Langston Hughes

Much of Langston Hughes poetry is poignant look at the discrimination between African Americans and white America during the Harlem Renaissance. However, there are several poems that show the contradictions of the American dream, particularly in " Let America be America Again."

When I think of America the first thing that comes to mind is the land of opportunities (work, education, etc) and the American dream (a white picket fence, 2 and half children, and a dog). This is also the mind frame of many immigrants who migrate to America. However, this dream is not ideal, and perhaps not for everyone. In Hughes poem, the speaker talks about how America is not a place where he or she can feel at home, given that the beliefs system of American is contradiction . The speaker states, "O, let my land be where Liberty/ Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath/ But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breath." Here, the speaker talks about what America has to offer: freedom, opportunity and equality. However, in the the following stanza the speaker states, "There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom, in this "Homeland of the free." If we put this in the context of the Harlem Rennisance we can see the contradictions given that the rights of African Americans were non-existance. They were treated as second class citizens, who were often beaten and killed for being black. The fact that that occured shows that equality and freedom was not for everyone during that time period.

In addition, the speaker describe who he or she is: " I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart/ I am the negro bearing slavery's scars/ I am the red man driven from the land / I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek / And finding only the same stupid plan/ Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak." Here, the speaker shows the struggle of the underdog who are simply trying to survive in a nation where only the "white" man has power. Yet, it is the white m,an who has money and power. I personally think this lines here show the point of the overall poem which is that we live in a world where ones socio-economic status, race, and gender determine ones place in society. This of course contradicts the meaning of America, which is suppose to be land where everyone is equal, but the reality of life and the poem prove otherwise.

Langston Hughes’s poetry captures a moment in time – the Harlem Renaissance – but foresees the future and recounts the past. There’s so much there. The video of “The Weary Blues” juxtaposes Hughes’s words with the obvious energy and jazz of Cab Calloway’s “hi-de-ho;” Calloway is neither weary nor blue, and I found, at first glance, that the words of the poem didn’t go with the vitality of the song and dance in the video, but watching it again and reading the other poems, I started putting together the history.

In “Democracy” and “Dream Deferred,” Hughes makes the argument of W.E.B. duBois and Malcolm X – we cannot wait for freedom and equality, for our dreams, or nothing will happen. “Democracy” says that “I do not need my freedom when I’m dead,” and “Dream Deferred” asks if it “explode[s].” In either case, we can’t take advantage of the dream. The future is bleak if it is without action, and I found the video images filled with the action that the narrative did not have; again, the man in “The Weary Blues” “slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.” He’s moaning and melancholy, and he’s not doing anything to change his situation.

In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” there’s more of the history, dating back to the Euphrates, the “cradle of civilization,” through the Congo and the Nile to the Mississippi. In one verse, Hughes briefly covers the journey of the black man to this country, and expresses a depth of feeling about the past. The rivers are the flow of that history and are “ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human rivers.” I wondered what influence this poem had on later works. (First the song “Ol’ Man River” from the musical “Showboat” came to mind – but this was a fleeting connection.) The river part, in particular, of Maya Angelou’s inaugural poem for Bill Clinton “A Rock, A River, A Tree” was what I wanted to read again:

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast
.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

The whole text can be read at: http://poetry.eserver.org/angelou.html.

Hughes’ poems connect his own past, present and future. In his eulogy of Cab Calloway, former Mayor David N. Dinkins paraphrased Langston Hughes, saying, "Cab took the heartbeat of Harlem, put it on a record and let it whirl" (NYTimes 11/20/94). The poem from which this is paraphrased is “Juke Box Love Song,” a short love poem for Harlem and for “my sweet brown Harlem girl.” It’s very different from “The Weary Blues.”
Sheila Joseph

