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FREEDOMWAYS 
FOURTH QUARTER 1972

Very soon after-July 13 to be exact he addresses:

Miss Alice Ruth Moore: Your beautiful poem and kind invitation to hand and allow me to thank you for both. The latter I wish I could take advantage of, but-.

Your poem "Love for a Day" I consider exquisite. It is rich, warm, luxuriant, if you will, in phrasing and glows with color. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it without seeming extravagant. I shall run it next week and have decided that if you will send a photo we will have a zinc etching made there-from to go with the poem. Then, if you will let me, I will keep the photo; or send it back as you may direct.

You cannot send me too much of your work; I shall be glad to have anything you can spare, either prose or verse.

If this note proves incoherent, you will sympathize with me when I tell you that a young person is reading to me from the own poems and reading rather badly at that, alas, alas!

I notice upon the invitation you send, the name of Marie Allain. Is she a daughter of ex-Senator Allain of your state?

Please send the photo immediately if it will not inconvenience you. 

If the Muse will attend me I may try to write an answer to your "Love For a Day."

Very sincerely yours,
Paul Laurence Dunbar

From Eagle Lake, Indiana, a few days earlier, Dunbar told of his attendance at this "sweetest spot in the world" and the Western Association of Writers being held there: "Although, I am the only colored member.  Ia m not allowed to feel it.  It's boating, fishing, music, poetry and general literature in pleasantly varied layers."

From there he wrote and sent to her, "A Song," which was later titled in his collected poems, "A Lyric," beginning

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-19 20:22:17