# data[].attributes.headline
Helpful poetry terms (website found by Margaux & Valentine)

# data[].attributes.subject
Helpful poetry terms (website found by Margaux & Valentine)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the stumbling blocks when trying to study poetry is that it seems like a different world. Familiar things, like words, are put to unfamiliar use, and there is an entire descriptive vocabulary that is completely foreign and quite often puzzling. This list seeks to explain the words used to describe poetry through examples from famous poems. Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, "If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry," but we are willing to take that risk to make the world of literary analysis a little clearer and further illuminate the mystery of poetry.

Start learning with an activity...

Answer a few questions on each word. Get one wrong? We'll ask some follow-up questions. Use it to prep for your next quiz!

Spelling Bee

Test your spelling acumen. See the definition, listen to the word, then try to spell it correctly. Beat your last streak, or best your overall time. Spellers of the world, untie!

Vocabulary Jam

Compete head-to-head in real-time to see which team can answer the most questions correctly. Start a Jam and invite your friends and classmates to join!

alliteration

use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word

Your poetry is alive with alliteration; bursting with evocative images; and brimming with thoughtful rhythms, unexpected wordplay and heartfelt emotion.
-Seattle Times May 6, 2011

The light from the porthole was a pulsing purple.- Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

allusion

passing reference or indirect mention

She was dancing below a noose, an allusion to the hanging of dissidents under her father's regime.
-New York Times Aug 30, 2014

apostrophe

an address to an absent or imaginary person

Her unfortunate position, and the singular apostrophe she had addressed to me, pierced me to the heart.
-Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

O stranger of the future!
O inconceivable being!
whatever the shape of your house,
however you scoot from place to place,
no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you may wear,
I bet nobody likes a wet dog either.
I bet everyone in your pub,
even the children, pushes her away.
-To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years from Now, Billy Collins

consonance

the repetition of sounds especially at the ends of words

Occasionally the author breaks into verse, or stretches of consonance or alliteration.
-New York Times Jan 9, 2012

I'll swing by my ankles.
She'll cling to your knees.
As you hang by your nose,
From a high-up trapeze.
But just one thing, please,
As we float through the breeze,
Don't sneeze.
- The Acrobats, Shel Silverstein

couplet

a stanza consisting of two successive lines of verse

In "Keeping Hope Alive," he triggers a world of emotions in a brief couplet: "Pride and pain/Cloud my brain."
-Los Angeles Times May 28, 2014

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
- Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare

enjambment

continuation from one line of verse into the next line

But poetry critics have a more precise term for the kind of enjambment Obama employs: "bad line breaks."
-Salon Jul 17, 2012

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and asleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
-Endymion, John Keats

hyperbole

That's not hyperbole; statistics prove this to be true.
-Time Aug 17, 2014

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
- As I Walked One Evening, W.H. Auden

internal rhyme

a rhyme between words in the same line

That songlike quality would fit well in a poem, especially the internal rhyme and near-rhyme of "night and light" with "alike."
-Washington Post July 17, 2014

Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
-Macbeth, William Shakespeare

octave

a rhythmic group of eight lines of verse

One of these [two interpretations] must be in the octave and the other in the sestet.
-Joyce Kilmer

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
-Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

anapest

a metrical unit with unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables

An Anapest is a three-syllable foot accented on the last syllable.
-William Franklin Webster

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
-'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Clement Clarke Moore

An anapest here is "Twas the night".

spondee

a metrical unit with stressed-stressed syllables

"Hot sun" and "cool fire" are both spondees.
-The Guardian Oct 11, 2010

'By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
-The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A spondee here is "By the".

iamb

a metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables

" 'Feminine' brand names, like Chanel, are often iambs; 'masculine' ones, like Black & Decker, tend to be trochees," he writes.
-New York Times Jul 26, 2011

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
-Acquainted with the Night, Robert Frost

sestet

a group of six lines of verse

In the sestet usually the first line rhymes with the fourth, the second with the fifth and the third with the sixth.
-Charles Herbert Sylvester

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey's end in lovers' meeting-
Every wise man's son doth know.
-Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 3, William Shakespeare

synaesthesia

a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated

Synaesthesia is where the senses are mixed together - for example seeing colour when listening to music - or tasting food and hearing chords.
-BBC Apr 19, 2014

Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun burnt mirth!
-Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the stumbling blocks when trying to study poetry is that it seems like a different world. Familiar things, like words, are put to unfamiliar use, and there is an entire descriptive vocabulary that is completely foreign and quite often...

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! American Smooth (Charlotte, Lucie and Eléa)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! American Smooth (Charlotte, Lucie and Eléa)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
American Smooth
Literary devices
Caesura: fracture in a sentence between two parts intrinsically linked.
Meaning of the poem
Rita Dove expresses how it feels to lose yourself in an activity, in another person and in the present moment.
Vocabulary

sine qua non:
an essential condition, something that is absolutely necessary
ecstatic
(from ecstasy):

feeling of great delight
mimicry:
imitation of someone in an amusing way
seven league stride ==> stride:
a very long step
,n league:
old unit of length, it represented the distance a person could walk in an hour

seven-league boots -->
element of European folklore, The boot allows the person wearing them to take strides of seven leagues per step, resulting in great speed.
Structure
Here is Rita Dove reading American Smooth
Smooth dancing
2004
Context of composition
The poem
We were dancing - it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved
into the next song without
stopping, two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride - such perfect agony,
one learns to smile through,
ecstatic mimicry
being the sine qua non
of American Smooth.
And because I was distracted
by the effort of
keeping my frame
(the leftward lean, head turned
just enough to gaze out
past your ear and always
smiling, smiling),
I didn't notice
how still you'd become until
we had done it
(for two measures?
four?) - achieved flight,
that swift and serene
magnificence,
before the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down.
By Rita Dove
foxtrot:
a ballroom dance in quadruple time, combining short and long steps in various sequences
waltz:
a dance with three beats to a bar
choice of syllables and arrangement of verses: poem seems "chopped"
Poem is written to be read out loud -->

It varies from slow-slow-fast-fast to slow-fast-fast-slow in the pace that it is spoken
(reminds of the steps of ballroom dancing).
creates the effect of a
dance-inspired rhythm.
She is the youngest Laureate of the US and the first African American
Her poems draw on historical and political events and sources close to her own experiences (such as ball room dancing
She treats historical events with a personal touch --> she addresses the battles and triumphs of the Civil rights era
"We were dancing-it must have " (1)
"stride-such perfect agony,"(10)
"four?)-achieved flight," (26)
Contemporary poet who has influenced the world of literature
Her poems are flavored by her background and her African American heritage
"Dove's work is known for its lyricism and beauty as well as its sense of history and political scope."
-Poetry Foundation
"For Dove, dance is an implicit parallel to poetry. Each is an expression of grace performed within limits; each an art weighted by history but malleable enough to form something utterly new."
-New York Times
...and also many enjambments: continuing the sentence on the next line without any punctuation.
Personification: " the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down" (29)
Allusion: "two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride" (8-9)
Alliteration: "requiring restraint, rise" (4-5)
Imagery: "(the leftward lean, head turned just enough to gaze out
past your ear and always
smiling, smiling)" --> allows the reader to imagine the movement in the dance
She says it is by working through pain that you find ecstasy, and that you become detached from the earth.
She enables the reader to live that moment with her and shares her love of dancing.
By Charlotte, Lucie and Eléa

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American Smooth Literary devicesCaesura: fracture in a sentence between two parts intrinsically linked.Meaning of the poemRita Dove expresses how it feels to lose yourself in an activity, in another person and in the present moment.