On Dream Deferred

When I read "A Dream Deferred" I think of dreams and ideals as being tangible entities. Self. I think of them as having life of their own - being born, growing, thriving, coming to fruition, aging, changing and then finally, dying. As I ponder this cycle, and the cycle of life, I imagine these alive, living, dreams as pieces of self and I consider the process of decay. As pieces of self die and decay they must either be slacked away to protect the living, thriving, flesh or be rescued from that which destroys its life. I imagine the difficulty in deciding - cut away the rotting flesh or nurture it, even as it may continue to die. I think even more of the complexity of emotion - frustration, anger, remorse, and sense of loss - that would be tied to the removal of the choice to cut away or nurture. What if there is no option, but only the command that dreams will die, even before they are born? How could one be whole? How could one touch the very thing within themselves that makes their life one of living and experience, if dreams are taken before they can be conceived?

More, if dreams are tangible things and they exist as a facet of life, and in a infinite multitude of variation, and when they die and / or are not recognized the weight of the bitter load of that death is exhausting, rotten, sickly and grotesque, then what IS the action (or reaction) to such loss? It troubles me that in this particular poem Hughes leaves us stirring with only an inkling of a response. He asks, "Or does it explode?" And I wonder, if this is his way of forcing a reaction from the reader, or if he has lost his nerve at this point in the poem? He threatens action, suggests a violent response, but gives us nothing in the way of understanding the potential mechanisms of such a response or the consequences of violent reaction. Because of this, this poem leaves me thoughful, but generally unsatisfied and incomplete.

Steph

I got so busy responding to other folks' posts that I nearly sapped myself for this one. But, no, there is always more one can pull from poetry, I am learning. I'd like to focus on the poem "I look at the world". I found these links to more information on it from Poetry Magazine:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=182642 (article)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182644 (poem)

Apparently this and a few other poems were recently discovered—written by Hughes into the endpapers of a revolutionary poetry anthology in 1930. For me, it helps to know the year and time in the author's life when a poem or story was written. However, it was often difficult to find the year each poem was written. I tried to get a sense of which ones had a similar tone, which ones could be from earlier or later in his career. (Perhaps it is better to read the poem simply as it is, and then set it in a historical context... thoughts?)

This poem—written at the onset of the Great Depression, when Hughes was in his late 20s—suggests revolution, as many of his poems do. Langston condemns the status quo and calls out the sustained oppression against people of color in this country, but ends with a powerful message of hope. These lines really got me, both in its imagery and cadence: "I look at my own body / With eyes no longer blind—/And I see what my own hands can make / The world that's in my mind" I love the power behind these words: the call for change through the embodiment of personal and communal strength. I wonder, who are the "comrades" he address in this poem?

In "I look at the world," Hughes' eyes are "awakening." In "I, too" (written in 1924) he is laughing. He sees the future of his place at the table, and the shame all those who denied him of it will feel. His message is so bold and consistent: that this is his country and he will reclaim it. But, if he sees a clear future in "I, too," (is it just a blind hope, at the time?)... why are his eyes only opening when he writes "I look at the world"? The later poem seems like a call to action while the earlier poem is a promise. Though "I look..." may have been read by few at the time it was written, it bred more radical poems that have reverberated through our nation's political history and progression of civil rights.

Langston Hughes--Surprisingly Refreshing

Many comments that mirror my own have been made here about Hughes' work, his place in African American history and poetry, and on the language he used (deliberate or not). So in an attempt not to repeat, I want to look at one other element that has not been discussed – aesthetics.

As I listened to him share The Weary Blues I found it interesting that he paused in different places that were not indicated by line breaks or commas or any other signifier that we have come to equate with a pause for the reading voice. I realize that I am placing an aesthetic that was not of concern in his time onto this historically brilliant work, but that is my point – why do we trouble ourselves with aesthetics now? Have we decided that traditional aesthetics can no longer serve some arbitrary importance that we (modern/contemporary/aspiring poets) have placed on how our poetry looks on the page? Do we really think that how we place text on the page will somehow guide the reader to read it the way we want them to read it? How DO we want them to read our poetry? Does it matter? Is it content/context that matters more or is it the performance of the poetry – the actual reading it out loud?

