Rosey E. Pool
11, Geleenstraat
Amsterdam Z.
Holland.

October 21st. Amsterdam.

Dear Langston Hughes,

this certainly isn't going to be the long letter full of questions the answering of which I would never expect you to do as one single human being simply can't have so much time; this letter is just meant to introduce my work and myself to you and to try to get into touch with you and your friends.

As you may see from the enclosed program of a recital given to a public of Dutch students, artists and other people who are interested in the world's problems I occupy myself and have been doing so for a couple of years with the poetry of America's famous ten percent. As a matter of fact I'm occupying myself with the problems of all that are oppressed, I myself having been one of the millions that were put into concentration camps by the Germans. I managed however to run away after a half year and have been hiding *IMMIGRATION* later for one year and a half till May 1945 brought my liberation. Maybe that's why I see your problems with a more personal interest now, maybe that's why the Dutch public understand them better and take a deeper interest than before, I mean before they themselves learned what persecution, what discrimination, what modern slavery mean.

I am preparing at the moment an anthology of American Negro Poetry but my information on the situation as well as my poetical material ( as you will easily see from my program) don't go any further than about 1938. My greatest and most important question that indeed includes all minor questions, is: could you let me have information on the situation of America's colored population at the present time, could you let me have your poems from the last years, could you let me have papers or magazines ( I think of Crisis, Opportunity, which I used to get before the war, or are there others?) to tell me what I'd like to know. Somebody just sent me Wright's Black Boy this week. I've not yet finished reading it quite, but probably I'll be going to translate it into Dutch. You see I am a teacher of languages as well as a translator, some sort of a poet, a reciter and a folklorist rolled into one person with a social conscience, which I should have mentioned first.

Re-reading the above lined, they sound pretty funny but I told you in the beginning this letter would be something like an introduction and as I know a good lot about you from your work, I'd rather have you know something about me too. Should I be able to be of any use to you, should you have any questions on artistic or social problems in this small country with her big problems considering what one uses to call "the colonies", I will be only too glad to send you all information I can give or can get from people that know better.

Let me close for to-day in telling you my profound admiration for your work and in sending you my sincerest greetings,

December 8, 1945

Dear Rosey Pool:

Under separate cover I am sending you some recent biographical information and I have asked my publisher to send you a copy of my autobiography, *The Big Sea*, which is my life story up to 1930. Also, I have requested that they send you my last book of poems, *Shakespeare In Harlem*. I am enclosing here for you now a list of Negro magazines and some of our leading weekly newspapers. Perhaps you could get Griet van Rijn, or someone here in America to subscribe to them for you. *The Negro Digest* is particularly good. I am asking them to send you a sample copy of it.

There have been a number of good books within the last few years on the conditions of the Negro people in this country in relation to American democracy. I suppose you know about Myrdal's great study, *An American Dilemma*. There are also an anthology of Negro thought, *What The Negro Wants; New World A-Comin'*, by Rei Ottley; *Brown Americans* by Edwin Embree; *We Have Tomorrow and They Seek A City*, both by Arna Bontemps; and an anthology of American Negro literature in the Modern Library Edition. For your work you should have these books as they would answer for you, better than I could, unless I would write the book for you myself, the questions concerning America's colored population.

Unfortunately, I am just about to leave New York for California for a long trans-continental lecture tour which will keep me away until March, so I am sending you this brief answer to your letter before I leave town.

If you desire pictures of Negro life in America, there is an excellent photographer specializing in such pictures (by the way, she once lived in Holland and had a studio there). Her name is Marion Palfi, 229 East 53rd Street, New York 22, New York. I am sure she would be happy to send you some of the photographs for your book, as she has travelled all over America taking such pictures and has illustrated a number of books here. In fact, Fischer Company, which also has a publishing house in Holland, I understand, is interested in one of her books of photographs now.

All my good wishes to you in your work, and if I can be of any further help to you, kindly write to me in the Spring when I shall be back in New York.

Sincerely yours,

Miss Rosey E. Pool
11, Geleenstraat
Amsterdam Z
Holland

Enclosure

Dr. Rosey E. Pool
14, Paletstraat

Amsterdam January 4th 1946

Dear Langston Hughes,

you can hardly imagine I guess the joy your letter, all the
literary information and your "Freedom's Plow" gave me.
Thanks and thanks again for everything and for all the fine
things that are still coming as you wrote in your letter.
It is so very difficult for us overhere to get really
reliable and up to date information on the American problems
of our days and I am ever so thankful that your hints will
show us a way. I agreed now with my publisher (Querido, Amster
dam) that we postpone the book on negro-poetry till the latest
material will be here. There were all sorts of points of discus
sion between the publisher and me as regards thisbook, that I
wanted to call : Ten percent, as it is it has no name at all
yet because Queridos think my way of treatment too " agressive"!!
what they wanted was an anthology from the aastethic point
of view while I took it, as you will no doubt agree with me,
from the social-political side. Well, we agreed somehow, I somewhat
softened my introduction without however leaving my standpoint.
I am sorry you can not understand my poems but I am sending you
my latest volume "beperkt zicht" ( limited view) which I chiefly
wrote in concentration camp nevertheless.

How curious that you mentioned the name of Marion Palfi. Thank
you for that too. I used to know her years ago in Berlin and
later I met her in Amsterdam. Just when your letter arrived some
colored friends of mine were at my place and talked about her!
A painter of this city Mrs. Nola Hattetman also specializes
in pictures of colored people, mostly from the "Dutch" West
Indies, who live here. Some of her pictures will be shown in
New York just now in an exhibition of Dutch painters at the
Holland House. Sorry that you are not in town but perhaps you'll
tell your friends. Her work is really worth while.

At present I am cooperating with an ethnographic research-wotker
Dr. Werner Munsterberg to write about the socio-ethnographic
situation of the colored people in Holland, a subject that has
been treated very extensively in America and never was given
attention to in this country, though there are several hundreds
of Surinam people in Amsterdam adn an equal number in Rotterdam.
The author Jef Last begs me to remember him to you, he thought
you would remember him as he met you years ago.

Let me end now in wishing you lots of good luck for 1946
and a nice and successful lecture tour; and please, let me hear
from you now and then,

Rosey E.Pool
Paletstraat 14
Amsterdam Z.
Holland

July 14, 1946

Dear Langston Hughes,

I guess you will be back in town
now from your Western lecture-tour, which no doubt will
have been a big success.

By same mail I am sending you copies of the weekly "1"
("One"), paper of the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugd Verbond
(General Dutch Youth Movement), a socialist Youth
Movement on a broad base. The paper is published, edited
and managed by teen-agers. They have asked a number of
people to write articles for them about the Negroes,
their history and their present life, which was done
first by Dr. Werner Munsterberg (Ethnographic research
worker, he is coming to the States before long), who wro-
about the ancient African cultures; Mrs. Nola Hatterman
, painter wrote about the Surinam Negroes and their
struggle for freedom, the copies which I am sending you
contain both an article of mine. One about the social
position of the Negro in present-day America; one about
the colored poets. We published your Share-croppers in
my translation; Miss Palfi whose pictures illustrate
the articles will no-doubt be able to give you her
opinion on the translation.

Next week one of Holland's outstanding weeklies will
publish an article of mine on the poets of America's
darker ten percent; as I quote you in it, I will of
course send you a copy of the paper Vrij Nederland.

At present I am preparing lectures for the next season.
Among them there will be one entitled: The voice of
Democracy and it will be Walt Whitman and you (especially
your Freedom's Plow) which I will talk about and recite,
provided you permit me to do so.

I suppose I told you I am preparing an Anthology of Negro
Poetry which will be published this winter; if there
are any poems of yours that you yourself would especially
like to see published in such a volume for Europe, please
do tell me and of course I will take your wishes into
consideration; tell me too if there are some that you
especially would not like to have published.

Meanwhile,

very sincerely,

April 21, 1947

Miss Rosey E. Pool
Paletstraat 14
Amsterdam, Holland

Dear Miss Pool:

I was certainly delighted to receive your articles and
your interesting letter, but I have been so extremely
busy this winter that I have not had a chance to answer
you until now.

