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?
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I just watched the video, and have to retract, or add to my post. (Is this Langston Hughes reading, or just his poem?) How beautiful when set to the sights of Cab, the tempo, the strength, and sorrow. It no longer sounded simple. Perhaps this is testimony to the life of these words; perhaps the sentiment captured by his poetry is to big for the page. The page certainly has done no justice to the poem.
ReplyDeleteI think the thing about Langston is that he's dealing with a complicated subject and is trying really hard not to let his work be complicated by it. Or at least thats my sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the words seem simple but I think that's what's so interesting. He isn't making things complicated and abstract he's just saying what is and with the time period that's hard to do. You probably still don't agree but that's how I appreciate it on the page. By imagining the people who read it and thought "Did he really just say this?"
There is always the criticism that he wasn't harsh enough of course. But I'm not in that camp.
The video is really beautiful. I feel that Langston couldn't write for everybody even if he wanted to. Its too complicated. Simplicity leaves room for mystery!
ReplyDeleteShelly,
ReplyDeleteso glad you retracted. I was frightened that you were having the same reaction as the white literary world had at the time...that "his" voice nurtured by his religion, upbringing and neighborhood had no literary qualities. But it's about all that isn't it? and YES that is him reading. we'll talk more about this in class.
elmaz
i do agree that something huge shifted when hearing his read his work. i'm still trying to put my finger on what, exactly, it is, but i think it has everything to do with timing. his voice is so strong, but patient. his words are tempered. there aren't a lot of them, but when he speaks he makes it sound as if he could not do without each & every single word. i don't get that sense from his poems & wonder what that has to do with the "form" of poetry & whether or not the form is what limits him (or me or us).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, there's a shift when hearing the poems read. One of the things I always notice about Langston Hughes poetry is that it's form and style reminds me of songs and lyrics. I think there's a tonality to the reading voice that's necessary for the words to be truly absorbed. The voice and images in the video seem to contextualize the words in a way that would probably be obvious to people living in that era and time but that we don't have as much knowledge of.
ReplyDeleteAgreed that hearing the poem performed with the backdrop of the film and music of the era transformed my experience of it. (Though I thought it was recited by Allen Dwight Callahan, according to the Youtube notes...)
ReplyDeleteHearing the repeating lines, "He did a lazy sway..." (one on top of the other on paper) each read with a different movement, intonation and urgency, I was gripped by the poem. It seduced and chilled me in a way my own reading of it did not.
The words come together in a crescendo that is hypnotic and intoxicating but also deeply sad and caging. We are swept away with this man's song--"O Blues! ... Sweet Blues!"--but within the rhyming lines he is alone. The poem rises and falls like a song (like a story), backed by smoke curls and a sensuous silhouette, and then the singer sleeps like the dead. I wondered who the man was playing for ("like a musical fool"). Himself? Others who sang the blues? Or people who never knew what the blues were to sing them?
The idea of "good poetry" is a ever-changing concept. What kind of writers would we be if first read all the great(s), all the classics, with a blindfold not knowing their names not given the spoon of canonization to swallow but to just blindly chose what works stands out to us and then later come to learn the history, the politics, and what a wider society has considered the "greats."
ReplyDeleteThe idea of linguistics, the way in which one communicates to a specific audience and how often poets are talking to themselves, how language travels. . we have to keep all of this in mind when writing, when reading, when interpreting text.