4332 Champlain Avenue

Chicago, Illinois

March 11, 1942

Dear Mr. Hughes:

I'm very proud of the book you inscribed to the baby
and I know that by the time he's old enough to know who
Langston Hughes really is, he will be very proud, too.

I greatly wanted to discuss poetry with you -- the
modern Negro trends, your opinions regarding them, and espec-
ially your opinion regarding the personalized trends that
most of the members of the poetry class are taking. I'm send-
ing some pieces of mine that I hope you'll read when you are
not so hurried. I have copies, so do not bother to return
them.

I regret my baby's destruction of the dignity of your
rehearsal. He is no respecter of persons or occasions.

We hope to see you at the class again before you leave.
Very often, we have far more absorbing meetings than the one
at which you happened to be present.

Dear Mr. Hughes,

Thank you for your letter. We'll be overjoyed to have
you come to see us any evening after nine this week or next.
Or any time! Will you come to my parents' address, 4332
Champlain Avenue? I ask that because our own place at 66th and
Rhodes is in the turmoil that precedes moving day. Frankly,
I wanted you to visit us in our new apartment, but we can't
move until May first, and by that time you may have left Chi-
cago.

Please write us at the above address prior to your com-
ing. Or call Atlantic 2821.

Yes, Henry took his poems with him because he wanted to
submit them to the poetry contest the following Thursday. We'll
have them all to show you when you come.

The results of the contest will be announced when Mrs.
Stark comes back from New York and Washington -- about April
22nd or 23rd. Lately I've been writing about the war, so that
no one can say of me, SHE LIVED ALOOF FROM HER TIME!

Please make your promise good.

10

Langston Hughes
C/O Mrs. Toy Harper
634 ST., Nicholas Avenue
New York City, New York

September 7, 1943

Dear Friend,

Something special to ask you. You've heard of Poetry Magazine, most
important poetry publication in the world. Annually it gives prizes of one
hundred dollars each to the best poems of the year. Not to be outdone in so
laudable an endeavor as the rewarding of strivers in the most neglected of the
arts, a group of Negro poets (organized two years ago by Mrs. Inez Cunningham
Stark) are initiating this year a prize of their own -- perhaps to be called the
James Weldon Johnson award.

In order to do so we are presenting Frank Marshall Davis, well-known
poet, Theodore Ward, poet and playwright (Big White Fog), Nelson Algren, poet
and novelist, Katinka Loeser, poet and semantics authority, in symposium on the
subject Responsibility of the Writer in Wartime, and in recital; the first
Sunday in October, at South Side Art Center. Invitations will be sent you pres-
ently.

We'll appreciate it very much if you'll accept a sponsorship. Contribute
any amount you can, and be satisfied that you are contributing also and materially
to a most creditable end.

May we hear from you soon? <u>Very soon?</u> -- so that we can include your name
on our invitations, as a sponsor. Address your communication to

Gwendolyn Brooks Blakely
Chicago Poets' Club
623 E. 63rd Street
Chicago, Illinois

Margaret Taylor Goss,
Chairman of Presentation

March 28, 1944

Hello!

I thank you earnestly for the book of library recitations. I had just been reading of it in the *Marh* issue of Poetry and thinking how instructive it might be. You were mentioned in that issue too, and there was an article in it by a member of our poetry class; Edward Bland's *Racial Bias and Negro Poetry*.

This gives me a chance to thank you for your considerate mention of me at a church here. I was so unfortunate as not to know you were appearing that day, but many of my friends reported your generosity. You can imagine how happy I was. That was such a kind thing for an established author to do. I'll work mighty hard to be continuously deserving of it.

I have so many plans for future writing -- plans that are important, I feel, whatever the work may become! -- that lately I'm forever in a state of excitement, so eager to do everything at once that it's difficult to do anything. I know you must have gone through several periods of similar mental tearing, you'll understand me.

I enclose things you haven't seen. Keep or destroy, I have copies. I don't send them for an appraisal, I know you haven't the time; but thought you might like to see. Here too is a poem of Henry's on a recently publicized horror that interested all of us here.