My show, "Street Scene," for which Kurt Weill did the
music and I wrote the song lyrics opened on Broadway in
January and it is a big hit. There are already negotia-
tions going on for Paris and London productions. Since
you know about translating poetry, and most of this show
is poetry, why don't you see about possibly doing the
Dutch translation for a production in Holland?

This show, along with a teaching commitment for the
present semester giving a series of seminars in Creative
Writing here at Atlanta University, plus a number of
lectures all over the South and Middle West are the things
that have prevented me from getting to my mail, so I hope
you will forgive me for this belated answer.

Merion Palfi was recently here in Atlanta taking pictures
of the Columbians' trial. They are an organization like
the Ku Klux Klan, very anti-Black and anti-Negro.

This week-end I am going to Risk University in Nashville
for their annual music festival and the opening of their
George Gershwin Memorial Collection.

I send you all my good wishes.

LH: wmb

Mr. L. Hughes
Atlanta University
Atlanta,
Georgia.

R. E. Pool
Paletstraat 14
Amsterdam,
Holland.

April 25, 1947.

Dear Mr. Hughes:

Miss Pool has just started for a short
lecture-tour and begs you to send her the text
and the music of the show, "Street Scene".

She is very interested in the show and would
like to do the Dutch translation.

She hopes that you will be so kind to send
her the text and the music as soon as possible,
less no other person will be honoured with
the translation.

Miss Pool will be writing to you next week
as she comes home.

Hoping to receive your answer within a short
time, I remain,

Rosey E. Pool
14, Paletstraat

Amsterdam, May 11th 1947

Dear Langston Hughes,

I have to thank you for your very kind letter of April 21st. to which a young friend of mine replied for me as I was just leaving for a short lecture tour, and the pictures, which arrives yesterday. How very nice of you to send those to me.

Just lately after a lecture on the poetry of the American Negro, a lecture which I entitled: The Voice of Ten Percent...

in a big art-academy in Amsterdam, the students asked me for news-papers, leaflets and pictures for their "wall-paper" which they issue every month, a collection of material on a subject or several subjects that keep their minds occupied. That month the entire wall-paper was to be made up to tell the students more and more extensive about those Ten Percent, as they accepted the rule that bad information and stupidity are the root of racial prejudice. I was glad I could give them some of Marion's photographs and a lot of printed material which the Natl. As. A. C. sent me.

On May 19th I begin a new series of lectures, first night for the students of the Amsterdam University, which I called:

The Voice of Democracy: Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, Do you say: Bien étonné, je de se trouver ensemble..... or don't you think the combination too silly? I hope not.

As for Street Scene: I am ever so much interested and I do think indeed we could find a Company to play a thing like that but please could you let me have text as well as music as soon as possible?

I Understand there was music written also for Freedom's Flow. Has it been printed and is there a possibility of getting it? What about that new book of yours? The quotation in Cleveland News Books: In an envelope marked Personal...... touched me most deeply. There are still the difficulties with foreign currency so we can't order foreign books. We can, but we don't get permission to pass the order mostly; there are American books for sale in this country, mostly modern library edition or Penguin, Bantam and such like pocket editions, just the things "The public" buy, but for instance your books or any other books by contemporary poets you don't find and Mencken, The American language which the Germans took away from me too, and which I need so badly, I can't get the permission to order (and pay) it in America.

Some time ago I wrote an essay on Emily Dickinson, quoting everything by heart (a good thing to have a rather reliable memory), some weeks after I had sent it to America, the manager of a well-known literary magazine sent me E.D.'s poems as well as a number of important new books on the subject; I was surprised beyond words! There are some nice people left in this atomic-bomb threatened world of ours!

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY
ATLANTA, GEORGIA

May 23, 1947

Miss Rosey E. Pool
14 Paletstraat
Amsterdam, Holland

Dear Miss Pool;

It was very nice hearing from you and having news of your recent activities. Some weeks ago I asked my publishers to send you a copy of my new book of poems, *Fields of Wonder*, which I trust you have received by now, and I also wrote you a note telling you that the people to contact in regard to translation and a possible production of the Kurt Weill musical version of "Street Scene" for which I did the lyrics are:

The Playwrights' Company
630 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York

Chappel & Co., Inc., RKO Building, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, New York are the American publishers of the musical and will publish a complete folio of the entire score in the fall. Some of the more popular type songs from the show have already been published and recorded. I am sending you copies of these songs.

My teaching of Creative Writing here at Atlanta University will end in June, and I may go to Mexico for the summer, but my home address is 654 St. Nicholas Avenue, New York 30, New York, will always reach me if you write me there.

Horace Grenell prepared a musical score for "Freedom's Plow", I understand, but I have not heard it and it has not been published yet.

I send all my good wishes to you.

LH: wmb

TEL. 95984

Rosey E.Pool

PALETSTRAAT 14

AMSTERDAM-ZUID

June 4th 1947

Dear Mr. Hughes,

last week your "Fields of Wonder" arrived for which my very enthusiastic thanks. There are indeed some of your very best poems in it! I am going to write an article about your work in one of our big literary magazines soon and send you a copy of it no doubt.

By same mail I am writing to The Playwrights' Company whose address I owe to your kindness, hoping they can let me have a look at the play or I won't be able to try if I could do something about the production in Holland and Belgium. Thank you in anticipation for the songs you are sending me.

What a pity that America is such a far way off yet, or rather that the quick way to go there is so expensive for a working-woman. I wonder couldn't I once try a lecture tour or something of the kind and have a short stay in your country that way. Wouldn't that be of a favourabale influence on my and your work. (With "your" I just mean your people of course)

We are having a very good performance of "Deep are the roots" here at present. There is one big mistake in it though as the producer gave the play a too happy end by letting the Senator give way, he almost collapses and gives up the fight. In my article on the play, which I am sending you by same mail, you see that I severely object to that. Is there anybody near you who can translate from the Dutch, or can you yourself or do you rather want me to give you a short translation of my things in future?

I hope you are going to have a good time in Mexico.

Rosy E. Pool
14, Paletstraat

Amsterdam Z.

September 9th 1947

Dear Mr. Hughes, thank you so much for your let
ter containing your poem and the Children's
verses as published by Mr. Pickens.

Being on the point of leaving for a longer
stay in England I took your poem with me to
read it in a less busy mood and had a glance
at the children's which indeed touched and
moved me as they show once more the deep res-
ponsibility that is a teacher's. What can't
we impress on children' souls! Good as well as
evil, and why don't teachers realize that
more! Anyhow.... I am sorry page 12 on which
Mr. Pickens promised more of the poems was
missing and I hope I do not cause you too
much trouble but is there a possibility either
to get Mr. Pickens's answer to a number of
questions in connection with this remarkable
"emulated catholicity" or could I get into
touch with the children's teacher.

The most important things I should like to
know in this connection are:

How old are the children?

What kind of school are they? are they in?

To which social class do they belong?

Are they first, second or older generation
Americans?

Are there special religious tendencies in the
school?

Are there children of different creed? (also
Jews among them?)

Thank you so much for all the helpful kindness
you showed me hitherto, that is what gave me
the boldness to bother you once more. Maybe
you could send this letter on to either Mr.
Pickens or the teacher meant in his paper as
this matter has my particular interest.

will be forwarded to England from my Amsterdam address. My letter
very sincerely, Rosemary Pool.

Rosey E.Pool
14 Paletstraat
Amsterdam Z.
Holland

17th January 1949

Dear Langston Hughes,

I am sending you enclosed a digest sort
of periodical issued bi-monthly by
"Arbeiderspers" for the members of their
book-club. This month they published
a translation of Ann Petry's The Street
in their ARBO series, for which I made
their "Boekenmolen" an all colored issue.
I hope you like the translations I made
of some of your poems.

How is life with you? Aren't you coming to
have a look at this old Europe? It would
be such a pleasure to make you welcome.
There were a few friends from America over
here this season, I was very glad to meet
Aubrey Pankey again and so sorry not to
find Gordon Heath in London, when Aubrey
told me he had run into him in Paris. Old
Europe is a small place after all, but
nevertheless quite attractive! So come and
renew the acquaintance, won't you.