Obviously, these rhetorical questions are simply me searching my own purpose for “doing what I do” on the page. This first assignment has moved me to reflect on my choices to write some poems that rely on the aesthetics to move the piece forward and some pieces that seem to beg me to stick with more traditional forms. I have no answers to these questions and don’t expect anyone else to define the importance for me, but I am ridiculously hopeful that we can discuss and my eyes/mind/poetic heart can open and learn and question and create.

I also found it interesting that I’ve read Hughes’ work many, many, many times and never experienced it quite the way I did this time. I love that!!

peacelovelight

Kiala

langston hughes is a badass

Hi friends. Meg here.

I have to admit that hearing Langston Hughes read his own work made the poems (proclamations, confessions, questions) really come alive for me. They popped, out of nowhere. Just hearing that one poem (The Weary Blues) in his cadence with his steady voice shifted my reading of every other piece in the packet. It had everything to do with his timing, his tone. I went back & read them again, finding that I had new things to say about them & new respect for them. I was excited, suddenly. Curious. I’m wondering, sheepishly, if this is proof that I am a sad product of white, privileged akademia or if I simply favor poetry off the page. Probably both?

Either way, I really believe that this is work that belongs in both spaces; in some cases, reading it aloud might downplay some of his wordplay at the same time that limiting it to the page really limits its power. I’m thinking a lot about power as I read these poems – his, theirs, mine, & also that of the reader, the speaker, the poet.

I have questions & comments about each poem, but I’m not sure how to lay them out here. I’ll focus on my favorite piece & maybe see what other folks post & comment there later on.

While Let America Be America is my favorite poem (omg Hughes is such a badass!), Cultural Exchange has got me hooked. I spent a lot of time with this poem trying to dust off the surface layer of his allusions & repetition, moving back and forth between the dictionary & the encyclopedia.

I like the way the word “exchange” is used in this poem’s title. I project myself here, having read through it, and imagine foreign exchange students, their embarkment voluntary & eye-opening, not to mention exciting. While I realize that this kind of exchange is not necessarily what Hughes is enacting by the end of the poem – and the political pro-segregationists he calls out are far spit from innocent foreign exchange students --  I like to think that we, as contemporary readers, can still have that eye-opening reminder. We can participate in the contrast of that last stanza, hop onto that two-way cultural street & try to imagine who, in contemporary government (or any kind of power, really), we might substitute for Faubus, Eastland & Wallace. I’m wondering what our “cultural exchange” of today might look like.

I want to hop back to the beginning of this poem. In the first stanza, Hughes introduces Leontyne in the last line. Leontyne Price (if this is, in fact, to whom he’s referring) was an African American soprano who came up in the 1950s & 60s. She was America’s first African American prima donna in the Metropolitan Opera, a huge step for the arts world at the time. I love that line, “Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.” Hughes is so confident here, a perfect cross between defiant & cocky, that the adrenaline of the poem skyrockets. He owns you here, you can’t help but keep reading. He knows what’s going to happen, he knows that despite everything that’s going on to prevent desegregation & the momentum of civil rights, that Leontyne is here to stay.

I’m curious, though, in the next stanza, about the German reference “lieder.” The internets informed me that lieder is German for song, specifically a romantic art song, or pastoral tune pulled directly from a poem. Does anyone have a read on this? The wordplay & alliteration works wonders later on (“Lovely Lieder, Leontyne”), but I don’t know what the German references are for or why lieder is always capitalized.

I think I’ve probably written too much, so I’ll pull it up short here. The slant rhymes in the seventh stanza are so badass when fitted against the architecture of the poem. That stanza, in general, owns it. My favorite line is “Sometimes even buried with our family.” It’s dripping with so much past & present & future all at once, his confidence hitting the line out of the park.