Ted and Mary were here for dinner the night you missed them. Sorry the invitation was so ill-timed.

Thanks again and again.

Brooks
623 E. 63rd St.
Chicago, Ill.

Mr. Langston Hughes
634 St. Nicholas Ave.
New York 30, New York

625 E. 63rd
Chicago

October 25, 1948

Dear Langston,

Certainly was nice hearing from you again, after
all this time.

The miscigenation thing I thought was horrible.
You mentioned "Pearl May Lee" in connection with
it, but there isn't any, because Pearl's initial, guiding
anger was for her boy friend's preference for light-
colored women, and she would gladly have seen him
strung up for affairs with light-colored women, of the
Negro race. The white woman was merely an incidental,
an instrument through which he got the punishment he
had been "deserving" all along. So many people missed
that. (Neither did she have an antipathy for light-
colored Negro women as light-colored Negro women. Her
total concern was her sweetheart's love: she wanted it
to come to her, rather than to others.)

The other poems I have not finished reading yet; but
their beginnings announce them to be better poetry than
that "white woman" thing.

I had another book accepted in the summer, and it is sup-
posed to come out some time in 1949.

[6/8/49]

G. BROOKS

3

Dear Langston,

I have re-read I don't know how many times the
incredible things your secretary said. They make
me very happy, and at the same time awe me to the
ground. Bless him.

And bless you for being so generous as to tell me,
and so kind and thoughtful as to send quotes from
the children's reports. I was surprised at the
things they said. When before the public I always
feel that from word 1 I am making a failure. It
is so sweet to find out otherwise.

Henry has written another poem, and is now about
to revise it and two others. We will send his and
mine next week.

It was so much fun having you here. People are
still talking about how easy you are to get along
with.

July 2

1949

Dear Gwendolyn:

Some very interesting poetry has come in for the special issue of VOICES — and I hope yours and Henry's will be coming soon.

The issue will also have a section of book reviews and, as I may have written you, since Dick Wright has always admired your work, I have written to see if he can review your forthcoming book since the magazine will appear about the time your book will be coming out.

Do you like to review books yourself? If so, the books which have already been sent me for review in this issue are:

ONE-HORSE FARM, Robert P. Tristram Coffin

THE GRASSHOPPER'S MAN, Rosalie Moore

BY AVON RIVER, Hilda D. Aldington (H.D.)

THE FROST FOR SAINT BRIGID, Sister Maris Stella

IMAGE AND IDEA, (essays on literary themes) P. Rahv

ALFRED TENNYSON, Charles Tennyson (his grandson)

Usually the books of poems are coupled, two in a single review. The reviews need be no longer than two pages to three pages. If you think you would like to review any of these books for this issue, take your choice and I will send them to you. The books, of course, you may keep. You would not need to send me the review before mid-August.

Lots of good wishes to you and Henry and your son.

As ever,

Langston Hughes

LH:HHS

Mrs. Gwendolyn Brooks Blakely
623 East 63rd Street
Chicago, Illinois

July 14, 1949

Mr. Langston Hughes
20 East 127th Street
New York City, New York

Dear Langston,

Very, very late these are, but I have been waiting for Henry,
since I felt they might as well be sent together.

I hope they are suitable. If there is a choice between the two,
Henry would prefer *Earthworm* used.

Yes, I'd love to review the two books. I'd like ALFRED TENNYSON
and ONE-HORSE FARM. (Second choices, if those are already reviewed,
By Avon River and The Frost for Saint Brigid. Third choices, ANY-
THING!)

If you do send the books, I promise to get at them right away.

I can't tell you how many people have asked me if you are still here
in Chicago. That was a wonderful tribute to artistic Chicago that
you made in the Defender. People are still praising you for doing
such a thing.Just in general, your visit here made a terrific im-
pression, and everyone will be delighted when you do return.

July 16

1949

Dear Gwendolyn:

Thanks so much for sending along your poems and Henry's. I like them all and, if space permits, will use both of Henry's, but if not both, then *Earthworm*, which I, too, think is the better of the two, although they are both fine.