If ever friends coming over to Holland would
like help of any kind, a place to stay in or
whatever, they shouldn't be shy in asking me
and you should tell them 14 Paletstraat
would be glad to see them!

February 3, 1949

Miss Rosey E. Pool
14 Paletstraat
Amsterdam Z.
Holland

Dear Rosey Pool: I want to thank you for sending me the copy of DE BOEKENMOLEN, the issue containing a digest of Ann Petry's THE STREET and a few of my poems. I think it is a remarkable booklet and is the kind of periodical we need very much. Your book club is to be commended for doing such a fine job with this number, and you doubly so for serving as editor of this special number.

Recently, two of my books came out (in January): ONE-WAY TICKET, my sixth volume of poems, and THE POETRY OF THE NEGRO, which I co-edited with Arna Bontemps. Both of these were received very favorably. The latter book is a large anthology containing poetry by and about Negroes and, in addition, a section on Caribbean poetry.

This weekend I am leaving on a lecture tour of North Carolina and will be busy for several days giving talks during what is known over here as Negro History Week. On the first of March I leave for the Midwest, where I am going to be teaching for a couple of months in Chicago and giving lectures intermittently in the vicinity. Also, I am quite busy during the lyrics for another musical show, and soon my opera, TROUBLED ISLAND, music by William Grant Still, is going to be produced here in New York City.

Of course, I shall tell any of my friends who go to Europe that your address is one they must look up. It is kind of you to offer such generous help.

With all the best to you, and again thanking you, I am

LH:HHS

Rosey E.Pool
23 a, High Point
North Road
LONDON N.6

Amsterdam, 23rd.

March 1949

Dear Langston Hughes,

as the above address will show you
I am pitching up my tents in London
for some time. Maybe a half year,
perhaps a year. That depends on all
sorts of circumstances. There's a
good bit of a nomade left in me,
enough to keep me on the move.

I enclose the program of my last week's
recitation in Amsterdam. The Guillén
poems made a very deep impression and I
am sure they will meet the same interest
in London. I'll let you know of course
about my doings in lectures and hope,
the radio too.

Yesterday I recorded a program meant for
the West Indies, which will be broad-
casted by PCJ, World Broadcasting Station
Hilversum-Holland, in the night from
7th to 8th May, 00.36 min. Mx G.M.T.
time, shortwave 31 Meters.

The introduction ( a program of negro-
poetry) I give in Dutch, the examples
read by a man-colleage ( van Steen)
and myself in English. I hope you
will be able to listen in. Generally
those PCJ broadcasts are well received
in the States.

We quote, partly some lines, partly full

2

23

length: (as they follow in program)

lines from Frances Harper: Bury me in a free land
" " J.Corrothers To be a negro in a day like
this

" " J.E.MacCall The new negro

" " Langston Hughes I am a negro, black as
the night is black

full " " Laughs

" " Where is the Jim Crow section

" Mae Cowdery I will take from the hearts
of black men -

full
Claude McKay some lines of prose
African anon. Pygmees

" " Somali Lullaby

some lines from Gyuy Tirolien Prière d'un enfant nègre

" Guillén Here we are

" Unamuno Happy are they who laugh

I am writing this letter surrounded
by brown paper, trunks and packed wooden
cases with my typewriter on one of
them. I am sure you can imagine the mess
and will understand why these lines
will bear the mark of it.

Could you tell the poets concerned
and the NAACP about this broadcast, please?
I am afraid in the first hectic weeks
in London with unpacking, arranging a flat
AND work I shall forget it!

very cordially,

Rosey E.Pool,
23 a Highpoint, North Road, LONDON N.6

1st May 1949

Dear Mr. White,

thank you very much indeed for your kind letter
with all the information about Langston Hughes's
latest activities.

I enclose a program of my last lecture in Am-
sterdam and should like you very much to give or
send this to Nicolas Guillen. I have got a copy of
this beautiful "Cuba Libre" which I cherish as one
of my great treasures!

At present I am trying to have a translation of
Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la Rosée published
in Holland. Now could you please try to get for
me Guillen's Elegy for Roumain!? I cannot find it
in Europe and have been trying so hard!

My bookseller got a copy of One way ticket - for
me, not yet of the anthology with Arna Bontemps's
co-operation. It still is difficult in Europe to get
other American books than the usual Sunday-afternoon
novels. I am afraid the libretto of Troubled Island
will be quite impossible to get over here, though it
interests me very much indeed. I was so please with
Bontemps's Golden slippers that I was lucky enough
to be able to purchase this week. I shall have to
come to America one day to know all I should like to
know and read and hear!

19.II.51

Dear Langston Hughes,

Thank you for your letter of 1st February.
I had just read the short review of Simple in the
Statesman and before either your letter or the
review I had translated parts of some chapters
for one of the Radio Monologues of our only coloured
actor in Holland: Otto Sterman (from Surinam).
These monologues, i.e. the Simple parts of chapters
put together I have now also sent to Vrij Nederland
a weekly of which I am a regular collaborator. So
wait and see. I am very fond of Simple and shall cer-
tainly take any opportunity to " tell everybody".
I shall never forget that day when you had just sent
me the copy of the American edition and Bruce Howard
(who had a part in the London performance of Streetcar)
dropped in for a cup of coffee and a chat. There were
quite a few people that Sunday afternoon but Bruce was
lost to the world. There she sat with Simple, now
chuckling, then laughing aloud, and as she later said:
- for the first time in those London months completely
at home -

All the best,

LONDON 31.12.51

THE

HIGH

HILL

23 a Highpoint,
North Hill,
London N.6

27th November 1951

Dear Langston,

The messenger whose presence seemed
to be indispensable in Olivier's show
is not an actor at all. He won't blame
me for saying it either but all the
same he made it his chance to come over
to the States once more.

An actor... no! But a poet, yes! Quite
apart from the fact that he may need
some advice or just the kind - halloh -
which one can miss so badly in a city
like New York even though one has been
before, I thought you might like to see
Jan Carew whose work I think is most
promising and inparts even outstanding.

Don't let his Westindian slowspoken
shyness deceive you, he is neither slow
written nor reserved, although an Eng-
lish education would spoil any man's
natural chracteristics. (I shall get
it in the neck from him for that, I know)

Only a few days ago I wrote about that
BBC copyright business and am looking
forward to your answer.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Rosey E.Pool
23 a Highpoint,
North Hill,
London N. 6

7.12.51

Dear Langston Hughes,

Thank you so much for the address
of the "Simple" agents, the list
of Guillen's poems and your poem.
I shall try to make use of it and
let you know.

I do know Cedric and have just
dropped him a line about Guillen.
The Cuba Libre belongs to the most
treasured among my books.

I am at present trying to talk the
" Third Programme" into a series of
" Illustrated Talks" on Negro
writing. Keep your fingers crossed.
The " Calling West Africa" pro-
gramme came off well last Wednes-
day.

One of these days Jan Carew, Westindian
poet will call on you. I gave him
a note of introduction. He is at present
extra-ing with the Laurence Olivier company in New York.

Best wishes. Most sincerely,
Roderick

BEST WISHES
for happiness
AT CHRISTMAS
and in the
NEW YEAR

BRITISH MANUFACTURE

A. M. DAVIS & CO.
QUALITY CARDS
LONDON

31

3rd February 1952

Dear Langston Hughes,

So the B.B.C. Third Programme has opened its rather slow-opening but important doors for a programme of Negro Poetry, the first of its kind on the air in this England. I have been asked to select a dozen or so representative poems and to select them for quality in the first place. They have also given me a free hand in the choice of three American Negro readers (two men and a woman) and I am myself reading the short links I shall be writing and which will contain brief biographical details and explanations of the poem-matter if that would add to better understanding or add enjoyment. And that is that. Enclosed the poems which I have finally selected and the readers. All of them not unknown to you although you will know Aubrey Pankey as a singer and Muriel Smith as a musical comedy actress I think. O no, I remember she did quite different work in New York I was told. In London he who says "South Pacific" says Muriel Smith. She makes a very fine job of this "Bloody Mary" part. Aubrey is due in London for a concert this week; Gordon was here last week as he did The Emperor Jones in the B.B.C. Home Programme. I am sure you too must feel how small the world has become when a plane connects Paris and London in just over an hour and since so much of New York has drifted on to the European continent. When does one see this man Langston Hughes I wonder? A "busman's" holiday, just a rest.. when??

