The collection spans 1 1/4 linear feet and covers the years 1959 to 1967. The correspondence is primarily with her many friends and proteges. She served as a patron and critic of many young Negro poets, and the correspondence reveals her devotion to supporting and locating new talent, as well as maintaining friendships with many well known established poets. Included with many of the letters are newspaper clippings, biographical sketches, poems, programs and her encouraging remarks.

The correspondence will reveal that Dr. Pool published unpublished works of new talents such as Mari Evans, Robert Abrams and Roscoe Lee Brown. Other correspondents in the collection include Owen Dodson, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Ann Petry, Paul Vessy, Julian Bond, Arna Bontemps, John Henrik Clark, and Arthur B. Spingarn. Her recognition as a scholar and a critic of modern American Negro poetry is quite evident throughout this collection.

Dr. Pool was born in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1905. She was an author, a linguist, a teacher, and a literary critic. She later moved to London, England, where she edited and published several anthologies of modern Negro poetry in English as well as in Dutch translation. Many of the letters in her papers relate to her anthologies, Beyond the Blues: Hand and Flower Press, 1962; and Ik ben de Nieuwe Neger (I am the New Negro): Bert Bakker, Den Hagg, 1965. While working on the above texts, Dr. Pool often asked such established poets as Langston Hughes to aid in the location of new talent.