Melvin B. Tolson Analysis

Melvin B. Tolson wrote three unpublished novels, “Beyond the Zaretto” (written in late 1920’s), “The Lion and the Jackal” (written in late 1930’s), and “All Aboard” (written in 1950’s). In addition, he composed a number of full-length and one-act plays, including “The Moses of Beale Street,” “Southern Front,” “Bivouac on the Santa Fe,” and “The House by the Side of the Tracks,” all of which were unpublished. From 1937 to 1944, Tolson wrote a column titled “Caviar and Cabbage” for the Washington Tribune.

While Melvin B. Tolson earned little critical attention throughout most of his life, his work was not without recognition. In 1939, he won first place in the National Poetry Contest award sponsored by the American Negro Exposition in Chicago for “Dark Symphony.” In 1945, he won the Omega Psi Phi Award for creative writing, and in 1951, he earned Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize for “E. & O. E.” He served as poet laureate of Liberia, Africa, in 1947, and was appointed permanent Bread Loaf Fellow in Poetry and Drama, 1954. The 1960’s brought two additional distinctions, the District of Columbia Citation and Award for Cultural Achievement in Fine Arts in 1965 and the National Institute and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature in 1966. Tolson also earned fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and Omega Psi Phi and served as mayor of Langston, Oklahoma, from 1952 to 1958. Posthumously, Tolson won the Ralph Ellison Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book in 1998.