Recording Gordon was sheer joy. That voice of such exceptionally fine quality, his charm and intelligence! The technical engineers, my co-producer (who is a rather difficult lady) everybody felt like a summerday that bleak London morning last week when we did the recording. A very interesting side to the programme: the readers will record separately. Each will approach the poetry from the most personal angle without even hearing the others work before the whole programme goes on the air. We have not fixed the date yet as we did not know whom we were going to record for the second and third voices until last week. I remember the first day I ever met Gordon Heath when he was doing Brett in Depp the roots in the Wyndham's in London and when the subject of Negro Poetry inevitably came on he quoted your "Sweet silver trumpets" line. This week in his recording of Susanna Jones it had that very same moving beauty. His reading was well near perfection and I am happy good luck has brought three readers of such talent and intelligence my way.

One of my best friends in my home city of Amsterdam, Miss Nola Hatterman, painter of Negro Life as she sees it mainly among Westindians (Surinamers) in Holland is preparing a working tour to the Caribs and if possible to Haiti this year. She had hoped to be sent to Surinam or to be commissioned with certain tasks. However things did not tuen out to her favour and she has made up her mind to go. In any case. Somehow she will manage. She always does if she is seeting her will and sails into a certain direction. I never saw an artist who lives as systematic as she does. I think she is absolutely and perfectly right to carry out her decision. Nola has all her painting life put into the service of the West Indian darker brother; even to such an extent that in the West Indies she was reviewed as the "West Indian painter Nola Hatterman who is living in Holland." Hers is case of almost complete identification and it is absurd that she should not know "her" country. If she goes on seeing the West Indies only through the Dutch reflection she must get into an artistic and into a psychological "impasse". Nola will be writing to you one of these days and I thought I'd like to give you an idea of her personality. If you or if perhaps Mercier Cooke via you could help her: she deserves it wholly and fully.

I do not know e.g. in how far the Rosenwald
Foundation would sponsor a non American artist. But surely
you know all about these things and I am certain your
unusual kindness will extend a helping hand to Nola if
you possibly can.

I shall be writing to you again as soon as the date for this
Broadcast has been fixed. Copyrights are being cleared and
fees due sent to the Agents you mentioned before when I did the
programme in " Voice of West Africa " which was received most
favourably in Nigeria as well as the Goldcoast from where I got
a number of letters.

Are you working on anything especially interesting? The last few
months I was very much involved in a series of articles in the
" African Renaissance " which I am publishing in Holland. I am
re-writing them now in English and shall send you MS copy. I wonder
whether some magazine in the States would be interested?

Most sincerely,

February 9, 1952

Miss Rosie Poole
23a Highpoint, North Hill
London, N. 6, England

Dear Rosie,

How nice to find your letter as I return today from
a middle western lecture tour, to leave today for a
monroe Negro History lecture tour to the Carolinas
Alabama, and Texas. So with more packing to do with
the few hours I have to do, this is just a short note
to tell you how delighted I am that my poems are being
used, thank you for the interesting news you send me,
and to tell you that I have seen Jan Carew and had a
writers party for a couple of weeks ago so that otheb
Harlem writers might meet him. But particularly I
want to ask you, if it is possible to have an air check
recording made of the programs using my poems and send
it to me at my expense. . . . . . The Rosenvald Foun-
dation is now out of existence, but certainly I would
be happy to hear from Nola Hatterman. They tell me
that Josh White and Sam Gary transcribed portions of
"Simple" for the B B G to be used in London. Do you
know Geoffrey Bridson? I saw him when he was here for
the B B G. All my good wishes to you, hastily but
sincerely.

Rosey E. Pool
23 a Highpoint,
North Hill,
London N. 6

20th February 1952

Dear Langston,

Since I wrote you and you wrote
me last we have done the second stage of
this Third Programme" Affair ": we have
recorded Aubrey Pankay who gave a concert
in London where we could lay hands on him.

During rehearsal we were not
at all happy but then he turned out to be
one of the - cases - to whom the red light
does the trick and he came out fine,
really beautiful. So different from
Gordon Heath and each in their own way
perfect. Aubrey much more on the protest
line and I altered his sequence accordingly to:

The Classics: If we must die "
" The New Negro "
The Moderns" Black Gabriel " Rob.Hayden
" John Henry died
with a hammer " Aubr.Pankey
Medium: " Aunt Jane Allen" Fent.Johnson
Muriel Smith is going to have
the ridiculous voice test ( you have no
idea of the BBC red tape ! ) this week
and when I come back from a little spree
or call it busman's holiday lecturing etc
in Amsterdam and in Paris we shall record
her. Programme as I sent it you; i.e. your
Blues Fantasy and the Gulllen-Hughes
Children of the Antilles and Merry go round
( Jim Crow ).

There is only one ( illegal,
mind you ! ) way of getting air-checks
in this England, namely through people
called : Recorded Sound Ltd.,
6 a Whitestone Street, London W.1

4.8.52

Dear Langston,

I owe you so many thanks that I do not even quite remember how many ! Still knowing that your life is at least as busy as mine I also hope I am right in assuming that you can measure my gratitude even though the thanks come far too late. Thank you for "Laughing" and thank you for the Harlem Poem. It is so incredibly good of you to pop a thing like that into the post and just send it off when most people ( including myself ) ever so often want to do this and that and just don't. You do and that is all the difference.

Life the last two or three months has been so hectic with a lecture tour on the continent, the writing of too many articles etc. you know all about this kind of rush, that I just read "Laughing" once and put it on my "read again" side of the table because we may be able to do something with one or the other story. Do you know anything of the fate of "Simple" as far as the BBC is concerned? You told me in a fairly recent letter that Josh White has been working on it. Did they actually record it or has only a script been sent in? Features always have better chances for preference in their overcrowded programme-suggestions department than a poetry programme like ours. In any case the copyrights have all last been cleared and last Thursday I have recorded myself, i.e. the introductions and we have put two and two together. I must admit: it is an interesting selection and Muriel Smith is excellent, Gordon Heath outstanding and Aubrey Pankey interesting although a bit heavy as baritones go!

2

We now have our place in the " queu" for poetry
programmes and I fear it will be October before
we shall go on the air with it. Anyhow better than
e.g. August when nobody that matters is in London

Two of my friends ask me whether you ever got
their letters: Dorothy Brooks who wrote on behalf
of the West African Arts Club, an interesting and
essential group in London, and Nola Hatterman
who sent some of her painting and drawings in
photo-reproduction. They wrote I think to the
old St. Nicholas Avenue address which may be the
reason why their letters got lost.

Jan Carew sent me some poems recently. I am sorry
I have to say - no - to them. No originality of
any sort, he does not feel he is repeating him-
self but it does not matter. I think he is essent-
ially a novelist and I have great faith in him as
such. If he needs the poetry as an outlet o.k.
let him go. He sounded happy and excited at home
working like mad on the novel.

Although this $s not much of a letter I feel better
for having written it at last.

When the programme goes on the air the air-check
will be made and sent to you immediately. I am
sure you will be happy about Muriel's and Gordon's
interpretations of your work, (Aubrey does not
read any of yours -).

Will we ever actually meet????

Most sincerely,

23 a Highpoint, N.Hill, London N.6

16th February 1953

Dear Langston, Where do I start to say " Thank you "? So here goes: thank you so very much for the Montage and the " enscribed especially" and so many thanks for the "First Book ". Congratulations ! I do hope the book will have the success which it deserves. I am writing to my Dutch publisher about it as I think it high time that a book of that level and that state of mind should be available to children of other nations than the American children as well. Of course one would have to adapt here and there as you address the children of the States but I am sure you and I will come to an agreement there without difficulties. Of course you know about our disappointment with regard to the sudden break off of "Porgy". Still: when I went to say good-bye back stage after the last show I met the Sneeds and heard about your note to them. There are co-incidences in this world as at the "Porgy" party in the Savoy Mr. Sneed was my neighbour at supper! So I had met them before . Not quite by accident; I have become great friends with the Mozell Hills and the Sneeds are friends of theirs. So the merry-go-round is complete "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis..."