I am delighted that you can review a couple of the books for that issue of VOICES and am sending you the two that you prefer: ONE-HORSE FARM, by Robert P. Tristram Coffin, and ALFRED TENNYSON, by Charles Tennyson. The books you may keep, and the review should reach me by the first of September. You may combine the two books in a single review, if you like, and they together should not be longer than two and one-half pages double-spaced.

All of our major poets, except Margaret Walker, have not sent in poems. But Margaret, I hear, is having another baby, so maybe she cannot keep her mind on her work! Anyway she was never a very good correspondent. I have more than enough good poetry for the issue and I think it will be a bang-up good one.

I am still working on the lyrics for a musical and putting the *Simple* book into shape for Simon & Schuster, trying to give it a very slight thread of plot to hold the selection of columns together.

New York is full of summer visitors and everybody from Bricktop to Clarence Muse has called on me lately. So I have to work at night, after even summer visitors have gone to bed.

Best regards, as ever.

LH:HHS

Brooks
623 East 63rd Street
Chicago, Illinois

THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS

Dear Langston,

If you wonder why you haven't received the reviews for those books, it's because the books never came! I thought I had better let you know in case they were sent and had been lost in the mail.

If they haven't been sent, however, I suppose it's too late, isn't it?

Probably today you are being asked if you can come to Chicago September 18th to speak at an autograph affair for me. I hope so.

Henry's delighted you liked his work, and is eagerly waiting for the magazine. -- Gwen.

Dear Langston,

It is a shame that I have not responded to your nice card and friendly messages earlier than this. My plea is that ‡ never have a moment to call my soul my own, but it is a poor plea when I consider what a busy person you are, how many claims you have upon your time: yet you manage to write columns, plays, poems and articles and to keep up with your friends too. Doubtless, I have no friends left, for in over three months I have had no purely friendly correspondence, and have let much business mail slide. I even have a manuscript ready for a publisher except for perhaps two pages of corrective typing -- as yet, I have not had the time to sit down and take care of this. These words will sound strange to you, who probably know many mothers with three or four children who manage better than this -- but I am not one of those wonder-workers.

I certainly did mean to write and thank you for the beautiful tribute you paid me in your column in the Defender regarding my article in Holiday. When I think of the consistent cheers you have given me, through these ten years, I feel very humble.

My little girl is three months old now and is nice and fat. She smiles sweetly, coos, and looks very reflective.

Since I never go anywhere, I know next to nothing, so can not brighten your day with news.

Of the people we mutually know, I see Era Bell Thompson (of Ebony) very often. She is well, and still hoping to get her teeth into another book.

Much love and gratitude,

September 13,

Sunday, 1964.

Dear Gwendolyn:

A superb review of Leopold Sedar Senghor's poems in today's HERALD TRIBUNE---which I am airmailing him at once, in case nobody else does.

You know, they are having some sort of Festival in Senegal in December of next year, 1965, to which I hope they invite you. At any rate, I am suggesting they _do_ invite you.....I am off Sunday to the Berlin Festival.

One of the younger African poets is denouncing me there, I hear tell--- which is a good sign they won't be _imitating_ me as some of the older ones did. A bore! Each generation should be its own different self......Cordial regards---and I can't review that book you mentioned (Simpson) as about 1/5 of it is devoted to me.

Oct. 5, 1964

Miss Gwendolyn Brooks
7428 South Evans Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60619

Dear Miss Brooks:

Your kind note came at a time when
Mr. Hughes is still in Berlin, Hamburg,
Paris or London---exactly which place I
am not quite sure.

I know that he will be pleased to
find your note on his desk when he re-
turns sometime in November.

March 9, 1963

Dear Langston,

How's life?

Several years ago I read at a meeting,
celebrating you, a poem (celebrating you.)
Afterward, I removed two lines that didn't
fit right. (Never one to waste a word, how-
ever - ! - I saved those lines and used
them in another poem.)

