Typed manuscript and typescript carbons with coversheet signed ("Langston"), 21 pp, c.1952, 4to, fold at center, a few minor wrinkles, with original transmittal envelope.
Provenance: estate of William Marshall.

A collection of poems sent by Hughes to African-American actor, orator, and opera singer William Horace Marshall, stapled together with a typed cover sheet reading, "Poems for Bill Marshall / Margaret is thinking of making a suite of songs for bass voice, so I've sent her these poems to select from. Some of them might do for reciting, also," and signed "Langston." Poems include "Bad Man," "Fire," "Six-Bits Blues," "Railroad Avenue," and others. All but one of the poems are carbon copies; "I Don't Mind Dying" is an original typescript. "Margaret" is composer Margaret Bonds, who set a number of Hughes' poems to music. An interview with Marshall in The Black Scholar for July/August 1985 lists among Marshall's credits The Poetry and Music of the Negro, a collaboration with Hughes and Bonds.