Such a pity about "Porgy"- everybody had just started to settle in, many of the people had only recently changed from digs to appartments and some of them had taken out leases of 6 months and longer and there everything is blown up so suddenly. Anyway London gave them a warm welcome and a most wonderful farewell and I am certain Paris will have welcomed them with equal cordiality. Now it's your turn to say "hello" to the Sneeds from me when you will see them in New York. I have made quite a few friends with the "kids" of the cast as Muriel Smith calls the younger ( 1. e. her) generation of actors and we all had hoped for some work and play together. Who knows, perhaps we shall be able to realize some of the plans in your part of the world.

Apart from translating a fat novel on Tchaikowsky from the English into Dutch ( quoth the raven - Nevermore ! I have no fingers left and cannot find a typist in London who takes direction in Dutch!) and preparing a new book of myself in this youngsters series on composers ( after my last year'sershwin, this one is to be Berlioz), and the usual teaching and lecturing jobs etc. I am doing a bit of research on the Negro actor on the European stage. Most enlightening, sometimes depressing, often amusing. I promised the article for the beginning of March - so full steam ahead. Whom am I telling this ? Do you manage with even less sleep than I do? My ration is about four hours a night and five or six is sheer luxury!

Arna Bontemps tells me he got his records so this tells me you must have got yours, and I do hope your cheque has not gone astray as it did not arrive so far. I am just telling you this because if the letter got lost through a trick of the thing called fate you may still be able to stop it.

And I have to stop this letter or it will be three hours this night!

23 a Highpoint,
N. Hill, Highgate,
London N. 6

15th March 1953

Dear Langston,

Yes of course I would love to do something with "Simple". I have grown so fond of him and I shall never forget the day when the first volume came into 23 a Highpoint. It was a Saturday, one of those days when all my friends had apparently made up their minds to walk up the hill at Highgate. In addition to that little crowd came "Simple" and Bruce Howard (she was doing a part in -Street car named Desire then) got hold of the book, sat down on the floor, read, rocked to and fro, laughed, read out one or two sentences aloud but not to us, mind you, just to add to her own enjoyment and if I had not remembered that she was due at the theatre at 7.30 she would have sat there still when the curtain was coming down on the last act.

I did try a translation of bits of "Simple speaks his mind" but never tried to do anything with it.

It translates well into the atmosphere and idiom of Amsterdam" downtown" - and I think you might stand a good chance with the book with Elseviers who publish THE Dutch weekly and are bookpublishers as well. I shall go and see them in Amsterdam during the week after Easter. When does "Simple takes a wife" appear exactly?

Can you let me have a spare copy of "Simple speaks his mind" for Elseviers? I must dig out

my translation somewhere.

Thanks for the Phylon reprint which I am sending
on to a young student of mine in Holland. I
do get Phylon and I had read the interesting
article.

Sorry to bother you about it but that cheque
for the records never arrived. Did you send it
off and can you check up whether someone caught
it and cashed it???? Poor Rosey paid the Record
d sound people what she owed them for these
records and who cashed the U.S. cheque I wonder?
Please do try to find out what happened or if
the matter escaped your attention ( which I
certainly can understand) be good and send the
amount off.

In the course of the research which I am doing
on the Negro actor on the European stage I
came across an interesting man in Sweden
( 18th century), not an actor but a slave-,
court jester, finally court secretary and
prominent free maskon: Adolf Badin ( original
name Coushi from West Indies). When I am
through with the material I'll send you some
about him or do you know the gentleman already?

Mozell and Marmesba Hill say hello to you -
they just phoned while I was writing - so did
Gordon Heath who is in London to do "Troubled
Air" on television. He too sends cordial
greetings. This seems to be one of those days
again...

April 1, 1953

Miss Rosey Pool,
23a Highpoint, North Hill,
Highgate, London N. 6, England.

Dear Rosey,

Just a little note to airmail you this enclosure. Arna's
check from Fisk University's busar was a bit slow in coming, then my
bank could not issue an open cheque (and I didn't want to risk send-
ing cash) and the day I was downtown I didn't have your address with
me to make out an American Express Order (their office is miles from
me) then I had to go out of town--so certainly have been slow get-
ting this off to you, and apologize most deeply, but hope it reaches
you before you leave for the continent. And thanks a million for go-
ing to all the trouble to send Arna and I those records. I've played
them for many people and all agree that it was a fine series and wish
our American radios would do something like it.

MONTAGE you've received. An extra copy of SIMPLE and
of THE POETRY OF THE NEGRO will be ordered sent you directly from the
publishers. With no full time secretary lately, my mail has just got-
ten beyond my capacity to care for, and so lots of little things get
buried under piles of new correspondence. But I've dug all your letters
out and am going through them tonight to see if I've missed any thing.
Again thanks for all and you'll be hearing from me soon, especially
about my TV show with McCarthy. I came out fine with my latest books
approved for overseas use!

Sincerely,

14 Palestraat
Amsterdam Z
Holland

May 8, 1953

Miss Rosey E. Pool
23 a Highpoint, North Hill
Highgate
London N.6, England

Dear Rosey:

I hope you got your check which I posted to you on April 1st—or had you gone to Holland by that time? Are you back in London now? In any case please let me know if the money was received safely, and I trust that it was the kind of open check that you can use in any country. I have ordered a copy of THE POETRY OF THE NEGRO sent to you as you requested.

Thank you very much for sending me FOLK, 1945. I did receive letters from both Nola Batterman and Dorothy Brooks. But I have three enormous drawers full of unanswered mail, and no full-time secretary, so just haven't gotten around to answering them yet, having had three urgent deadlines to meet this year—and only one has been met so far.

I love the B.B.C.'s transcriptions and play them often. I expect to go out West next week for a month or so, but when I return I will contact Victor Carter and see if he would like to hear them.

Have you seen Jan Carew lately? And did you see Bernie Duvat in Holland? I have not heard from her for two years or more.

Did you get a copy of my new book, SIMPLE TAKES A WIPE, which I ordered sent to you? It is coming out next week and the advance notices have been very good. Please answer soon and let me know if you received the American Express money order okay.

With continued good wishes to you,

26.7.53

Dear Langston,

Thank you so much for your letter of 10th July. I am just back from a few days in Paris to see a few people and hear a few records and sit all and every night in Gordon Heath and Lee Payant's Folksong Club. During the summer ( although it is much more like early, very early spring as far as nature is concerned in our part of the world) I am never in a highly creative mood. Autumn and winter is my best time. Long dark nights, short days for writing ; this time of the year for planning I suppose. Quite apart from all that you will hardly believe it I am running a travel agency in co-operation with two friends of mine, both of them of the medical profession. They started the joint some seven years ago, lured me into their den in '49 saying I just had to be there in the snug quiet office and I could do all the writing, broadcasting and lecturing to my heart's content. I believed them... ( at that time they actually were right ) and since this hobby idea has degenerated into a good size business " Allwa ys travel Service ", with office staff, a real shop cum office etc. It is great fun and during the winter we can leave practically all of the jobs to the staff. However during the travel season I have to be there practically all and every day and for some weeks I dream of timetables and airconnections. Ask Mozell Hill, he will witness my and sa's ( my living and business partner's) efficiency in travel business.

2

There is quite a bit of an actress in me and
I do enjoy putting it on at the travel counter!

You may have heard what a success Gordon made
of The Emperor Jones in London Television last
month. He is now going to do a folksong TV
programme and I am going to produce him in
another series of Negro Poetry. We have not
quite decided when and what it is going to be
but in any case he and Muriel Smith whom I
thought a wonderful reader. We were not so
happy about Aubrey so I do not think I'll have
him again. If Earle Hyman should be back
( he spent last Sunday here at the flat with
us ) I'd like to have him in the programme but
he is now going on a European tour and will
go back home in September.