This poem has been sent in to "arper to
be included in a book of "selected poems"
which they, at present, plan to publish
this year. (I don't know when: fall, maybe,
but I'm not sure.) I want you to have the
thing as it is today.

Best wishes.

April 12, 1963

Dear Gwendolyn:

I was delighted with your letter.
And everybody around here loves your poem
to me.

The hard cover copies of SOMETHING IN COMMON came out after the paperback. (All is vice-versa these days. Same happened with NAACP book. It used to be the other way around). So I'm posting you one now.

Acceptance pending, but it seems like-
ly I will have a little anthology, NEW NEGRO
POETS: U.S.A. at Indiana University Press
next winter. (LeRoi Jones, Ted Joans, Mar-
garet Danner and a few more who haven't yet
been properly introduced to the public yet).
I've suggested the Press ask you to do a
brief Introduction (for a fee, of course)
and the editor thought this a fine idea.
So---if and when---you probably in due time
will be hearing from them as to if you'd be
willing to write it. I hope you will, and
I think you'll like the collection when it
is finally assembled in toto.

I thought about you and Nora when I
was back in Washington for the President's
Lincoln's Birthday Reception---and stayed
at the same hotel near the station.

Best ever to you and Henry,

Sincerely,

P.S. My BLACK NATIVITY (currently in Italy)
opens in Chicago at the Civic, so I hear, on
December 2. Starts its USA tour in Boston.

April 15 [1943]

Dear Langston,

Just getting ready to read you and the
others in Saturday Review, which arrived
with your letter.

I've already received the copies of SOME-
THING IN COMMON which I ordered from Hill
and Wang, and you shouldn't be sending
another. However, if it is already in the
mail, I shall give it to one of your ad-
miners, Bob Cromie of the Tribune -- and
I am again grateful.

The Indiana U. Press anthology of yours,
NEW NEGRO POETS: U.S.A., is great news,
and of course I'll be glad to attempt the
introduction, if you both wish.

I shall certainly see BLACK NATIVITY when
it comes to the Civic.

Best wishes!

Sincerely,

October 6, 1963

Dear Gwendolyn: [Brooks]

Look what a nice sendoff we both get
in the TIMES today!

Your new book looks lovely and there's
no way to tell you how grateful I am for
the poem, and for your touching
inscription—and gracious memory!

The American Negro Exposition—I tried
my best to get the First Prize in Poetry
for your BALLAD OF PEARL MAY LEE which I
have always loved but (and now it can be
told) the rest of the Committee thought the
poem too BELIGERANT! So, as you recall,
the prize went to Melvin Tolson for much
less exciting or original verse. Anyhow,
you got a BIGGER prize later on.

About your Introduction to NEW NEGRO
POETS: U. S. A., Indiana University Press
has agreed to let you write as long a piece
as you wish and will pay according to
length—so say your say. It needn't be
a thousand pages, or even ten, but you
need not be limited to just a few pages,
either. I was in Europe when they first wrote
you—but I'm back now.

Head over heels in rehearsals of TAM-
BOURINES TO GLORY to open on November 2—
so forgive this hasty note. Thanks again
for everything, and best ever to Henry. May-
be I'll get out to Chicago when my BLACK
NATIVITY plays there in December, so hope to
see you all.

Sincere ly,

GWENDOLYN BROOKS, LeROI JONES, MARI EVANS, SAMUEL ALLEN, MARGARET DANNER, JAMES A. EMANUEL, ROLLAND SNELLINGS (Try him by phone, too, since he didn't answer).

DEAR GWENDOLYN:

The British Broadcasting Corporation
prepare
has asked me to a 45 minute "Radio Anthology
of Negro Poetry" to be broadcast from London
in the fall as a part of a 13 week series
BBC is doing on American Negro culture, general
life
and problems. Would you be willing
to tape record for this at a local studio
to be designated and paid for by BBC the en-
closed poems of yours, adding, if you wish,
one or two others of your own selection, from
which a final choice might be made for the
London program? You will also be paid the
customary BBC fee for the use of your poems
and your recording time. At the moment, all
I need is your confirmation, then BBC will
set up a recording time community at your
convenience. Please reply soon.