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Let America be America Again (Tasio, Lucas)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Let America be America Again (Tasio, Lucas)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Let America
be America again
In this classic poem Hughes dreams of the day when America can be what it was originally intended to be-a true democracy, with freedom, equality, and justice for all-while reminding us America has never fully lived up to this standard.
Hughes deftly moves verse by verse, addressing the struggle for equal rights and his hope for a brighter future.
Context of composition
Great depression
Harlem Renaissance
New Deal makes the president rise the federal bugdet to a record-high 8.3 billion dollars
Pre-War era
"O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe."

________

"There's never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this 'homeland for the free.'"
John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign used Hughes's poem title as its slogan. An edition of the poem was reissued as a pamphlet with a preface by Kerry.
by Tasio L. and Lucas R.
In 2011, the poem gained prominence in contemporary news. Rick Santorum's presidential exploratory committee appropriated lines from Hughes's poem for use on their website. When Santorum was made aware of Hughes's progressive routes, he quickly distanced himself from the phrase.
At the beginning of the 1930s, more than 15 million Americans-one-quarter of all wage-earning workers-were unemployed. President Herbert Hoover did not do much to alleviate the crisis: Patience and self-reliance, he argued, were all Americans needed to get them through this "passing incident in our national lives." But in 1932, Americans elected a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who pledged to use the power of the federal government to make Americans' lives better. Over the next nine years, Roosevelt's New Deal created a new role for government in American life. Though the New Deal alone did not end the Depression, it did provide an unprecedented safety net to millions of suffering Americans.
The stock market crash of October 29, 1929 provided a dramatic end to an era of unprecedented, and unprecedentedly lopsided, prosperity. This disaster had been brewing for years. Different historians and economists offer different explanations for the crisis-some blame the increasingly uneven distribution of wealth and purchasing power in the 1920s, while others blame the decade's agricultural slump or the international instability caused by World War I. In any case, the nation was woefully unprepared for the crash. For the most part, banks were unregulated and uninsured. The government offered no insurance or compensation for the unemployed, so when people stopped earning, they stopped spending. The consumer economy ground to a halt. An ordinary recession became the Great Depression, the defining event of the 1930s.
The 1930s saw natural disasters as well as man made ones: For most of the decade, people in the Plains states suffered through the worst drought in American history, as well as hundreds of severe dust storms, or "black blizzards," that carried away the soil and made it all but impossible to plant crops. By 1940, 2.5 million people had abandoned their farms in this "Dust Bowl" and headed West to California.
Quotes
Hughes calls attention to the fact that the American Dream does not come to fruition for many men and women who fall outside the dominant Anglo-Saxon and patriarchal societal structure. No matter the power of their dreams, resources, determination, or intelligence, the doors to freedom and equality will always remain locked. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in his "I Have a Dream" speech, "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt." In these lines, Hughes accuses America of having broken her promise by making it impossible for certain groups of Americans to access the freedom and equality the country's founders claimed to promote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Let Americabe America again In this classic poem Hughes dreams of the day when America can be what it was originally intended to be-a true democracy, with freedom, equality, and justice for all-while reminding us America has never fully lived up to this standard.Hughes deftly moves verse by verse, addressing

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Teach us to Number our Days (Juliane, Agathe and Matilda)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Teach us to Number our Days (Juliane, Agathe and Matilda)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Who is Rita Dove?
Teach Us to Number Our Days
Written by Rita DOVE
By: Matilda, Agathe and Juliane
- Born Rita
Frances
Dove in 1952
- African - American poet and author
- Youngest and 1st African - American to become the Poet Laureate Consultant by the Library of Congress
- She was offered a scholarship to study in Germany
- She taught creative writing to the University of Arizona
- Won many prizes particularly the Pulitzer for her book
Thomas and Beulah
.

In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.

Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams

he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.

And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.

August. The mums nod past, each a prickly heart on a sleeve.
ANALYSIS
"Teach Us to Number Our Days"
BY RITA DOVE
1st STANZA
-> Rita Dove presents a rough and morbid
neighborhood: each funeral parlor is more elaborate than the last

-> When Rita mentions "pistols", she implies once
more that the neighborhood isn't safe.
"In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet."
2nd STANZA
3rd STANZA
4th STANZA
5th STANZA
"Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams"
-> Dove also describes the neighborhood as poor :
"low-rent balconies stacked to the sky."

-> When Rita Dove says "a boy plays tic-tac-toe on a
moon" she shows that the boy is in a childhood dream: life is a game. It may also mean that this boy wants to escape this place and have another life.
-> In the 3rd stanza, Dove shows that because the boy lives in poor conditions and crowded areas, he is becoming more and more immersed in the darkness of the neighborhood : "root in his gut"

-> By immersing in the darkness of the neighborhood, he is destined to have a boring, depressing
and lonely future
"he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut
."
"And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans."
-> The policeman isn't concerned about the boy's
situation. He doesn't try to know more about him and in what conditions he is living in : he ignores him.

-> Dove denounces the policeman's attitude.
"August. The mums nod past, each a prickly heart on a sleeve."

Two Main Themes
-> August could have the significance of the moment of transition between summer and winter : it is going to be cold. It can mean that for the boy it is time to go back to the darkness of his life

Denunciation
- Dove describes life in a black neighborhood and shows that a kid from this kind of neighborhood cannot escape it:
- The "Blue Bean" from the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" is a
metaphor
for the boy's dreams of success and escape.
- The metaphor soon transforms into a cop's "blue bullet" which will "take root in his gut"

Religion
Reference to:
Psalm 90:12: death and last things should not be forgotten in the midst of life's bounties and we should remember that our days are numbered, our lives are fleeting.
This reference in the title is ironic because Dove denounces life in black neighborhoods where people do not get any opportunities in life and death.

-> "Mums" can be a reference to the flowers called chrysanthemums. These flowers are usually used during funerals.
Much like the people living in the neighborhoods, the flowers are often mistaken for their dangerousness and not their beauty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Who is Rita Dove? Teach Us to Number Our Days Written by Rita DOVE By: Matilda, Agathe and Juliane- Born Rita Frances Dove in 1952- African - American poet and author- Youngest and 1st African - American to become the Poet Laureate Consultant by the Library of Congress- She was offered a scholarship to study in Germany- She taught creative writing to the University of Arizona- Won many prizes particularly the Pulitzer for her book Thomas and Beulah.