I never read either Mulatto or the opera
version and I am so sorry to say I do not know
Mark Marvin. However as I think TV may like
the idea because it might give Gordon another
chance ( he is becoming quite a fashion with
those fabtastic press notices on Jones) I am
writing to Pearn, Pollinger & Higham and to
Mark Marvin. We may be able to think something
up together.

No I never met Kenneth Manigualt but shall
certainly contact him next time the group
come to London.

So that's the gossip for the moment.

All the very best to you,

most sincerely,

April 9th 1954

My dear Langston,

There are at least half a dozen things that I want and have to write you about and which are almost weighing down my conscience ( don't take that too seriously, my conscience can bear a lot of weight - ). Three or four letters of your hand unanswered - too bad. I broke my wrist some six weeks ago. At last I got rid of the plastercast and I am alive and typing - fit again.

Now today there is real urgency for a letter. Paul Breman sent me the copy of his letter to you about the man Drijver and his irresponsible publication of shockingly bad, untruthful and harmful so-called translations of some of your finest poems. Classroom excercises is a mild qualification for the rubbish - and jolly poor marks they would get in My classrooms for that sort of careless stuff. Quite apart from the fact that these are no poetry translations whichever point of view for this most subtle work one may take - the publication is a fraud. I left out some of the most decisive lines of some poems, he almost completely took another man's anthology without crediting him or you for it and where he left some poems out he substituted stolen good and I do not hesitate to say so - i.e. he merely copied out previously published ( and ghastly ) translations by Eeckhout. A filthy bit of cheek altogether. I do not often or easily get so worked up ( I have lived in England for five years now ... ) but this is too much.

Something must be done about this. Paul has been informed by me that this is my anti-Drijver-drive and I shall not fail to do all I can to air my views if this publication cannot be stopped by you.

Of course I do not know Drijver's legal position, I do not know whether he has contacted you or whether you nor not you authorized this translation. No word of credit to anyone in the copy which Paul let me have for twenty-four hours. Please do not hesitate to take the firmest steps you possibly can take. I know you may shrug your shoulders and say - so what please don't. This booklet MUST NOT get around.

Just another little matter: Tom Jarrett ( of Atlanta) often quotes a poem: New Black Joe which he attributes to you without knowing when or where he found it. is it yours? Where to be found, please? If not published - could I have a copy please?

More sincerely than ever,

May 2, 1954

Dear Rosey,

Having but recently gotten back from the South and Nassau, I've been up to my neck the last three weeks meeting an April deadline on the final version of THE FIRST BOOK OF JAZZ for children, which I've just turned in yesterday.....I never heard of the Drijver translations until Paul and your letters came. So far as I know, he has no one's permission to do them, certainly not mine. It seems that pirated editions of American books are not uncommon in Holland (due to the copyright situation) and the Authors Guild here is always getting reports of them, likewise plays performed without the payment of royalties, etc., which it seems we are powerless to stop legally--- at least in so far as the use of the international copyright goes. (The technicality involved exactly I don't know, but it seems Holland is the worst offender—to Americans—in that regard). However, I've turned over both to my literary agent (who has a representative in Holland) and to my publishers the information Paul sent me, and they're going to try to see what can be done. The only thing I know to do if the book does come out is for those critics who might know my poems in the original to blast away at it and point out its deficiencies--- which seem ungodly! Certainly I'm grateful to you and Breman for advising me of the book. And I'll let you know what success we have in stopping it, if any.

What Tom Jarrett must remember was a song I once wrote with music by Clarence Muse called AMERICA'S YOUNG BLACK JOE intended for a show in a skit about Joe Louis. It was sung around quite a bit but never published. I'll look through my files s on as I can and see if I find the lyrics for you.....Meanwhile you're getting my new kids' book on RHYTHMS directly from the publishers, advance copy as it isn't on the market yet.......So sorry to hear about your wrist, but am glad you're getting along O.K. now. Guess you know by now "Simple Takes A Wife" got a nice award as the best novel in the field of race relations for last year—with a check! (Always better than a mere roll!).......Sincerely,

Rosey E.Pool

23ª HIGHPOINT, HIGHGATE, LONDON, N.6.

6th November

1956

Dear Langston,

Yes indeed I am still alive - and when
Muriel Smith told me the other night she happened
but just happened to see you some place in New York
fairly recently I may assume that you too are busy and
alive as usual.

I had an unusually busy summer and a not
much quieter autumn with television work on top of
the usual writing, lecturing and broadcasting. It was
my first experience of screenwork, I find it exciting,
far less frightening than I had anticipated and I got
away with fine notices. My first programme incidentally
introduced Gordon Heath and his partner Lee Payant for
40 minutes of international folksongs to the Dutch
viewers. I compered the programme myself and they signed
us on for another one almost right away.

Just now I am planning a TV programme in which
I want to feature Muriel Smith. As a reader of poetry and
as a singer. For the latter purpose I am actually writing
this letter. I am trying to find poems by Negro authors
set to music by Negro composers and I am wondering whether
any of your work has been used for compositions by
American Negro composers? The programme is far from
ready but I have certain ideas of picture and word which
I think I might key to the leitmotiv of your 'Harlem
Sweeties'. As soon as I am nearer realization I'll give
you details and the channel will deal with copyrights
through your publishers. For the moment just a cry for
help: if you have had poems set to music in the way I
just mentioned could you please get me into contact with
the composer or could you let me borrow a copy of the
songs if they have not been published.

I am looking forward to hearing from you,

TELEPHONE: MOUNTVIEW 6422

23 a Highpoint, N.Hill, London N.6.

6.12.54

Dear Langston,

In the general atmosphere of :
- goodness me I have been silent for a very
long time ... - just a few lines. The year
generally was a busy one but not terribly
productive. Not much radio, a lot of minor
publications, lecturing and a good deal of
interesting travel : Israel and Greece.
Israel left an impression too profound to
talk about in a casual letter.

I have just been asked to write on Negro
authors for a Surinam magazine. Any young ones
whom you think MUST be mentioned. Any new
work from your part? Any news you want to be
specially related? I am doing four articles
for them appr. 1500 words each. Starting on it
soon.

Very best wishes,

Rosey E. Pool

75

24th February '58

Dear Langston : I am sure our friend Paul Breman told you all about the Anthology which is our joint effort. In view of that book my recent illness, or rather accident was a blessing in disguise, we could never have got the work done if I hadn't been laid up in Amsterdam for months to give a broken vertebra a chance to knit together again. Well, humpty dumpty did not conform to the old rhyme this time, I have been back in London for some weeks and after having waded through an avalanche of work of all sorts, we have to think of our deadline now and get that anthology out. It will be published this fall by Daamen, publishers at the Hague in a paperback pocket edition : " I SAW HOW BLACK I WAS " ( from a poem by the youngest in our book: Raymond Patterson ), and it will contain, more or less, the full range of Negro-Poets from folksong to our contemporaries. Paul and I tried to show the development from anonymus protest, to collective protest expressed in a certain Negro's poem, then on to work by Negro Americans who are poets.

Well, as we say in our introduction, that certain Langston Hughes belongs actually to all of it... it was so very difficult to choose what was going in of Langston's work. Ours will only be a small book and it will contain the original poems as well as x translations.

So here goes: dear Langston, please may we include in this book : 1. MOTHER TO SON, and 2. from the 'Dream': the entire LENOX AVENUE MURAL.

I was in Amsterdam a fortnight ago again for a television show and more work with Paul and missed the opportunity to say helloh to you on a bit of tape which will be sent to you shortly - so I'll just have to make this my -helloh-and best wishes,

TELEPHONE: MOUNTVIEW 6422

79

15.4.58

Dear Langston: at second thought this postcard is turning into a short letter. Erica Marx, publisher of 'fine books' Hand and Flower Press, Aldington near Ashford, Kent is also in the so-called Company of Nine, a group putting on poetry readings, started last year. They are now planning a reading of Negro Poetry possibly in the recital room of the Royal Festival Hall (sitting about 450) with Gordon Heath as a main reader and if he can accept it, more or less producer. Eric Walrund started to compile a program, I am co-operating now. David Martin told me about your readings with jazz and I am so excited about the idea which I am about to unfold: can you not let us know when you are coming so that this London poetry reading could be synchronized with your visit and so that we could include you as a reader?

