Evansville, Ind.,

June 7th, 1948.

Dear Mr. Benet:

Knowing your wide human-
itarian interests, I'm sending you some
literature which I hope will impress
you with the need for national legis-
lation. I've written to all this state's
congressmen and senators, and while they
claim to be interested, you know what
politicians are like! Cruelty to animals
never seems to be a major crime,-- not
half as bad as cruelty to the dairy lobby,
and the like! I've already bothered them
with pleas on behalf of the "Displaced
Persons" Bill (the Stratton Bill), and
I suppose I'll keep on bothering them
as long as brutality and injustice walk
this earth. (I'll admit that "our" Ed
Mitchell, Evansville's own GOP Represent-
ative, is very responsive and good-hearted.)

I wonder if somehow the SRL couldn't
plug this anti-steel trap campaign a little?
These little booklets will give you only too
vivid an idea of how badly action is needed
in this affair.

By the way, I hope you can use
my poem, "CITY ZOO", in the SRL. The Evansville
zoo is the "inspiration", shall I say? - of it.
Well-run zoos are bad enough, - but a poorly-
run zoo is a small hell.

Dictated at Pigeon Cove,
Cape Ann, Mass.,
June 14, 1948.

Miss Leah Bodine Drake,
1219 S. E. First St.,
Evansville, Indiana.

Dear Miss Drake:

I am sorry your poem on
the zoo is not quite what we can
use in the Saturday Review. I think
that metal traps are very cruel to
animals and am certainly not in favor
of them, and thank you for sending
me the printed literature you have
concerning your campaign.

agm

Enc.

"City Zoo"

Leah Bodine Drake

1219 S.E.First St.,
Evansville, Indiana.

October 25th, 1948.

Dear William Rose Benet:

I am starting a radio poetry program over our new station here, next month. We will be affiliated with Mutual and ABC, and my program will be every Saturday afternoon, fifteen minutes, just before the Met Opera program, which we will carry. WJPS will serve Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois.

I plan to use poems of modern poets almost exclusively, - which gives me an elastic margin, for several, although now dead, surely come into that category. This includes the poems of Stephen Vincent Benet and Elinor Wylie (the latter being my personal idol.)

Now I'd like your permission to use the poems of your late brother and of your late wife on my program, and also your own poems, whenever I wish. May I have your permission?

Also, may I read poems from the current SRLs, such as Eric Wilson Barker's, Sara Henderson Hay, etc., if I give credit to both poet and publication? (That's taken for granted, of course, in every case.)

I may see you in person this winter: Gustav Davidson of the PSA, is, as you very likely know, getting up a WEEK OF POETRY next December and asked me to come on and read my poems, as a part of the group called "the younger poets". I'm not sure if that means "younger" in years, - or poetic achievement! Both, I reckon!

Very Truly Yours,

November 17, 1948.

Leah Bodine Drake,
1219 S.E.First St.,
Evansville, Ind.

Dear Mrs. Drake:

Your request for a blanket permission to use
any poems you like of my brother's, my late wife's, and
my own on your radio program is, unfortunately, a request
I cannot grant. Nor can I vouch for the permission from
poets who have appeared in The Saturday Review of Litera-
ture. If you will write to these poets in care of The Sat-
urday Review, your request will be forwarded to them.
You see, at present, there is no payment to poets for
the use of their work over the radio. When they choose
to read from their own work that is another thing, but
I honestly do not think that any blanket permission of
the kind you desire is a good thing for the poets or
their poetry; because if you were given such permission
there would be no reason for withholding it from anybody
else later on who requested it. At any rate, that is
the way I feel about my late brother's poems and those
of my late wife's. On the other hand, if you can mention
specific poems that you would like to read I can get in
touch with my brother's agent and my late wife's publisher,
since their permission would have to be given as well as
mine.

I'm sorry to appear obstructive in this matter,
but the Authors' League is at present trying to work out
some sort of permanent arrangement concerning radio broad-
casts, and until they do I don't think that poets should
donate their work wholesale.

With best wishes, and regret,

agm

Leah Bodine Drake

1219 S.E.First St.,
Evansville, Ind.,
November 24th, 1948.

Dear Mr. Benet:

Thank you for your long letter
__re__ the obstacles in the path of the radio
poetry reader. It __does__ seem to be in a snarl!

However, the program here has
been shelved for the time being, - it seems
they've hooked up with Ted Malone(!) and one
poetry spot is about all, they feel, that the
good burghers of Evansville would stand for.

I had hoped to meet many of you
PSA members this winter, if I took up Gustav
Davidson's invitation to participate in his
POETRY WEEK, but it didn't work out that way.

You may be interested in know-
ing that August Derleth of ARKHAM HOUSE,
(which as you know, publishes only fantasy)

is bringing out a book (my first!) of my
weird poems. Not things like the one you all
published, - HONEY FROM THE LION - but only
my more spooky verse. It will be called
"A HORNBOOK FOR WITCHES", and will be out
in about two years, - massey, that's a long
time to wait, when it's one's first book! It
will be, I believe, ARKHAM H.'s second book of
poetry, the first being the anthology "DARK
OF THE MOON", you remember. The best thing
about MY BOOK (you can just hear me say it in
capitals!) is, that August, whom I know person-
ally (and a grand person he is, too) wrote me
and suggested the whole idea to me, and is going
to finance the job and pay me 10% royalties.
I had a horrible idea that poets always had
to put up the money for their own first book, -
but I must have been wonderfully wrong!

(Miss) Leah Bodine Drake.