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Hughes (Estelle and Julie)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Hughes (Estelle and Julie)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancestry and Childhood
Langston Hughes
FONTS
Adulthood
-1925, he worked as a busboy in a Washington, D.C. hotel restaurant
-he met American poet Vachel Lindsay. He was impressed and promoted his poetry.
-his poem "The Weary Blues" won first prize in the Opportunity magazine literary competition
Works
Drama
The Plays : Mulatto to The Sun Do Move
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes
Mule Bone
Five Plays by Langston Hughes
Hughes has a complex ancestry:

General facts
Hughes' paternal great grandmothers were enslaved African Americans
Born February 1st, 1902, in Missouri
Died on May 22, 1967 in NewYork
American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright
He attended Columbia University in New York but he left in 1922 because of racial prejudice.
Leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City --> African-American themes
Published his first poem in 1921
He wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose
His paternal great grandfathers were white slave owners in Kentucky
"An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose."
-Langston Hughes
He was the second child of a school teacher in Missouri
Harlem Renaissance
-the book, The Weary Blues, was published by Knopf in 1926.
-it gained popularity and established his poetic style and commitment to black themes and heritage.
-Hughes was among the first to use jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks
African-American movement
cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York
awareness of black life in America
Langston Hughes (central figure of the movement), published his first poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," (1921)
sparked by industrial expansion and prosperity in the art fields
decline --> the crash of Wall Street (1929)
unemployment and crime --> in Harlem
influenced the generations of African American writers
sought to promote social change and a uniquely self-crafted African American identity
-after his graduation from Lincoln in 1929, Hughes published his first novel, Not Without Laughter. The book was commercially successful enough to convince Hughes that he could make a living as a writer.
-his autobiography was published in 1940 "the big sea"
-Hughes began contributing a column to the Chicago Defender, he created a character named Jesse B. Semple, better known as "Simple," a black man that Hughes used to show urban, working-class black themes, and to discuss racial issues. This was a success, and "Simple" was used for his other books and plays.
-he contributed the lyrics for a Broadway musical titled Street Scene.
-he taught creative writing at Atlanta University.
Poetry
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz
Montage of a Dream Deferred
One-Way Ticket
Fields of Wonder
Freedom's Plow
Shakespeare in Harlem
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems
Scottsboro Limited
Dear Lovely Death
Fine Clothes to the Jew
The Weary Blues
Prose
Letters from Langston
Remember Me to Harlem
The Arna Bontemps
Good Morning, Revolution
Simple's Uncle Sam
Something in Common and Other Stories
Tambourines to Glory
Simple Stakes a Claim
I Wonder as I Wander
Laughing to Keep From Crying
Simple Takes a Wife
Simple Speaks His Mind
The Ways of White Folks
Not Without Laughter
Julie, Aymie & Estelle
By Estelle and
Julie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Political Plays of Langston Hughes Mule Bone Five Plays

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Dream Deferred One-Way Ticket Fields of Wonder Freedom 's Plow Shakespeare

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancestry and Childhood Langston Hughes FONTSAdulthood-1925, he worked as a busboy in a Washington, D.C. hotel restaurant-he met American poet Vachel Lindsay.

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Theme for English B (Kim, Célymène & Lucas)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Theme for English B (Kim, Célymène & Lucas)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Biography
American playwright, novelist and poet during the Harlem renaissance
Published first poem in 1921
Published first novel in 1926.
Main poem: " the negro speaks of freedom"
The Harlem Renaissance
Artistic and literary movement based in Harlem, New York.
Touched every form of art, from music to literature.
Mostly black people
Followed by the great depression
Context of composition
Jim Crow Laws
African Americans wanted to be equal to the whites
Massive migration of African American people from the South of the US, to the North.
Beginning of the black civil rights movement
The themes
Race
Quotes Analysis
Langston Hughes
Theme for English B
Kahoot ?
Thanks for listening !
Identity
Vision of America
And symbols
Black community
Education
New York
Poverty
White supremacy
"And let that page come out of you-Then it will be true"
Finding one's self
"I am twenty - two, colored, born in Winston-Salem"
The author considers being black as an important part of him, is race important to your identity?
"I am the only colored student in my class"
How does being a minority of one make you feel?
"But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me-we two-you, me, talk on this page. "
Living is Harlem affects the speaker's identity
https://create.kahoot.it/?_ga=1.35492578.2112386773.1457612585&deviceId=133c5cfd-25a1-41a1-9ada-c97a0b26aba1#quiz/857ee267-5cd9-4c7c-abfd-80287d6a0fdb
By Célymène, Kim
and Lucas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
BiographyAmerican playwright, novelist and poet during the Harlem renaissancePublished first poem in 1921Published first novel in 1926.Main poem: " the negro speaks of freedom"The Harlem RenaissanceArtistic and literary movement based in Harlem, New York.Touched every form of art, from music to literature.Mostly black peopleFollowed by the great depressionContext of compositionJim

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Rita Dove (by Emma, Suzanne and Félix)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Rita Dove (by Emma, Suzanne and Félix)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Work Experience
Her works
Awards and Honors
like comment share
1987 Pulitzer Prize
1996 National Humanities Medal & Charles Frankel prize received from President Bill Clinton
2006 Commonwealth Award of distinguished service in literature
2011 National medal of Arts from President Barack Obama
Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989.
From 1994 to 2000 she was part of the national academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa as a senator.
In 2004 she became the Poet Laureate of Virginia for two years nominated by Mark Warner (governor of Virginia at that time).
She was mainly committed to spreading the power of poetry and literature in general
From 2006 to 2012 she was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Since 1989 she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, as a Commonwealth Professor of English.
She became an esteemed poet and is known for her eloquence and ideas but also for portraying black experience in America, both on a personal and collective front.
Personal life
like comment share
Dove's most famous work is
Thomas and Beulah
, published in 1986, a collection of poems based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. She was the youngest person and the third African American to be appointed Poet Laureate Consultant by the U.S.
She has published ten volumes of poetry (
On the Bus with Rosa Parks
, 1999 -
Sonata Mulattica
, 2009), a book of short stories (
Fifth Sunday
, 1985), a collection of essays (
The Poet's World
, 1995), and a novel,
Through the Ivory Gate
(1992).
Her last poetry collection is called
Collected Poems
1974-2004, it was released in 2016 and includes a short text by President Barack Obama.
In 1979, Rita married Fred Viebahn, a German writer .
They had a daughter named Aviva Dove-Viebahn who was born in 1983.
They now live in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Education
Rita Dove is the daughter of Ray Dove, one of the first African-American chemists in the tire industry, and Elvira Hord, who achieved honors in high school.
Her parents strongly encouraged her to read.
She excelled in high school and was named a President Scholar.
She then attended Miami University in Ohio as a National Merit Scholar.
After graduating, Dove studied at the University of Tübingen in West Germany, and later earned an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Major facts
Born on August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio, United States
She is an American poet, author, university professor
She is married to Fred Viebahn
Her Works
Rita Dove
Biography

"I think people should be shaken up a bit when they walk through life. They should stop for a moment and really look at ordinary things and catch their breath....When a poem moves you, it moves you in a way that leaves you speechless."
Thomas and Beulah
Sonata Mulattica
On the Bus with Rosa Parks
collections of poems-
short stories -
Fifth Sunday
novel-
Through the Ivory Gate
collection of poems-
Collected poems

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
National Humanities Medal & Charles Frankel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Work ExperienceHer worksAwards and Honorslike comment share1987 Pulitzer Prize1996 National Humanities Medal & Charles Frankel prize received from President Bill Clinton 2006 Commonwealth Award of distinguished service in literature2011 National medal of Arts from President Barack ObamaDove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989.