This is a most serious and genuine suggestion and I know that all the people concerned will be and those that know already about it indeed are, terribly thrilled at the idea that this might develop into reality.

Please let me know as soon as possible. Gordon is in London as from about this moment, to rehearse a TV play of CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY and to talk matters over with regard to this poetry reading. We may want Bertice Reading in it or perhaps Ilene Day. Our first thought of course was Muriel Smith but since I found that she's joined the moral re-armement and sings in their forthcoming opera she's lost to all of us I am afraid. It came to me as a surprise when I found all about this in a Dutch moral re-armement magazine. Beautiful cover picture of a radiant but very demure Muriel. And that's the newsbulletin for to-day,

The best of good wishes,

23rd May 1958

My dear Langston: in the course of the years
of our correspondence I had many occasions
to feel gratitude and to thank you for books,
for information, for the kindness which I have
come to think of as 'pure' Langston. However
I have rarely been so thankful as just now -
thankful for having given my name to that
darling Arthur B. Spingarn. I loved him from
the moment I saw him and in fact before that
when he wrote me a charming note after having
tried in vain to get me on the phone. We saw
quite a bit of one another during his ( too
brief ) stay in London and I remember every
minute of our meetings with happiness and warmth.
Of course after the publication of that interview
in the Manchester Guardian, lots of people
asked me: did you know that Arthur Spingarn was
in London - and they would have loved to meet
him and give his stay here a more 'official'
hue. Still I feel it was right that he was here
just privately after that awful loss he suffered
and I think London did him a world of good.
I am glad he liked the friends he met at my
place and certainly they too were very happy
to meet him.

I regret I did not see so much of David Martin
who is such a lovable character. Of course he
was eaten up by the show and by his jazz - bug!
I don't even know whether he's still here but
I'll go round to the theatre this week and find
out. Phoning his flat doesn't seem to do much
good.

p.t.o.

TELEPHONE: MOUNTVIEW 6422

I need not tell you that I am sad because of
the reception of SIMPLE - however I must be
honest: I was not surprised. I saw the show
twice out of town and told David also quite
honestly what I thought of it and I still
think it's more than ¾ a matter of production.
LH just can't handle the material, (the human
material) doesn't realize their acting potentialities
doesn't grasp the special style of presentation
people with so much personal and natural charm
demand. Every'too-much' is a lot too little.
Sorry I'm so unclear in my way of expression
this afternoon - still I think you see what I mean.
In spite of all that the show may well be
good box-office and let's in any case hope it will
be that.

Are you coming????? When ......???? So many people
are asking me.

The poetry program is changing face and shape and
outline from day to day almost. Date is now
certain ( i.e. almost certain) 8th October.
I'd hoped to have Gordon Heath here again this
week but the events in France are delaying him.
What awful business overthere.

Very best wishes,

23a Highpoint, North Hill, London N. 6

20th January 1959

My dear Langston : there now - this year is 20 days old and only
now do I find the moment to write you more than just a line and to
thank you most warmly for the Poetry and Jazz record. I just love
it and play it over and over again and I am hoping I shall be lucky
enough to hear it 'life' some time this year. My friend Isa and I
have made definite reservations to sail in the Statendam on September
29th and to stay in the States for four to six months is what we are
having in mind. She is of the medical profession and an experienced
Xray technician into the bargain - so she'll find something to do
which 'll help pay for the next busride to another part of the States
we want to see and I'll manage somehow too: teaching, lecturing and
if needs be - cooking. Vinette Carroll will tell you I am quite
capable of doing that ! Anyhow: my dear friend Marion Edman of Wayne
State University School of Education has taken our visa business in
hand and we are now keeping our fingers crossed that the State Depart-
ment will welcome us as 'non immigrant aliens of special merit' as
" imported" by Marion Edman. We'll both stay in New York for a while
upon arrival I hope and then I guess Detroit will be our forst port
of call. I have plans to go west and invitations to Fisk and Atlanta
and I am not going home to London before I've seen all my friends,
pen - or otherwise and that surely does include you !

We were so happy to have Vinette here for a while and so terribly sad
the play did not last much, much longer. It really is a shame. I admit
that the production did not do justice to Errol John's original script
which was much better psychologically and poetically as well as drma-
tically speaking but even in spite of the West End treatment Banbury gav
gave the play it was fine theatre and beautifully, so beautifully
acted, especially by Vin but also by John Bouie who was surprisingly
good. Don t believe Vin if she tells you that London did not take
to her ! They did ! In a big way. Every day people in the profession
are telling me how wonderful she was and how they'd have loved to see
more of her work. In any case it's fine for Errol John that the play
will be filmed with a big name as Belafonte's and I would have thought
the movypeople would have shown the sense to ask Vin for the Sophia
part.

part.

Meanwhile I hope our Dutch publishers sent you a copy of Paul Breman's and my anthology. I am to-day under separate cover sending you an English translation of the introduction. I haven't seen any reviews yet but I understand that the booklet is having a very good reception in Holland.

I cannot remember whether I ever sent you a program and textbook of
the poetry reading which Gordon Heath, Bearle Hyman, and Cleo Laine
did in October '58. I am sending you a copy in any case by same
mail. Eric Walrund and I made the selection.

Among my Christmas present I cherish particularly your TAMBOURINES
(which Victor Carter sent me). It makes me absolutely itch for
New York and what with the enormous working schedule I have to
get through during the next half year - the 29th of September will
be here in no time !

Have you any idea whether you will be in New York in the beginning
of October ? I do hope so most strongly.

Very best wishes, thanks and best thoughts,

Rosey E. Pool

23a Highpoint, North Hill, London N.6

20. 4. 1959

Dear Langston,

Thank you for letting me know about
IL MULATTO. Unfortunately there were two reasons why
I could not listen. The conclusive one being that
we can hardly get Rome over here, especially that
Italian Third Program which has a very weak transmittor.
The second reason was a nicer one. Your play did not
get its performance on the 5th but this last weekend
the 12th and that was the day when I saw Paul Robeson
play OTHELLO in Stratford upon Avon. A magnificent
part, interesting production but I was not at all
happy about Paul's entourage, thought Sam Wannamaker
all wrong as a clownish, villainous Iago, far too
obvious a villain for anyone to believe his stories
and Miss Ure was not my idea of Desdemona either.
However Paul outshone them all and stood in the end
like a flame above them.

I asked a friend in Florence to listen
in to MULATTO, he had made arrangements for the 5th
and had some engagement for the 12th, so that went wrong
too. However, he sent a clipping from RADIOCORRIERE
which was all he could find. I quote from his letter:
"This country is television-mad and anything, absolutely
anything that appears on tv gets extended coverage,
but not the radio, much less the "Terzo programma"
of much less significance that its counterpart
in England."

That is all for to-day. I am frantically
busy just now, deadlines galore and all the preparat-
ions for my USA visit and no Raoul Abdul to write
my letters for me !

Best wishes,

84

16th July 1959

23a Highpoint, N.Hill, London N.6

Dear Langston, this is a short note to tell you that I've
actually got my visa and a ship: Statendam, 10th September
from Rotterdam. This'll give me almost two weeks in New York.

My first lecture at Detroit is booked for 6th October.

In New York we( my friend' Isa; Miss U.L. Isenburg) shall stay
with Vinnette Carroll's mother: Mrs. Flora Carroll: 466 West,
144th, N.Y. 31.

I do hope you'll be in town during that second half of September!

Before I can begin to think of packing I shall be writing for
two tight deadlines but happily I'm ahead of schedule so far,
which means I may make it !

RAISIN IN THE SUN is opening at Bristol this Monday.