Oh! One last thing: From what I’ve read (on the vast & often misleading internets), all of the misspellings are purposeful (such as in the first stanza). Hughes was a sharp mind & impeccable speller, and most folks (on said internets) say that the intentional misspelling was a prod toward what was expected of a “common black man,” as a means of inclusivity. I do feel that he had a personal agenda in writing it this way, but I doubt it was as simple as appealing to more readers or replicating an authentic voice. Ideas?

Rhythmic Words

Langston Hughes poetry flows with a rhythm all its own. I'm not a huge fan of the man's poetry as much as I'm a fan of the impetus behind his art and his style and language choices. Langston uses mostly simple turns of phrase and rhyme schemes but I think that in using those he's better able to forge connections between different genres of art especially the written word and music. In the simplicity Langston is able to echo and imitate the rhythms of Blues and Gospel music without overpowering his words and what he wants to say. Langston is not only talking about the African-American experience he is using the echoes of art forms created through that experience. I think this can especially be seen in the video of The Weary Blues where the background music is used to make the connection between the poem and the traditionally African-American music style of the blues explicit and overt.

The connection between Gospel and Hughes' poetry while more subtle is present for me in the repetitions that he chooses within his poetry. Many of the echoes of words feel like the call and response methods used in various ways in many different genres of music including Gospel, R&B, Rap and Folk. I'm especially reminded of the music style with his poem "Let America be America Again" which seems to me to hold the core of Gospel inside itself - a call for improvement, for lifting up while acknowledging the troubles of today and the glories, real and imagined, of the past.

This communication across genres is no surprise since in the time of the Harlem Renaissance it was not only writing but all forms of art undergoing revolution, including music lead by people like Bessie Smith and Count Basie. In creating this dialogue between two separate art forms it feels as if Langston attempts to cross pollinate values and contexts of works. Thereby trying to grant Blues and Gospel some of the prestige and honor generally granted to poetry while also trying to break down the walls of academia and canon that tend to surround poetry and makes it seem inaccessible to so many people. To what extent he succeeds depends on the individual reader.

For me while I may not be a huge fan of Langston Hughes I can't help but love the way that his poetry seems to blend the narratives of poetry and music and ground it in the African-American experience.

Naamen Tilahun

A Dream Deferred

Langston Hughes

In a dream deferred, Hughes describes it as festering like a sore or becoming too sweet to eat. Either way not having one's dreams flourish can explode and topple and crash all at the same time.The depression of this poem weighs heavy on the heart. Color is not a theme but a way of life. The times and the color of his skin do not battle but in some ways are harmonious to the tensions of the times. "Theme for English B" hits home. Being a person of color in an AP English class in high school and having to write in this new voice overwhelmed me. I at times, found that writing about my experiences in life spilled out more than anything. I always wonder what it was like for the teacher to read my essays. How does one grade that? Each of Langston's poems are courageous and wild. Its like he is discovering himself with the writing and creating his identity, one that is outside of what the mainstream labeled a black man at that time. Melancholy comes up when I read his poems. As well as bittersweet. There is not a sense of urgency in the themes but in the emotions and the complexities that jump out of the text. There is freedom in his words. The expression is poignant and cuts into the psyche around race relations. His poetry makes him visible even though he may have not felt that way.

I haven't read much about Langston Hughes, which strangely I think is the case for quite a few people, but what comes to my mind when I think of him is the trials that he faced with the communist hearings. I know that that doesn't cover the span of his career but every time I read a poem of his that is what I think of. The language of Langston's work is simple and sarcastic and easily accessible to anyone who reads it. Considering the time period I am always fascinated by the fact that Hughes spoke so plainly.

During the "hearing" that took place Hughes has to answer for so much of that language and it makes me wonder if he ever regretted writing so simply. If he ever wished he'd been more coded in his language but then would he have been considered revolutionary? And to some people he's not really a revolutionary at all. I think it was Richard Wright who criticized him for not saying enough and for allowing himself to live and work among white people. Wright felt like there needed to be a separation betweenand Hughes seems so much more interested in being understood by everyone. I have a feeling that I'm rambling so I'll stop now but those were some things I was thinking of as I was reading the poems.