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Let America be America Again (Alix & Christel)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Let America be America Again (Alix & Christel)

# data[].attributes.body
(Margaux, Valentine)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Poetry
The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken. Can be used to share unexplainable thoughts with metaphors or abstract ideas. (Literary work in metrical form; verse.)
* Poetry is believed to have started in the ancient world as a way to remember oral history, genealogy, and law, it was recited and sung. Poetry is often closely related to musical traditions, and the earliest poetry exists in the form of hymns.
Ballade:
Should have three stanzas,
The rhyming pattern for the stanzas is ababbcbC,
The rhyming pattern for the envoy is bcbC,
The capital letter in the rhyming patterns shows where the refrain should be.
The envoy = A short closing stanza in certain verse forms, such as the ballade or sestina, dedicating the poem to a patron or summarizing its main ideas.

Ballad:
A Ballad is a poem that tells a story. They are often used in songs because of their rhyme. A ballad is a poetic story, often a love story.

Acrostic:
A
n acrostic poem
C
reates a challenge
R
andom words on a theme
O
r whole sentences that rhyme
S
elect your words carefully
T
o form a word from top to bottom
I
s the aim of this poetry style
C
hoose a word then go!

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.
Free verse:
A Free Verse is poetry written with rhymed or unrhymed verse that has no set meter to it

Lyric poem:
A Lyric poem expresses personal and emotional feelings.

Ode:
An Ode is a lyric poem, usually addressing a particular person or thing. It originated in Ancient Greece.
Odes use similes, metaphors and hyperboles.

Rondeau:
A Rondeau is a short poem consisting of fifteen lines that have two rhymes throughout. The first few words or phrase from the first line are repeated twice in the poem as a refrain.

A Sonnet is a poem of an expressive thought or idea made up of 14 lines, each being 10 syllables long. The common English scheme is three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet.
The structure:
ab ab, cdcd, efef, gg

Sonnet:
A Shakespearean Sonnet is a poem expressive of thought, emotion or idea. It is usually 14 lines which are formed by three quatrains with a rhyming couplet for the last two lines.
Shakespearean sonnet:
A limerick is often a funny poem with a strong beat. Limericks are very light hearted poems and can sometimes be utter nonsense.
A Limerick consists of five lines.
The first line of a limerick poem usually begins with 'There was a....' and ends with a name, person or place.
The last line of a limerick is normally a little farfetched or unusual.
A limerick should have a rhyme scheme of aabba:
This means lines 1,2 and 5 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme.
Also, lines 1,2 and 5 should have 7 - 10 syllables and lines 3 and 4 should have 5 - 7 syllables.
Limerick:
This is a link to a site we found, it has all the important
vocabulary
we could think of with a clear explanation and examples.
https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/479437#view=notes

AUDRE LORDE

"A Woman Speaks"
Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities
who am ageless and half-grown
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.

Audre Lorde was a poet, radical feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist.
As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, particularly in her poems expressing anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life.Her poems and prose largely dealt with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity.
Famous quote : "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
→ in relation to white feminists in the United States.

As I was walking down the street
I saw two people in secret meet
The second one said to the first
'You have some news to quench my thirst?'

'In behind the old, damp shed
There lies a noble man slain, dead
And no one knows he lies in strife
Except his dog and lonely wife

With master gone where no one knocks
His dog has left to chase a fox
His wife has found somebody new
His house is left for all to view

Though it's been empty for a while
We'll be warm and dry in half a mile
For now we can take comfort there
We'll flee the place when it grows bare

Many people knew the noble man
But none do care where he has gone
Over his grave, all do ignore
The wind shall blow forever more.'

Wake up to a bright sapphire morning
Cloudless skies
This can only mean one thing
It's a go!

At the launch site
Teeth chit-chattering
And not just from the c-cold

What if a bird confuses my head for a perch?
Will my glasses be fogged up by the clouds?
If I fall out of the basket
And land in a field of cows
Up we go!
Far below
Idyllic fields of patchwork green
Glittering lakes - a treasure trove beneath the surface
Click!
I can't believe I'm so high
Feeling like a queen
I stretch my arms out to the sides
Now I'm a bird
So high
I close my eyes and take flight
I feel the wind in my wings
Up with the clouds
My hair, now feathers, sweeps behind me
I am as elegant as a swan
Soaring higher than the Earth

Oh
I'm not a bird
I'm not as elegant as a swan
I'm about as elegant as a rhino on roller skates
I'm just a schoolgirl
On a balloon flight

And we just crash-landed
In a field
With cows.
By Margaux and Valentine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Poetry The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken. Can be used to share unexplainable thoughts with metaphors or abstract ideas. (Literary work in metrical form; verse.)* Poetry is believed to have started in the ancient world as a way to remember oral history, genealogy, and law, it was recited and sung.

# data[].attributes.body
Dream Deferred / Harlem (by Alex)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Theme for English B
1) An assignment must be written which eventually characterizes the author
Second stanza
Lines 7-10
"Theme for English B"
Last stanza
Third stanza
Langston Hughes
1902-1967
Langston Hughes
"Harlem Renaissance "1920's
Black American novelist, poet and playwright
African American themes
The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you-
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me-we two-you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me-who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records-Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white-
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me-
although you're older-and white-
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.
Black consciousness was becoming more and more public
Context
Analysis:
Title
We are presented with an assignment for a student
English B = course (you first take English A, then English
B)
2) The teacher wants the student to write about his "self".
Poem's structure
-Free verse
-Language is simple
-'stream of consciousness' style
-use of allusions
Cold war

Civil Rights Movement ended Jim Crow segregation in the South
John F. Kennedy's assassination
1st Stanza:
sets the scene
introduces the persona
The student begins the assignment
the speaker takes the reader on a tour of his own path home
Themes: Mythology
Religion
Lines 11-15
The student directly questions the nature of his assignment
social activist
Illustration
1) "And let that page come out of you-
Then, it will be true"
2) "The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight."
1) Does not the teacher believe in the child?
Point
Explanation
2) Since this poem relates to a black child, does the author want to explain a problem in differentiation of black and white people when it comes to the "self"?
Point
1) What he sees and hears is Harlem; he knows nothing but Harlem.
2) "It's not easy to know what is true for you or me / at twenty-two, my age."
1) "I guess I'm what / I feel and see and hear."
Illustration
2) One man cannot know his "self" at 22.
Explanation
1) geographical allusions build his identity. Harlem has formed his identity. He knows nothing other than the smell of Harlem.
2) The speaker adds one final, yet crucial, detail:
Point
1) Interesting comparison between Harlem and Columbia University
1) The location of Columbia "above Harlem" mirrors its social, political, and economic position as a university composed primarily of white students socially considered "above" the inhabitants of Harlem.
Interpretation
Illustration
2) "I am the only colored student in my class."
1) Detail
"colors"
the description of Columbia University as
"this college on the hill above Harlem"
2) The author suggests that even in the most intellectual places on Earth, some people are rejected and are not able to study: in this case black people (theme of racism)
Point
The speaker descends from the university sitting high on its hill into Harlem
Illustration
Explanation
"and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator"
This image of a God-like figure coming back down to the mortals is ironic to describe white people descending into Harlem (with the mortals=black people)
Intermarriage
By Raphaël

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Theme for English B 1) An assignment must be written which eventually characterizes the author Second stanzaLines 7-10"Theme for English B"Last stanzaThird stanzaLangston Hughes1902-1967 Langston Hughes "Harlem Renaissance "1920'sBlack American novelist, poet and playwrightAfrican American themesThe instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight.

