[Tape recorded on 13 October 1974.]

Travel problems

I have been asked to come and talk about my poetry at Stirling University [in Scotland], but I probably will not be able to go. I have also been invited to York University in Canada where an organization is being formed of South African expatriates. It might be useful at this point to say something about why I will not be able to go to Canada or to Scotland, or for that matter to Kinshasa where I had hoped to be at the Muhammad Ali – Foreman fight to which I have been invited by the promoter, Don King, for whom I acted as consultant and on whose behalf I went to Kinshasa in July after I had attended the Pan-African Congress in Dar es Salaam.

The heart of the problem, and I shall not attempt to discuss it in detail here, is that I am no longer allowed a visa in the United States, that my current visa expired in August [1964], but Northwestern University is currently at least making half an effort to get me an extension of that visa or a transfer to an H-visa, which is the one granted to distinguished visitors. But as a consequence of my present predicament it is impossible for me to both leave the United States and return: that if I was to leave, I would not be granted a visa for re-entry.