Hello My Colorful Colleagues

Langston didn't really have a choice - he had to be a figure for freedom in the Black community. If you haven't read a biography and want a quick hit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes. His family, grandfathers and uncles, were already famous in the resistance, participating in slave revolts and uprisings, earning spots in government in the 1880s.

He was elected class poet in high school, a commendation he considers a racist proclamation. Said the teacher was always talking about the importance of rhythm in poetry, and since he is a Black man, he must have some. I gotta say, I agree with him. You may rake me over the coals for this, but, were his name not on it, had I only come across the words unconnected with the history, I would not consider what we've read to be "good poetry."

The language is simple, the rhyme and construction haphazard or child-like. Perhaps this is a function of his intended audience - Did he want the work to be read by all regardless of level of access to education? (This question does not assume that "uneducated" equates with "child-like," rather I am asking if he held the assumption that he would have to use simple language to reach a wider audience.) Did he want most to touch those outside of the university, those unaware that racial pride and personal power is acceptable, even necessary?

Perhaps it is a function of time and timing, and my assessment is unfair. And maybe he is a great man great for things besides poetry.

Okay - let her rip. I got bandaids.

ps - The link for the Cab video on the syllabus "contains a malformed video ID." Does anyone know the name or how to search for it?

Hi De Hi De Hi De Hi

Hi my name is Tania Price and I am a fan of the Harlem Renaissance and the many artists that came out of that era, such as; Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Dizzy Gillespie (boy the way he blew those cheeks to infinity and beyond was amazing) and especially Cab Calloway. The Color barriers that Mr. Calloway decimated, in the face of tense racial times, was truly exemeplary as well as inspirational. Not only was Mr. Calloway an energetic and dazzling entertainer, I, as a Black American, always felt that there were elements of ancestral African dance moves conscripted into his stage shows. So whether Mr. Calloway was giving a slight nod to his pre-colonized lineage, or if the soulful rhythmic girations were an innate part of his being, I always felt like I was watching a strong proud, Black American of African ancestry, who was sharing some slick moves our ancestors probably originated.

Welcome to Poets of Color

I'm Aries, your TA (or one of your TA's) for this amazing journey. As you've read in your syllabus we're gonna read mucho. Because half of writing is reading. We're going to reach out to our emotions and our thoughts and go for something even deeper. We're going to learn how to read poems, and in a sense even how it is we go about writing poetry. If at anytime you have questions or you need assistance or you'd just like to bounce ideas around, I'm available by email or we can carve some time on campus to meet. Trust me I know all about procrastination but the blog post have got to be Its a wonderful gift to see all of you each Tuesday. The books for this class are more than a few of my favorites. And I'm happy to have to read poems all day. I also really look forward to your post, its your opportunity to discuss the work, how and where it touched you, on a political level, emotional, familial, or did the poem just look you in the face and know you? Were you ready to embrace it or did it piss you off? This is the place for your voice and your ideas so please be open, and don't be afraid to color outside the lines. I'll be here to smile at you, and rub your hand along the way. We're examining poets and people that have been left at the margins, out of the canon and often out of society's "Best" poets list. Nonetheless these writers exist and have saved the lives of many little black girls like me reading their text as bible and dictionary.

hi everybody

Well, I just wanted to say Hi and get in the habit of blogging. It can be intimidating writing and having it automatically go out into the world. However, I am so excited about this class and even reading the syllabus was interesting. But I would expect no less from Elmaz. I am looking forward to meeting all of you and have a semester filled with growth and learning. I am also taking American Lit this semester and we have started out reading Native American Poetry or as the Totem text points out the "token" contributions to literature. I am grateful to have a class that balances out the standard work that is thrown at college student as the accepted norm of talent. I hope that aside from valuable analytical readings we might share some of our own poetic talent, or for myself discover that it exsist.
Sincerely,
Suki