# data[].attributes.headline
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Stranger (Mathieu & Bruno)

# data[].attributes.subject
YOUR PRESENTATIONS! Stranger (Mathieu & Bruno)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land
Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it.
Emily Dickinson

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss
but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours
in patter, moving through whole days
touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite
housekeeping in a charmed world.
And yet there was always

more of the same, all that happiness,
the aimless Being There.
So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,
lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.
He was off cataloging the universe, probably,
pretending he could organize
what was clearly someone else's chaos.

That's when she found the tree,
the dark, crabbed branches
bearing up such speechless bounty,
she knew without being told
this was forbidden. It wasn't
a question of ownership-
who could lay claim to
such maddening perfection?

And there was no voice in her head,
no whispered intelligence lurking
in the leaves-just an ache that grew
until she knew she'd already lost everything
except desire, the red heft of it
warming her outstretched palm.
Context of Composition
Rita Dove is an American poet
Daughter of first black chemists
Presidential scholar
Major themes: History, Civil rights
Stylistic Devices
Antithesis: " pretending he could ORGANIZE / what was clearly someone else's chaos"
Poem Analysis
Personification of the tree: "bearing up such speechless bounty"
Enumeration/listing: "touching, sniffing, tasting ... "
Meaning
In the poem there is a Biblical reference to Moses' son ("Gershom", meaning a "stranger in a strange land") which we could connect to Emily Dickinson's quotation but also with the arrival of Africans in America since she is also concerned about it.
The persona, who seems to wander, sees a person trying to arrange someone else's chaos which also implies an existentialist question in the poem, which we could connect to Camus' Meurseault character. In the end, the people seem lost and probably do not have reached their goals.
Mathieu & Bruno

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Copy of I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it. Emily Dickinson It wasn't bliss. What was bliss but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours in patter, moving through whole days touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite housekeeping in a charmed world.

# data[].attributes.body
Video analysis by Alex Bredikin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hughes's Life and Career--by Arnold Rampersad | Hughes's "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926) | On "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" | On "The Weary Blues" | On "Harlem" | On "The Cat and the Saxophone" | On "Negro" | On "Justice" | On "Mulatto" | On "Lynching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"To Negro Writers" (1935) by Langston Hughes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The lovely grinning face of Philanthropy-which gives a million dollars to a Jim Crow school, but not one job to a graduate of that school; which builds a Negro hospital with second-rate equipment, then commands black patients and student-doctors to go there whether they will or no; or which, out of the kindness of its heart, erects yet another separate, segregated, shut-off, Jim Crow Y.M.C.A.

# data[].attributes.headline
49. A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes

# data[].attributes.subject
49. A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes

Painting by Artist Winold Reiss, National Portrait Gallery

LANGSTON HUGHES
(1902-1967)

~Dream Deferred~

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load
Or does it just explode?

LANGSTON HUGHES, was part of the Harlem Renaissance and was known during his lifetime as "the poet laureate of Harlem," He also worked as a journalist, dramatist, and children's author. His poems, which tell of the joys and miseries of the ordinary black man in America, have been widely translated.

James Langston Hughes was born on Feb. 1, 1902, in Joplin, Mo. In 1921 he enrolled at Columbia University in New York City but he was so lonely and unhappy that he left after a year.

He worked at various jobs, including that of a seaman, traveling to Africa and Europe. His first book of poetry, 'The Weary Blues', published in 1926, made him well known among literary people. He went on to Lincoln University in Oxford, Pa., on a scholarship and received his B.A. degree there in 1929.

From then on Hughes earned his living as a writer, portraying black life in the United States with idiomatic realism. 'Not without Laughter', a novel published in 1930, won him the Harmon god medal for literature. A book of poems for children, 'The Dream Keeper', came out in 1932. In 1934 appeared 'The Ways of White Folk's', a collection of short stories. His play 'Mulatto' opened on Broadway in 1935. He wrote the lyrics for 'Street Scene', a 1947 opera by Kurt Weill. Hughes also lectured in schools and colleges, where he talked with black youth who had literary ability and encouraged them to write.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hughes's work included a volume of poetry, 'Montage of a Dream Differed', published in 1951; of short stories, 'Laughing to Keep from Crying' (1952); and a children's picture book titled 'Black Misery'(1969), which wryly illustrates what it is like to grow up black in the United States.

Langston Hughes died of Lung Cancer, in New York City, in 1967.

(F. Leon Wilson of Spectra Links Digest)
Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes
Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico.

By the time Hughes enrolled at Columbia University in New York, he had already launched his literary career with his poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in the Crisis, edited by W E. B. Du Bois. He had also committed himself both to writing and to writing mainly about African Americans.

Hughes's sense of dedication was instilled in him most of all by his maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, whose first husband had died at Harpers Ferry as a member of John Brown's band, and whose second husband (Hughes's grandfather) had also been a militant abolitionist. Another important family figure was John Mercer Langston, a brother of Hughes's grandfather who was one of the best-known black Americans of the nineteenth century. At the same time, Hughes struggled with a sense of desolation fostered by parental neglect. He himself recalled being driven early by his loneliness 'to books, and the wonderful world in books.'

Leaving Columbia in 1922, Hughes spent the next three years in a succession of menial jobs. But he also traveled abroad. He worked on a freighter down the west coast of Africa and lived for several months in Paris before returning to the United States late in 1924. By this time, he was well known in African American literary circles as a gifted young poet.

His major early influences were Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, as well as the black poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, a master of both dialect and standard verse, and Claude McKay, a radical socialist who also wrote accomplished lyric poetry. However, Sandburg, who Hughes later called "my guiding star," was decisive in leading him toward free verse and a radically democratic modernist aesthetic.

His devotion to black music led him to novel fusions of jazz and blues with traditional verse in his first two books, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927). His emphasis on lower-class black life, especially in the latter, led to harsh attacks on him in the black press. With these books, however, he established himself as a major force of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, in the Nation, he provided the movement with a manifesto when he skillfully argued the need for both race pride and artistic independence in his most memorable essay, 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."