Beginning of August in London. Let's all keep our fingers crossed
for the play. I am doing so also from a rather egotistic point of
view. If the play will run, Earle Hyman will move into my appart-
ment for the period of my absence. Both Isa and I hate to leave
it unoccupied but we don't want to sub-let to a stranger which
would mean packing up books, records, carvings. If Earle comes to
stay we can leave everything as it always is and he has known this
23a Highpoint for years, and is at home here anyhow.

Let's reserve all the shop-talk for New York.

lot of good chums,

MARION EODAN

26 MOSS AVENUE

249, EASON,

HIGHLAND PARK 3, MICHIGAN

4th November 1959

Dear Langston :

Here we've been in Detroit for four weeks and I have not even dropped you one line to say how happy I was to meet you in New York at last. Everything in your immense City was just too overwhelming. Neither Isa nor I were quite acclimatized yet and we are both looking forward most eagerly to another visit although that may not be before at the end of our tour in March or thereabouts.

Detroit is much more of an experience and far more fascinating than either of us anticipated. I am doing a good number of lectures to colleges all over Michigan, to all sorts of civic organizations and I am encountering surprisingly wonderful cultural activity and a winde horizon that contrasts most hurtfully with nauseating narrowmindedness, provincialism and worse on the other hand.

I discovered a very fresh talent in Mrs. Heloise Culver who writes verse for children. She is a teacher and gave me to manuscripts: The little brown book of famous Negroes. For children aged 5 to 8 I should say. Lovely delicate illustrations of her own hand. The other one is very neat verse to teach Africa in all her aspects to children 6 tot 9 or 10. And if you ask me it'll do adult a lot of good too. I am shocked at the scant knowledge of Africa I meet here, also among Negro intellectuals! To-morrow I am meeting a poet called Oliver LaGrone. Ever heard of him, And of course my greatest joy here is having at last met James Edward McCall. He is now 79. His wife Margaret is a few years younger. Both of them darlings in the highest sense of the word. Among the files and files of material they are sitting on there are enough poems of the significance and quality of his early: THE NEW NEGRO. Mr. McCall has been blind since he was 24. They have 2 stunningly beautiful daughters Victoria is in N.Y now. Husband U.N. delegate. Attorney in Louisville Kentucky. Other one, Margaret Thomas in Detroit. Three boys, one girl. A bright crowd all of them. The McCalls are my 'home' in Detroit. 'Dad' and I are working through his poems, finding out whether he still owns up to his early work and whoch of his poems he'd rather would not be remembered. I've also got an autobiography of him. All most interesting material which I am having copied. Time will tell what may be under taken with it.

GIVE ONCE FOR ALL
TO THE
TORCH DR

Mr. Langston Hughes
20 East, 127th Street
New York 35
N.Y.

15th June 1960. Home at last.

Very dear Langston,

we drank the delicious champagne on the day of my
arrival back in Amsterdam, I enjoyed Peter Abraham's story
of Harlem in my deckchair and most of all I enjoyed you. I
am so happy we did make that re-union. When will the next one
be and where? London? I hope so most sincerely.

Chaos still reigns in this flat, especially among the
paper-world. However I came across some very interesting poems
of a fellow you may not have met yet: THURMOND SNYDER,
2299 Shasta Avenue, Memphis 8, Tennessee. He is a student at
LeMoyne college, a strange 'Golem' like kind of boy. I have the
following very worth while poems from him:

To the lovers

The Race

The beast with the chrome teeth

Seeds

The face of reality

Lots of work ahead of me. Keep your fingers crossed that
my plans for a 1961 return to USA may come true.

Much love

September 28, 1960

Dear Rosey:

I am wondering if you saw Arna
and his wife last week in London on the way
to Uganda and Kenya for a couple of months?

Jack and Erman and son came through
New York for a day or two on vacation en
route to Georgia but I missed seeing them, be
ing at Newport for Jazz Board meeting.

And lately I spend 10 days at
Westport where my TAMBOURINES TO GLORY had a
successful summer (Labor Day week) tryout,
and is due to head for Broadway later in the
season.

It was so nice to have your letter,
and I hope you're making headway on your book
Echoes of your visit in our U. S. are still
echoing all around. Folks loved you!

Look here. Two letters from friends of
Nancy Cunard have come to me recently saying
is rumored she has been put into an
institution for the insane---against her will.
Oddly enough, however, since then I've gotten
quite sane letter from Nancy herself from Lon
Is there any truth in this rumor? Could you
perhaps find out for me. Nancy's mailing ad
dress is: c/o National Provincial, 95 Totter
Court Road, London W. 1. Her publisher might
(should) have information, too.

Cordial regards to Issa. Best ever,

17th August 1960

My dear Langston : is it really almost to the day, three months ago since we had that farewell drink together in New York ? Your excellent champagne was saved for Amsterdam where my friend Isa and I drank it with some Dutch friends as a welcome home from you . Continuing in this liquid way: we drank a toast to you recently with some friends at the occasion of your Spingarn award. My warmest congratulations, Langston - I won't say: it was about time you were honoured in that way, but I feel that this year the Spingarn medal goes to someone of whom all of us feel: he deserves it and about whose honours we are. Thanks for sharing the joy and the honour with us over here by sending the cuttings and extracts of speeches. Thanks too for the African Treasury. It is as colourful as the African Continent itself and in a way ... as confusing in its variety ! I have more or less settled for the time being: writing a book, a series of articles, radio programmes.... And WHEN, WHEN ARE YOU COMING OVER TO US FOR A WHILE????? That indeed will be a day of joy when I can go and meet you at the airport or quayside !

We'll keep in touch.
Warmest greetings,

[Poet]

3rd October:

This is what the friend whom I saw yesterday reported: Nancy C. was indeed under treatment for a short while again at a very distinguished nursing home for people with nervous breakdowns. She said that Nancy was taken there when she was unable to judge herself whether she wanted to go or not because she was in a state of unconsciousness through alcohol and had been in that state for some time. She seems to be all right now, came out of the sanatorium about ten days ago and my friend did not know whether she was still in London. In any case I'll post my note to her to-day in which I told her you had given me her London correspondence address.

2nd October 1960

Dear Langston, as always it is good to hear from you.
Just a quick note to-day.

I too had heard about Nancy's renewed internation but
do not know any facts.

I wrote her a perfectly normal note just now, asking her
to phone and come for a chat, and I'll let you know
about the reaction to that letter.

Publishers in England never give information but I'll be
seeing a friend who is rather close to Nancy I think
(she may drop in this afternoon) and I'll keep you
posted.

I had a letter from Erna W. and a constant flow of visitors
from USA this summer. This evening Mozell Hill will be with
us on his way to Nigeria.

Of course I saw Erna and his wife in London.
Unfortunately I missed John Hope Franklin.

This winter season has started very pleasantly busy for me
and on top of it all I am planning a return visit to your
country ... in a year or two years time ...

What's the anthology of the young ones doing?

Re:oney

It's nothing worse. I'm dropping her a note.

Geoffrey Bridson from B.B.C.
is coming by tonight. He's here for six
months preparing Churchill's life for TV.

The composer of KING KONG is
in London. I just wrote him that it was
you who first played me the record, and I
told him you-all might like to know each
other. His mailing address is:

Mr. Todd T. Matshikiza,
c/o Barclays Bank, D.C.O.,
Oceanic House,
1, Cockspur Street,
London, S. W. 1,

THE TASTE OF HONEY opened here last night and got very good reviews. I hope to see it soon. I saw Behan's HOSTAGE last week and found it most entertaining. And the new BALLETS AFRICANS company is excellent. Having gotten my own show, TAMBOURINES, revised for the 10th time, I decided to see something else other than what I write. About time!

Hello to Isa. Best wishes,

→ First fold here

10/6/60

BY AIR MAIL
PAR AVION
AIR LETTER

AEROGRAMME

Mr. Langston HUGHES

20 East, 127th street

New York 35

USA.

← Second fold here →

Sender's name and address:

R.E.Pool,
23a Highpoint
North Hill
London N.6, England

AN AIR LETTER SHOULD NOT CONTAIN ANY
ENCLOSURE; IF IT DOES IT WILL BE SURCHARGED
OR SENT BY ORDINARY MAIL.

← To open cut here