SOURCE: "Preface to Melvin B. Tolson's Caviar and Cabbage Columns," in New Letters, Summer, 1981, pp. 101-02.

In the following essay, Farnsworth discusses Tolson's Caviar and Cabbage columns.

Melvin B. Tolson's last two books of poetry, The Libretto for the Liberian Republic and Harlem Gallery won him deservedly strong critical acclaim. But those who know his work only by these rewarding, but bristlingly demanding, major poems are cut off from the roots of his writing experience.

From November 13, 1937, until June 24, 1944, Tolson wrote a weekly column, Caviar and Cabbage, for the Washington Tribune. These years included the closing years of the great depression and the United States' entry into World War II. These two events were a major influence on Tolson's writing career, and they also strongly influenced the terms by which black Americans then defined their cultural role in national and international communities. The social ravages of the great...