By this time, Hughes had enrolled at the historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, from which he would graduate in 1929. In 1927 he began one of the most important relationships of his life, with his patron Mrs. Charlotte Mason, or "Godmother," who generously supported him for two years. She supervised the writing of his first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930)--about a sensitive, black midwestern boy and his struggling family. However, their relationship collapsed about the time the novel appeared, and Hughes sank into a period of intense personal unhappiness and disillusionment.

One result was his firm turn to the far left in politics. During a year (1932-1933) spent in the Soviet Union, he wrote his most radical verse. A year in Carmel, California, led to a collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks (1934). This volume is marked by pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism.

After his play Mulatto, on the twinned themes of miscegenation and parental rejection, opened on Broadway in 1935, Hughes wrote other plays, including comedies such as Little Ham (1936) and a historical drama, Emperor of Haiti (1936). Most of these plays were only moderate successes. In 1937 he spent several months in Europe, including a long stay in besieged Madrid. In 1938 he returned home to found the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which staged his agitprop drama Don't You Want to Be Free? The play, employing several of his poems, vigorously blended black nationalism, the blues, and socialist exhortation. The same year, a socialist organization published a pamphlet of his radical verse, "A New Song."

With World War II, Hughes moved more to the center politically. His first volume of autobiography, The Big Sea (1940), written in an episodic, lightly comic manner, made virtually no mention of his leftist sympathies. In his book of verse Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) he once again sang the blues. On the other hand, this collection, as well as another, his Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943), strongly attacked racial segregation.

Perhaps his finest literary achievement during the war came in the course of writing a weekly column in the Chicago Defender that began in 1942 and lasted twenty years. The highlight of the column was an offbeat Harlem character called Jesse B. Semple, or Simple, and his exchanges with a staid narrator in a neighborhood bar, where Simple commented on a variety of matters but mainly about race and racism. Simple became Hughes's most celebrated and beloved fictional creation, and the subject of five collections edited by Hughes, starting in 1950 with Simple Speaks His Mind.

After the war, two books of verse, Fields of Wonder (1947) and One-Way Ticket (1949), added little to his fame. However, in Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) he broke new ground with verse accented by the discordant nature of the new bebop jazz that reflected a growing desperation in the black urban communities of the North. At the same time, Hughes's career was vexed by constant harassment by right-wing forces about his ties to the Left. In vain he protested that he had never been a Communist and had severed all such links. In 1953 he suffered a public humiliation at the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who forced him to appear in Washington, D.C., and testify officially about his politics. Hughes denied that he had ever been a party member but conceded that some of his radical verse had been ill-advised.

Hughes's career hardly suffered from this episode. Within a short time McCarthy himself was discredited and Hughes was free to write at length about his years in the Soviet Union in I Wonder as I Wander (1956), his much-admired second volume of autobiography. He became prosperous, although he always had to work hard for his measure of prosperity and sometimes called himself, with good cause, a 'literary sharecropper.'

In the 1950s he constantly looked to the musical stage for success, as he sought to repeat his major coup of the 1940s, when Kurt Weill and Elmer Rice had chosen him as the lyricist for their Street Scene (1947). This production was hailed as a breakthrough in the development of American opera; for Hughes, the apparently endless cycle of poverty into which he had been locked came to an end. He bought a home in Harlem.

The Simple books inspired a musical show, Simply Heavenly (1957), that met with some success. However, Hughes's Tambourines to Glory (1963), a gospel musical play satirizing corruption in a black storefront church, failed badly, with some critics accusing him of creating caricatures of black life. Nevertheless, his love of gospel music led to other acclaimed stage efforts, usually mixing words, music, and dance in an atmosphere of improvisation. Notable here were the Christmas show Black Nativity (1961) and, inspired by the civil rights movement, Jericho--Jim Crow (1964).

For Hughes, writing for children was important. Starting with the successful Popo and Fifina (1932), a tale set in Haiti and written with Arna Bontemps, he eventually published a dozen children's books, on subjects such as jazz, Africa, and the West Indies. Proud of his versatility, he also wrote a commissioned history of the NAACP and the text of a much praised pictorial history of black America. His text in The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), where he explicated photographs of Harlem by Roy DeCarava, was judged masterful by reviewers, and confirmed Hughes's reputation for an unrivaled command of the nuances of black urban culture.

The 1960s saw Hughes as productive as ever. In 1962 his ambitious book-length poem Ask Your Mama, dense with allusions to black culture and music, appeared. However, the reviews were dismissive. Hughes's work was not as universally acclaimed as before in the black community. Although he was hailed in 1966 as a historic artistic figure at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, he also found himself increasingly rejected by young black militants at home as the civil rights movement lurched toward Black Power. His last book was the volume of verse, posthumously published, The Panther and the Lash (1967), mainly about civil rights. He died in May that year in New York City.

In many ways Hughes always remained loyal to the principles he had laid down for the younger black writers in 1926. His art was firmly rooted in race pride and race feeling even as he cherished his freedom as an artist. He was both nationalist and cosmopolitan. As a radical democrat, he believed that art should be accessible to as many people as possible. He could sometimes be bitter, but his art is generally suffused by a keen sense of the ideal and by a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. He was perhaps the most original of African American poets and, in the breadth and variety of his work, assuredly the most representative of African American writers.

From The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Oxford University Press, © 1997.
Mother to Son Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. Biographical Data
The Negro Speaks of Rivers: Dream Keeper
Langston Hughes is often referred to as the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race."
I Hear America Singing
J. Langston Hughes: A central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
James Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)
"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark - skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. and ugly too...If colored people are pleased we are glad. if they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top to the mountain, free within ourselves."

"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" the Nation, 1926

Books and Writers

African - American poet, novelist, and playwright, who became one of the foremost interpreters of racial relationships in the United States.
Lawrence Hughes in Lawrence: Lawrence, Kansas
Saint .Luke's AME Church in Lawrence, Langston attended services, sometimes reluctantly. In his autobiography, Langston stated that in the black churches of Lawrence, he heard rhythms that influenced his poetry.

Amazing Americans - Langston Hughes

Hughes' creative genius was influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American neighborhood.

Black History Month - Biography - Langston Hughes

Following the example of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of his early poetic influences, Langston Hughes became the second African American to earn his living as a writer.

Modern American Poetry

Compiled and prepared by Cary Nelson.

Langston Hughes Biography
Langston Hughes and the Academy of American Poets
"Hughes who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties though the sixties."

Langston Hughes - The Black Renaissance in Washington, D.C.

Washington's middle class community experienced a literary rebirth during the 1920s. Eventually, some writers took their skills to Harlem. Hughes lived in Washington, D.C. from November 1924 to January 1926.

Poetry Authors in Depth -Langston Hughes - Meyer Literature

Throughout his long career as a professional writer, Hughes remained true to the African American heritage he celebrated in his writings, which were frankly "racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know.

Spectra Links

Langston Hughes : The Shakespeare of Harlem

Gale - Free Resources - Black History Month - Biography - Langston Hughes

Young Hughes learned the blues and spirituals. He would subsequently weave these musical elements into his own poetry and fiction.