Langston Hughes

May 15, 1964

Dear Langston,

I look forward to seeing what is going to be said
about "Negro Poets". I love the look of it, and
I think that in the foreword I sound much more
"thoughtful" than I am!

This opportunity you mention is delightful, and I'm
honored to be invited to participate. Set things up
as you choose. I've added two new poems, one on the
Kennedy death and one on the Medgar Evers death. And
I included an old poem, People Protest etc.

I hope life is pleasant! (In these times, that sounds
almost ridiculous, doesn't it!)

With warm good wishes, nevertheless,

March 31, 1962

Dear Langston,

How much your gay little note brightened
the morning. We need brighteners here
in Chicago now. We keep losing wonderful
people. Marion Perkins died. And now
Frank Brown is dead. What a terrible
winter this has been.

I am pleased indeed to know you like
Oscar Brown's (and my! - my own!) "Elegy."
That music is almost unbearably beautiful.
He brought out so well what I put in the
poem (Of De Witt Williams on His Way to
Lincoln Cemetery) -- and even extended it.

He is a tremendous talent.

There is so much talent among us! You, as
usual, are doing a thousand impressive
things at once!

Continued success to you, Langston.

March 24, 1962

Dear Gwendolyn: [Brooks? ]

After watching on TV the other
night the appalling finale of the
Griffith-Peret fight at the Garden,
the only thing I thought of doing was
playing Oscar's recording of your
NOTHING BUT A PLAIN BLACK BOY---more
moving than ever then. It has always
been one your favorite poems with me.
I think the recording is beautiful.

Regards to Henry---and you, too.

January 8, 1960

Dear Langston,

You'll never know how much
your letter, concerning my
father's death, meant to me. It
came at a time when I was feeling
particularly grief-ridden and
unsupported. (My father was
such a wonderful man, truly good
and kind, and his loss is loss.)
And that you should interrupt
your crowded schedule to send
words of comfort is such a
thoughtfulness as I'll never
forget. I wish a most pleasant

7428 South Evans Avenue
Chicago 19, Illinois

August 15, 1960

Dear Langston,

I appreciate so much this copy of your Spingarn acceptance speech. How proud you must be! This is really tremendous.

I have been reading about you in the New York Times, in Holiday (that remarkable picture in color) and in the Chicago Tribune.

What I saw about your play -- submitted, re-shaped, shelved, dusted off, re-submitted, then, SUCCESS! -- was hilarious. I read it to Henry.

Congratulations on all your recent strides.

The other day I was allowed to "teach" a class in Negro Literature at Roosevelt U. In preparation for it, I found I needed so much Langston Hughes material: -- Poetry of the Negro; 'ictorial History of the American Negro; and the Glory record, Poetry of the Negro, that is "glorified" by such a strong featuring of your poetry. You have truly left an important impress upon this world, truly made a vital contribution. How happy inside yourself you must feel! (Or _should_ feel!)

P.S. II -- I played the Glory record for the above-mentioned class. They profoundly loved it, and many of them want to order it.

Oct. 4, 1956

Dear Gwendolyn,

Just a few days ago your charming little book of
poems for boys and girls came from the publishers
and today comes your very nice note, so this must
be my GWENDOLYN BROOKS WEEK.

The jacket of I WONDER AS I WANDER also came this
week with a montage of pictures of myself all around
the world on it. Judging from the size of the
jacket, the book is going to be enormous, some 500
pages, and will probably weigh several pounds -
which is why, I suppose, it must sell for $6, a
price which prohibits me from buying even one copy.
Books are getting too high for authors to purchase
anymore.

I don't know anything about any Hollywood picture
beyond what I read in JET. I have not heard tell
of it before or since, and probably Ann Petry has
not either. Anyhow I love to read unknown news
about myself.

Best regards to Henry and the children and certainly
when I come to Chicago again I shall look you up.
I shall never forget that wonderful party you gave
when you really lived in the heart of Bronzeville.
I am just about the only living Negro writer who
still lives in the heart of Harlem.

