Samuel Washington Allen (1917 – ), who also wrote under the pseudonym Paul Vesey, is the author of four books of poems: Elfenbeinzahne: Gedichte eines Afroamerikaners (bilingual edition in English and German, Heidleberg, Germany: Wolfang Rothe 1956), Ivory Tusks and Other Poems (New York: Poets Press, 1968), Paul Vesey’s Ledger (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1975), and Every Round and Other Poems (Detroit: Lotus Press, 1987). He edited Poems from Africa (New York: Crowell, 1973), and translated Jean Paul Sartre’s Jean-Paul Sartre’s Orphee Noir and Leopold Senghor’s Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poesie Negre from French into English. He lived in DC from 1961 to 1968, working as assistant general counsel of the U.S. Information Agency and chief counsel of the Community Relations Service.