Library of Congress. Today in History Archive

See: Langston Hughes

America's Library. Langston Hughes
Biographical articles on Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers: Dream Keeper

Langston Hughes is often referred to as the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race."

I Hear America Singing

J. Langston Hughes: A central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

James Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)

"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark - skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. and ugly too...If colored people are pleased we are glad. if they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top to the mountain, free within ourselves."

"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" the Nation, 1926

Books and Writers

African - American poet, novelist, and playwright, who became one of the foremost interpreters of racial relationships in the United States.
Lawrence Hughes in Lawrence: Lawrence, Kansas
Saint .Luke's AME Church in Lawrence, Langston attended services, sometimes reluctantly. In his autobiography, Langston stated that in the black churches of Lawrence, he heard rhythms that influenced his poetry.

Amazing Americans - Langston Hughes

Hughes' creative genius was influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American neighborhood.

Black History Month - Biography - Langston Hughes

Following the example of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of his early poetic influences, Langston Hughes became the second African American to earn his living as a writer.

Modern American Poetry

Compiled and prepared by Cary Nelson
Langston Hughes Biography Langston Hughes and the Academy of American Poets
"Hughes who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties though the sixties."

Langston Hughes - The Black Renaissance in Washington, D.C.

Washington's middle class community experienced a literary rebirth during the 1920s. Eventually, some writers took their skills to Harlem. Hughes lived in Washington, D.C. from November 1924 to January 1926.
Poetry Authors in Depth -Langston Hughes - Meyer Literature
Throughout his long career as a professional writer, Hughes remained true to the African American heritage he celebrated in his writings, which were frankly "racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know.
Spectra Links
Langston Hughes: The Shakespeare of Harlem

Gale - Free Resources - Black History Month - Biography - Langston Hughes

Young Hughes learned the blues and spirituals. He would subsequently weave these musical elements into his own poetry and fiction.

Library of Congress. Today in History Archive

See: Langston Hughes

America's Library. Langston Hughes

Biographical articles on Hughes.

The Harlem Renaissance

"Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. Once in

New York, he had to live in Harlem. Harlem was not so much a place as a state of mind, the cultural metaphor for black America itself." (Langston Hughes)

Chronology - The Harlem Renaissance

See: Langston Hughes

America's Library. Langston Hughes

Biographical articles on Hughes' life

Langston Hughes : The Shakespeare of Harlem
He shared his feelings about everyday African Americans through different forms of literature.

Harlem Renaissance 1919 - 1948

African American Writers and Poets
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human vein
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset...I've known rivers:
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. Literary Criticism on Hughes' Work
Critical Works: Langston Hughes Ancient, dusky rivers. Criticism - a bibliography
Selected Bibliography of Critical Works on Langston Hughes
hughesbib
see: Langston Hughes
Academy of American Poets
Excellent site of resources on the study of Hughes' work.
Voices and Visions Series
Site on Langston Hughes, with good links to the web.
Bibliography: Langston Hughes
Offers an extensive Hughes site.
Criticism - Art - Harlem Renaissance
Reflection : Minority Voices
African American Poetry Criticism
see: Langston Hughes
Short Stories of Langston Hughes
An excellent bibliography of critical work on Hughes' literary work.
Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)
Hughes was fond of calling himself "a literary sharecropper."
Lesson Plan - Langston Hughes
Teacher Resource File
Bibliography : Langston Hughes
Related topics: Music, Poetry, Civil Rights Movement, Geography, and Choral Reading
The Stranger Redeemed: A Portrait of a Black Poet
Selected bibliographies of critical works of Langston Hughes. From the Jazz Literature Archive.
Langston Hughes Related Sites
Yale - New Haven Teachers Institute
Political Plays of Langston Hughes
They provide interesting information on the life and work of an American Original.
Works of Langston Hughes
Little - Known Labor Plays of Langston Hughes to be Published on Hughes' Birthday
The Langston Hughes Tribute
Hughes addresses Jazz: its universality and its ability to bring people together despite their differences.
Major Themes, Historical Perspectives, and Personal Issues
A dedication to a great great African American writer.

Classroom Issues and Strategies
The poet's Corner
The primary problems encountered in teaching Langston Hughes grow out of his air of improvisation and familiarity. Vital to an understanding of Hughes's poetry and prose is to understand the quality of black colloquial speech and the rhythms of jazz and the blues.
Critical Work on Langston Hughes Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender
Langston Hughes
African - American History : Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes
Essays on Race, Politics, and Culture, 1942-62.
Jazz is Timeless
Recent Acquisitions in African - American History

Langston Hughes: Flypaper of Life with Roy DeCarava (1984)
SCORE: Teacher Guide - The Poetry of Langston Hughes
Suggested readings etc.
Langston Hughes
Teacher Cyber Guide to the Poetry of Langston Hughes
The South
Modern American Poetry
Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center
Langston Hughes: Poems
Bibliographic Information on Langston Hughes
The Crisis Magazine On - Line
Seattle, WA
Featured Author: Langston Hughes
Cover Story: The Life and Times of Langston Hughes - remembering the prolific literary legend 100 years after his birth.
Featured Author - Langston Hughes
With News and Reviews From the Archives of the New York Times.
Poetry Website - Langston Hughes Link baton
With News and Reviews From the Archives of the New York Times.
IMS : Langston Hughes, HarperAudio
Books by Langston Hughes, ISBN etc.
PAL : Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide
Short Stories; written by Langston Hughes and read by actor Ossie Davis.
Not So Simple : The "Simple" Stories by Langston Hughes
See: Langston Hughes
The Langston Hughes Review
"The fictional works of Langston Hughes have not yet received the scholarly attention they deserve."

Official Publication of the Langston Hughes Society

Featured Author : Langston Hughe s
Longman English Literature
With News and Reviews From the Archives of the New York Times.
Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
The English Pages Literature Workbook
Langston Hughes
Most African American Writers wrote to escape the trials of life, such as poverty and discrimination. In the 1920s, literature blossomed and became a key factor in the lives of common folk.
Black Renaissance in DC Timeline
Langston Hughes was one of the dominant voices in American literature of this century and perhaps the single most influential Black poet.

