Congreso de los E.U.A, Washington, D.C.; 2] Donald Wing, Biblioteca de la Universidad Yale, New Haven, Connecticut; el Profesor Donald Walsh, The Choate School, Wallingford, Connecticut; 4] la Señora Concha Romero James, Unión Panamericana, Washington, D.C.; Señor John Peale Bishop, 11 West 54th Street, Nueva-York.

Cariñosamente,

Dudley Fitts

Adams South

Andover, Massachusetts

9 II 1942

Dear Jakob:

Yr card rec'd & contents noted. In reply wd state: abt 19/20s
done. The english texts have been revised, and spanish texts clipped to
them. Now the .ms. goes off to John Bishop, who very wisely insists upon
having a copy made at his office. It seems that he can't authorize your
getting your last thousand bucks without first displaying the Very Corpus
to the Dep't of State: hinc illae morae. While he is having it copied, I
shall be editing the last few poems & whipping them into shape; but to all
intents and purposes the book is done.

There remain the brief introduction and the biographical & bibliographical notes. I shall toss off the former one of these days. Hays came up to see me day before yesterday, and I gave him all the biographical material that I have; he will presumably swing into action immediately. Neither John nor I have heard anything from Poore, and the whole portuguese section remains up in the air.

Have you any ideas as to the title of the book? The sub-title,
of course, will be AN ANTHOLOGY OF LATIN-AMERICAN POETRY (supply CONTEMPO-
ARY after OF]; but I shd like some single-word main title; and, since the
book is to be completely bilingual, even to the title-page, preferably a
word which is the same in spanish and in english. My first guess was
CONDOR, same being the nat'l boid of them andean parts; but John says No,
that CONDOR has unhappy ass'ns — the name of the nazi-owned airline.
John suggests LAS OTRAS AMERICAS: THE OTHER AMERICAS; but why aren't we
La otra América?

I am grouping the poems not by nations, since that wd expose
an embarrassing sterility in 2 or 3 cases, but roughly by manner — sym-
bolist, surrealist, Auld Lang Syne, u.s.w. This seem OK to you? Then,
in the little appendix of notes at the end of the book, each poet will
be described something like this:

GINSBERG Y MULLIGAN, Ramón Ángel. [Perú] Born in Lima, 1900. Died in jail, 1910. His father was a well known trombonist in the Lima Zoo, his mother an accomplished harlot. His chief works are: *Ascuas y vaginas* [Madrid, 1905]; *La sangre del hueso: poemas* [Oak Bluffs, Mass., 1909]; *Apuntes sobre el 'Breviarium cunnilinguisticum' de Sor Magdalena de la Matella Sucia* [Humboldt, n.d.].

OK? Lemme know. --- [Jas.: WHY do you print things like Delmore's alleged
verse play in the new Yr.-Book? Isn't it time to retire that guy for a
bit? If I am ever confronted with ISOLATION &c again, I think I shall lose
my mind. No good in N'Orleand; no good at Choate; no good in the Kenyon
Rev.; and still no good, no good. He is embarrassing.]

Servissimus tuissimus

NEW
DIRECTIONS

NORFOLK
CONNECTICUT

Imperial Prince -

The trubble about the lost figures is that there was a complicated structure of allocations, partly having to do with what we were to get for the 1000 copies they take in relation to a sliding scale effecting a reduced price.

If you recollect that 1300 was what we had to spend that is probably right, as $2 per copy lingers in my mind as the price to them of the books. Then with 500 more that makes 1800. This to cover: Beilenson's changes
- translation fees
- payments to bards
- your book bills
- your fee

Now I think the best thing is for you to send me your bills and I'll pay them, and vouchers for translators you wish me to pay, and we better pay the bards the same rates they got before.

Please don't go over the budget because I am going to take a terribly caning on this job because of the way printing prices have inflated, likewise paper and binding, just since we been negotiating, and I gotta sell for 2.50 by the contrack.

Now I did not get to see Poore when I was down to see EzPo, but I assume that what he wants is that you don't cut out, you just add. So you gotta figure Brother B is going to charge us pretty near $4 a page to set Spinach and between $2 and $3 to set the completely new pages and provide repro proofs to the photostat man.

Oh Sir, I meditate upon the great good fruits of the late glorious struggle how for all that effort we have got one hell of an inflation that is ruining the print business, and we have X-changed one despotism for another in most all of Yurrup, and withal we have got the new and greater Bubble Gum to remember that Great White Fawther by. Yessir.

NEW YORK OFFICE: 67 WEST 44TH STREET

James

For DUDLEY FITTS

SCIENCE SERVICE

THE INSTITUTION FOR THE POPULARIZATION OF SCIENCE organized 1921 as a non-profit corporation, with trustees nominated by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the E. W. Scripps Estate and the Journalistic Profession. WATSON DAVIS, DIRECTOR.

1719 N Street, N. W. WASHINGTON 6, D. C.

Telephone NOrth 2255

Cable Address Scien serve

Mr. James Laughlin
New Directions
67 West 44th Street
New York, New York

August 28, 1946

La Trans Contract #64

Dear Mr. Laughlin:

I return to you herewith the manuscript of the new material to be added to the ANTHOLOGY OF LATIN AMERICAN POETRY, La Trans Contract #64, submitted to us in order to obtain approval from the Department of State.

This material has been reviewed and the Department of State asks that you send directly to Mr. Alberto M. Vasquez, Area Division 4 (American Republics) Department of State, Room 206A, War Manpower Building, 18th and Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C., the second printing so that it may be reviewed so far as typos are concerned, as previously discussed. I am sure that this will be very helpful.

Attention is called by the reviewer to the fact that the English version of one poem and the Spanish version of another poem is missing from the material transmitted. The reviewer has indicated in pencil some minor changes which in his opinion are necessary.

With a copy of the second printing in the hands of Mr. Vasquez, I believe that it will then be possible to obtain the approval of the Department of State.

With appreciation,

WD:nt
Encls.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES: OTIS W. CALDWELL, ROYAL THOMPSON INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH; EDWIN G. CONKLIN, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; MAX B. COOK, SCRIBS. HOWARD NEWSPAPERS; TREASURER; FRANK R. FORD, LYANSVILLE PRESS; ROSS G. HARRISON, YALE UNIVERSITY; A. H. KIRCHHOFF, MANAGER, BOSTON DAILY NEWSPAPER; WARREN H. LEWIS, RISTAIN INSTITUTE; K. A. MILLIKAN, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; O. W. RIEGEL, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON AND LEES SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM; PRESIDENT, HARLOW SHAPLEY, DIRECTOR, HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY; H. L. SMITHSON, EXECUTIVE AGENT OF THE W. B. G. TRUST; NEIL H. SWANSON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR; SUN PAPERS; HUGH S. TAYLOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; WILLARD L. VALENTINE, EDITOR OF SCIENT. Vice-President and Chairman of Executive Committee; ALEXANDER WETMORE, SECRETARY; SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE.