March 12, 1941

Langston Hughes

Dear Sir:

Have long admired a number of your lyrics & w'd like
to know if you have any unpublished lyric or lyrics
at elbow. I am editing an "anthology issue" of COM-
PASS magazine (72 pages) & w'd be glad to consider
anything you can send. The issue will be hand-set,
on fine paper, & will contain such poets as Fear-
ing, Frankenberg, Marianne Moore, Cummings, /John Bob Clairmont
Ciardi, &c.)

Hope this reaches you quickly - & that I hear from
you quickly -- as time is off the essence.

Might add that I enjoyed your autobiography, which
I read just three months ago.

Tom Boggs
14 Christopher St.,
N. Y. N. Y.

Phone: Watkins 9-2261

Sent: 3/20/41

Poems enclosed:

LOVE — Puck
KID SLELPY

REVERIE
DEATH CHANT

EARLY EVENING QUARREL — Puck
EVIL MORNING

Requested copyrights be turned over
immediately to Knopf's.

Z

March 26

Dear Hughes -- Hope your verses today are
not too late for issue. Send off my two
favorites (LOVE & EARLY EVENING QUARREL)
airmail to James Decker, Prairie City,
Illinois, the publisher. Fairly certain
he can work them in. Thanks immensely:
both first rate poems. Decker will send
you a copy of the issue (to appear in May).
Contains poems by Cummings, Fearing, Mari-
anne Moore, Cowley & several others: 72
pages -- hand-set. --Gratefully yours,

Ans. O.K.
Check-if any-to Lieber.
Copyright to Knopf.

THE LIVING AGE

• • • • • FOUNDED 1844 • • • • •

420 MADISON AVE. • NEW YORK

May 15, 1941

Dear Langston Hughes:

I Hope you have by now received your copy of my Com-
pass Anthology, & that you like. Thanks again.

Am reprinting your Early Evening Quarrel in my
first poetry reprint section for Living Age mag-
azine (June issue). I w'd like to know if I may
have your permission to reprint Southern Mammy
Sings in the July or August issue of Living Age.
I sincerely hope so. (Poetry has given me their
permission.)

Sorry your book has been postponed till fall.

With the hope that I may hear from you soon --

Tom Boggs
14 Christopher St.
New York, N.Y.

Ans. 31 poems sent, Oct. 24, 1941.

THE LIVING AGE

FOUNDED 1844

420 MADISON AVE.

NEW YORK

Oct. 18, 1941

Dear Langston Hughes -

Greetings.

Hope you got your copy of the COMPASS ANTHOLOGY I with
that superb poem of yours, *Early Evening Quarrel* (& the
8 line lyric, "John Henry with his hammer" or however
it ran). The book sold out in ten weeks.

Am now concluding a sequel: C. A. II, with poems by
many of the poets in the first, as well as poems by
Winfield T. Scott, Wallace Stevens, C. Day Lewis and
others.

A favor: have you anything at elbow that has not yet
appeared in anthology form? (Magazine or book publi-
cation does not matter, so long as it is a poem that
has not been included in any collection.) Hope you
can send me several such, Hughes: am certain I will
find something to add to the 40-some poems that will
comprise the book. (There was one recently in Poetry
--called, I believe, *Southern Mammy Sings*--that was
almost one of your real triumphs.)

Read your EARLY EVENING QUARREL at a lecture recently
at Harvard & intend to read at another this month at
Amherst.

(NEW POETS out next week. Schacht, Clairmont, Mayo &
Ciardi worth knowing.)

Hope I hear from you soon & that you can send me sev-
eral. It will be all right if they are to appear in
SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM. Mr. Koshland of Knopf's
writes me that the book is not to come out until ear-
ly next year, & COMP. ANTH. II will be out before it.

Sincerely yours--

Tom Boggs

12 Grove St.
New York, N.Y.

THE LIVING AGE

FOUNDED 1844
420 MADISON AVE. NEW YORK

Oct. 29, '41

Dear Hughes -

Gracious of you to answer so soon & to send such a
rich sheaf of poems. There is a great difference
in your work (as there is in mine & so many poets)
between your best & your worst. Your work - if I
may be so bold - reminds me of Vachel Lindsay's
in that respect. & your fine ones fine as Lind's.

I w'd like to use four of yours, Hughes (four the maximum I am using of any poet, & that many only of Wallace Stevens, E. L. Mayo, Cummings/& Yvor Winters.) (The collection in all will contain less than 50 poems.) The four are: to be printed in this order: It is not weariness: They had no dignity before: In the dark: I'm afraid of that tree. -----They make a powerful group, & a strangely varied, strangely representative one within a compass of only 30 lines!

It does not matter if any or all have been - or
are to be published this winter - in newspaper or
magazine form, so you have 3 or 4 months still in
which to place any that have not yet been printed.
(You might send one or two to W. T. Scott, New
Verse Editor, Providence Journal, Prov., R. I.,
Hughes, & say at my suggestion. Scott cannot pay
much but he has been printing a remarkably high
standard of verse, & verse by the country's best
poets.

Unfortunately, Compass Anthology II will not be a
profit making venture (only 750 copies will be
printed) so Decker cannot afford to pay. I sin-
cerely hope this will not stand in the way of your
consent: that you will be willing to receive pay-
ment in copies. (Among the other poets in the
book will be: C. Day Lewis, Marianne Moore, Walter
de la Mare, Theo. Roethke, & it will be a handsome
book.) As soon as I hear from you will write to
Mr. Lieber.

Incidentally, have you another masterpiece, in your
mss. of SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM, another EARLY EVEN-
ING QUARREL or BURDEN or HARLEM DANCE HALL, that I
might see? Am certain Knopf w'd grant their con-
sent, esp. as the anthology will be out before S.
IN H.. (Decker hopes to release the book in Jan.)

NEW POETS, with 24 lyrics of my own, will be out
in a few weeks. Will send you a copy.

Am returning the other poems. Best answer airmail. --yours,

To: R. T. P.
+i-climatic

P. S. - Holding Barrel-House. - First 2 verses of Hong Term superb but feel end a bit an-

THE EDWIN MARKHAM POETRY FORUM

44 MORNINGSIDE DRIVE
NEW YORK CITY

Nov. 6, '41

Dear Langston Hughes -

Thank you for your kind consent on the four poems for COMPASS ANTHOLOGY II. (The one I mentioned as beginning "In the dark" is the poem titled NIGHT HARLEM DANCE HALL SONG: the other three, BURDEN, *MOTHER AND MOTHER AND MOTHER* & FEAR. They all have the 'magic,' or whatever one wants to call it, that I like.

Am sending you a copy of NEW POETS in a few days: soon as more arrive. The book contains another admirer of yours: Robert Clairmont - the chap about whom I wrote the book MILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY (Vanguard Press, 1933).

Will write Knopf to send me proofs on S. IN HARLEM. Hope they will - & soon enough, since the book is about ready to go to press.

Enclosed is a review of your autobiog., from THE LISTENER, London, Sept. 25, '41. (Someday I w'd like to send you my copy to write your name in - if you w'd be so kind.)

Speaking of autobiog's, one you w'd like is that of a rare & remarkable person - Rose O'Neill (which Little, Brown is bringing out early in '42). Have seen the ms& of the first half of it & it is superb. (Have one of Rose's poems in COMPASS ANTH. II.)

Again, thanks. COMPASS will be out early next yr.

--Let me know any time you're back in N. Y. (The
frau also a sincere admirer of your work.) --

yours--

HARVARD CLUB
27 WEST 44TH STREET

Dec. 14, '92

Dear Langston -

Glad to hear from you. But sorry about that democracy/brotherhood matter: that you feel it must remain the former. You write: "I do not believe that even the best welcomed refugee finds brotherhood here in any very large sense." I agree with you: that is why I feel the word brotherhood is stronger. We claim to offer it & we do not. And it is a damned sight more important word than democracy. (Incidendally, John Ciardi, Fearing, Robert Clairmont and two or three other poets I have shown the poem to feel as strong a preference as I do.) I have typed the poem on the other side of this, since you write that you do not have a copy of it with you. C'd you let me know whether the change is o. k. or not, Langston, by return mail, since the book must go to the publisher by the end of this month.

Of the book itself, decided title AMERICAN DECADE (sub-title - 59 poems now in anthology form for the first time) the publisher -

9

The Cummington Press (they did
Wallace Stevens' last book and
they do exquisite work) -- the
poets Frost, Jeffers, Sand-
burg, Gregory, Fearing, Mark
Van Doren, Cowley, Marianne
Moore, Cummings &c.

480 copies will be printed, 25
in special binding to be signed
by the contributors. (A true
labor of love: my ~~ sole com-
pensation, incidentally, 12 cop-
ies!~~). But glad to have a beaut-
iful book - & getting any poetry
published these days is a feat.
Glad
/You are over 38 & free of the
military draft. My wife and I
(her picture is on the next
month's cover of CHARM - Jan.)
look forward to meeting you when
you are in N. Y.

Kindly let me hear from you by
return mail. I'd like also to
see anything new if you have
anything new at elbow.

-yours,

12 Grove St.
N.Y. N.Y.

(trusting to memory) ~~and verse~~
There are words like brotherhood/
That almost make me cry./If you
knew what I've known/You'd know
why.

C O P Y

Yaddo,
Saratoga Springs,
New York,
September 1, 1943.

Mr. Tom Boggs,
12 Grove Street,
New York, New York.

Dear Tom Boggs,

Thank you for sending me your beautifully printed AMERICAN DECADE. I am delighted to be included therein. But listen, wasn't that poem when I sent it to you called, REFUGEE IN AMERICA? At any rate, that is the title under which it appeared in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, and it is about refugees in America, not about Negroes who certainly don't have any where near the freedom that refugees in America have. So those noble words I speak of do not make us quite so sentimental. We still have to ride in Jim Crow cars.

Quite a few former Yaddo residents are in your anthology, so the folks here were interested in seeing it.

14

The Westporter-Herald

Thursdays

Westport's Own Community Newspaper Since 1868

L. PARKER LIKELY
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

July 25

Dear Langston —

Glad to hear from you — and thanks. Yes, I'd like to
have typed copies of the MADAM! TO YOU poems — tho'
it may be some time before the anthology is completed
— what with working on this fool weekly as editor.
So — shoot 'em on.

Hope all is well with you and that you are writing
more Miss. Levees, Early Evening Quarrels, &c. —
AMERICAN DECADE, my last collection — which had your
THERE ARE WORDS LIKE BROTHERHOOD — is now, despite
it's $3.50 price — just about sold out. Now all 9
of my books are sold out, keeping my record clean.
(Intend to reprint your THERE ARE WORDS LIKE FREEDOM
on editorial page of paper soon. Have already used
poems by Cowley, E. L. Mayo, Clairmont, Rose O'Neill,
Fearing and others.)

-- yours

CREATIVE PRINTING AND ADVERTISING

Circulars — Booklets — Business Forms — Folders — Magazines — Publications
Sixteen-page Goss Stereotype Rotary Press — Automatic Platten Presses

P.S. By the way, what MM book of yours was your poem THE SAILOR ("He sat upon the rolling deck" in?

Oct. 28th

Dear Langston Hughes--

Very glad to see the new. Some grand things:
REFUGEE IN AMERICA, CIRCLES, OLD DEATH SPEAKS,
GO AND GET THE ENEMY BLUES. W'd like to use
in MODERN AMERICAN POETS (24 poets, including
Frost, Jeffers, Sandburg, Fearing, Gregory,
Cummings, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore,
Harry Brown, Cowley). An average of about 4
poems to each poet, & all recent work. --In
addition to the above, plan to use your EARLY
EVENING QUARREL and perhaps, as well, MISSISS-
IPPIE LEVEE.

One suggestion, Hughes, if you don't mind. . .
Feel that in REFUGEE IN AMERICA the poem w'd
gain immensely by a change in the 5th line
of the word "democracy" (a vague, abstract
word, and a word open to so many interpreta-
tions) to "brotherhood" - a real, a living &
understandable word. There is, of course,
more political irony - at least a more direct
political irony - in the "democracy" but I
feel, as do a half dozen others on whom I've
tried it out, that "brotherhood" is infinite-
ly stronger as poetry. I w'd be happy to use
the poem in either case but much happier with
brotherhood (which is, incidentally, used al-
most as much by the orators, anyway, as the
good old worn out Greek political term).* Let
me know, though, if you do not favor the change.

Phoned you at the YMHA when you spoke here last
winter but suppose you did not get my message
to call. --Clairmont's prose masterpiece,
25,000 words, included in the forthcoming New
Directions Prose & Poetry, 1942. You'll enjoy
it as much as Carroll's Alice: maybe more. --
Saw Handy with Clairmont one night last spring.
Glad he's set the song. Anxious to get to a
piano with it.

Kindly say hello forme to Fearing & tell
him Ciardi, now in the air force, is visiting
us this week-end. --Let me know anytime you
are in New York.

-yours

*And true brotherhood is a problem in every country—
whatever it's government happens to call itself.*