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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like your ideas, m, but i'm wondering how you see he achieves that! and how do you?
ReplyDeleteelmaz
He achieves that with simpicity and rhyme. I don't know a lot about Langston's history and background so I read his poems as is. He asks, "So will my page be colored that I write?" He is conscious of his color and experiences and chooses to write from that center of contradictions and anger.As a writer of color I see my place in the world differently and this has always influenced the way I write. I never had to battle that out with myself. I just wrote and sometimes the themes changed and sometimes I felt tired of being angry.
ReplyDeleteI can remember not wanting to be angry anymore, and wondering if I had to chose between emotional sanity and poetry. I worry that in trying to make a stable mind space, I had to sacrifice the fervor that fed my social responsibility, my wanting to talk about it and be heard. We shall see if this is the case. On to Bamuthi's workshop!
ReplyDelete