All good wishes to you, as ever,

LH/g

7428 Evans Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

October 2, 1956

Dear Langston,

What a treat to hear from you. Your notes (sic)
are so breezy -- like fresh air blowing into a dull
day.

I can hardly wait to see your new work. It will be in
the book stores here soon. I WONDER AS I WANDER should
be grand, if it's anywhere near as exciting as your first
auto., which I enjoyed long ago. There isn't anything else
abroad like A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA,
is there? In so far as I know, it's unique.

How you can accomplish so much I've never been able to
understand. I should think you'd have a nervous break-
down. I also saw somewhere that you are doing up the movie
version of Ann Petry's STREET. Good for both of you!

Are you ever in Chicago? If so, call us sometime. (Henry
Blakely, in the telephone book.)

Best wishes to you,

From your friend,

F.S. The less said about that poem the better.

November 28, 1964

Dear Gwendolyn:

Do you, by any chance, have trans-
lations of any of your poems into French?
If so, please send me four or five, as I
am editing an anthology of Negro poets
for Pieere Seghers in Paris, and we wish
to use existing translations wherever
possible. I've found a dozen or so of
our poets who have a number of poems in
French in various anthologies, but haven'
come across any of yours yet.

I'm just back from a wonderful eight
weeks in Europe---Berlin Festival, Paris,
London (BBC)---only to come down with the
flu on my return home. You may recall
what Simple says: "White folks thrive on
vacations, but the almost kill Negroes."

Oh, well, quand meme---

Ever sincerely,

January 20, 1965

Dear Gwendolyn:

A couple of weeks or so ago, the State Department asked my advice about the forming of a literary panel of three for seminars on Negro literature in Paris in May. Of, course, I suggested you as one of them, but didn't have a chance till now to alert you. You have probably heard from Washington by this time. If not, you no doubt will.

Also there's a possibility of a similiar but larger group being sent to the Dakar Festival of Negro Arts in April, 1966. I'm on the American Committee, so I've put your name on that list, too---although at the moment things are still tentative as to exact programs.

Anyhow, here's looking ahead.

Best to Henry.

Sincerely,

July 15, 1964

Dear Gwenolyn,

Thank you for your note. I tried to phone you a day or two ago, but since you have an unlisted number as I do, I sent you a wire instead. Margaret Donner, Samuel Allen, and the various other out of town poets have all finished their recording for BBC, and as soon as we get yours we can assemble and edit the program. So, kindly take a taxi downtown and read about ten minutes of poetry and take a taxi back home and BBC will pay for it all. There will be a reading fee of about $25.00 as well as an additional payment per line for the poetry used.....Dick Wright's story is in EIGHT MEN, called THE MAN WHO WENT TO CHICAGO. Cordial regards to Henry and yourself.

93

March 10, 1966

Dear Gwendolyn:

I was in Paris when your note of January 2 came about your story. Now, I am about to go off to Dakar for the Festival in a couple of weeks, and trying to play catch-up on all the things left undone, and also complete before I leave a big PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN ENTERTAINMENT otherwise it won't get on the Christmas lists.

So I've just tonight gotten around to reading again your most charming MAude MARTHA--- one of my favorite little novels in the world--- which I wish would be reissued in paper back. From it I would like to use in THE BOOK OF NEGRO SHORT STORIES chapter 18---"We're The Only Colored People Here" and am asking Harper's for permission. The anthology is all ready to go to press soon, except for my Introduction which I also MUST finish before I depart for Africa. As the gospel singers say, "Help me, Jesus!"

I wish you were going to Dakar with us. I told you I put your name in the kitty a long time ago. After the Festival ends on April 24, I'm doing another poetry reading tour for the State Department to be gone until late June--- Ethiopia, the Sudan (both of which thrill me) Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, North Africa, etc. But they didn't put the Congo on my itinerary! Oh, well, I've been there years ago when I was a seaman---way up the Congo River when Tsombe was a baby in the bullrushes---where they should have left him.

Give my best to your very nice daughter.
And to Henry.

Cordial regards,