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