See: Langston Hughes
A Spark for Langston Hughes
In 1926, when Langston Hughes presented his famous manifest, "The Negro and the Racial Mountain". he attacked the tendency of middle-class blacks to suppress their Black selves and heritage in an uncritical embrace of whiteness.
Hughes Langston
Bessie Smith: A Heroine for Cora
African American Odyssey: World War 1 and Postwar Society (Part 2)
An Encarta Encyclopedia Article titled "Hughes, Langston"
Langston Hughes: An Illustrated Edition; artist: Stephen Alcorn
The Harlem and the Flowering of Creativity. African Americans wrote symphonies and sonatas in the period between the world wars. They did not only write. However the night club scene and music seemed to capture the period.
Miss Blues'es Child by Langston Hughes Storylines: storytellers
Listed in The New York Review of Books' READER'S CATALOG: The 40,000 Best Books In Print.
Internet School Library Media Center
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes : The Weary Blues The Weary Blues

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead. Awards & Other Recognitions
Blunt(MO07) - Press Release - Blunt Reports Stamp to Honor Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes bibliography page
The Crystal Stair Award
Joplin's Native Langston Hughes won the honor of having a postage stamp to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. US Congressman Roy Blunt's Bill was co-sponsored by Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem), and expressed the sense of Congress to issue a postage stamp to commemorate Hughes' work.
Happy 100th Birthday Mr. Hughes
A crystal stair serves as the central image of the poem "Mother to Son" by the 20th - century African American poet Langston Hughes. The Crystal Stair Award has been established by School of Social Work to recognize "natural social workers" - volunteers and professionals from any discipline who have worked passionately for social justice and the elimination of prejudice and oppression.
In 1926 Langston Hughes was awarded the Witter Bynner Prize
Alice Walker celebrates 100th birthday of poet Langston Hughes

This award was for the best poetry submitted by an American undergraduate. His award was given based on a collection of five poems, one of which was "The House in Taos". In this very same contest, Waring Cuney received an honorable mention.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/mo07_blunt/langstonhughesstamp.html Guggenheim Fellow
First African American to be inducted into the Missouri Writers Hall of Fame*
News and Media
Langston Hughes is a Guggenheim Fellow. The fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Events at Rutgers University to celebrate Black History Month
The Langston Hughes Society
See: Langston Hughes: 100th Birthday celebration.
Langston Hughes Symposium
The Langston Hughes Review: Official Publication of the Langston Hughes Society
Lawrence celebrates Langston Hughes Events
A celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center
To learn more about the celebrations, please visit the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau Website.
First prize for poetry in the Opportunity Magazine; 1925
Poet in residence: Laboratory School; University of Chicago
The Amy Springarn Award
First Prize for poetry in the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Contest, Lincoln University; 1926

The Intercollegiate Poet Award; Palms magazine; 1927

The Harmon Gold Medal for Literature; 1931

Langston Hughes and his World: A Centennial Celebration, a research conference at Yale University February 21-23, 2002. Note: A Website link will be available in future.

Langston Hughes Festival, Joplin, Missouri - February 1, 2003

Dream Explosion: The fifth Annual Langston Hughes Black Poetry Festival, Florrisant, Missouri. April 20-27, 2002

Langston Hughes Celebration, Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, Maryland February 24, 2002
In Print:Langston Hughes' Bibliography
Prose Writing

I, TOO
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed - -

I, too, am America.

Most of the titles can be found at a Howard University Library.

A Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia. Moscow and Leningrad: Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., 1934.

The Big Sea: An Autobiography. Knopf, 1940, reprinted, Thunder's Mouth, 1986. Howard University Library.

The Sweet Flypaper of Life. Langston Hughes and Roy De Carava, Simon & Schuster, 1955, reprinted Howard University Press, 1985. Howard University Library.

I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey. Rinehart, 1956, reprinted, Thunder's Mouth, 1986. Howard University Library.

A Pictorial History of the Negro in America. Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. Crown, 1956. 4th Edition published as A Pictorial History of Black Americans, 1973. 6th Edition published as A Pictorial History of African Americans, 1995. Howard University Library.

Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. Norton, 1962. Howard University Library

Black Magic. Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment. Prentice-Hall, 1967. Howard University Library.

Black Misery. Paul S. Erickson, 1969, reprinted, Oxford University Press, 1994.

The Langston Hughes Reader. New York: Braziller, 1958.

Five Plays by Langston Hughes. Edited by Webster Smalley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.

Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes. Edited by Faith Berry. New York & Westport: Lawrence Hill, 1973.

The Ways of White Folks. (Short Stories) New York: A. A. Knopf, 1969; New York: Vintage, 1971. Howard University Library.

Poetry

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1928: And Year Book of American Poetry. Edited by Stanley Braithwaite. New York: Harold Vinal, Ltd., 1928. University of Virginia.

Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1961. (Held by University of Virginia); New York: Knopf, 1971, c1961. Carrier Library.

The Block. Collage by Romare Bearden; selected by Lowery S. Sims and Daisy Murray Voigt. New York: Viking, 1995. Library of Congress. Howard University Library.

Carol of the Brown King: Poems. N.Y.: Atheneum Books, 1997.

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Edited by Arnold Rampersad. New York: Knopf, 1996, c1994. Howard University Library.

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Edited by Arnold Rampersad; David Roessel, associate ed. Paperback. Vintage Books, 1995. For review and a list of the poems included see Amazon Book Company. Howard University Library.

Dear Lovely Death,. Amenia, NY: Troutbeck Press, 1931. Library of Congress.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. Knopf, 1932.

Enjoyment of Poetry. Poetry of the Blues. Sound recording. Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Library of Congress). [Poetry of Hughes and Florence Becker Lennon] Howard University Library.

Fields of Wonder. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947. Howard University Library.

Fine Clothes to the Jew. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927. University of Virginia.

Four Negro Poets. By Alain LeRoy Locke. New York: Simon & Schuster, c1927. Howard University Library.

Freedom's Plow. New York: Musette Publishers, 1943. Howard University Library..

Jim Crow's Last Stand. Atlanta: Negro Publication Society of America, 1943.

Langston Hughes Reading His Poems with Comment, May 1, 1959. Sound recording. 1959. Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, Library of Congress.

Langston Hughes Reads and Talks about His Poems. Sound recording. Spoken Arts, 1970. Library of Congress. Howard University Library.

Mandelik, Peter. A Concordance to the Poetry of Langston Hughes. Detroit: Gale Research, 1975. University of Virginia.

Montage of a Dream Deferred. 1st ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1951. University of Virginia.

The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1931.

A New Song. New York: International Workers Order, 1938. Library of Congress.

One-way Ticket. Illus. by Jacob Lawrence. 1st ed. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1949, c1948. Howarad University Library.

The Panther & the Lash: Poems of Our Times. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1969. Howard University Library.

The Panther & the Lash. 1st Vintage classics ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Howard University Library.

The Pasteboard Bandit. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1997. Howard University Library.

Poems. 1972. [uniform title, in Arabic] (From Library of Congress.) Howard University Library.

Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play in Verse. Illustrations by Prentiss Taylor. New York: Golden Stair Press,1932. University of Virginia.

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959; Vintage classics ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Also, 1974 ed. University of Virginia.

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. 1st ed. Drawings by E. McKnight Kauffer. New York: Knopf, c1959 (Held by Averett); Drawings by E. McKnight Kauffer. New York: Knopf, 1993. Howard University Library.

Shakespeare in Harlem. With drawings by E. McKnight Kauffer. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. Howard University Library.

The Weary Blues. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. Howard University Library.

My People

The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Works Edited by Hughes

An African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, and Poems by Black Africans. Edited by Langston Hughes. New York: Crown, 1960. Howard University Library.

Anthology of Black Poets. 1 sound cassette. Los Angeles, CA: Pacifica Radio Archive, 1983.

Anthology of Negro Poetry. 1 sound disc. By Arna Wendell Bontemps. Folkways, 1961. (Held by University of Virginia).

The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers: An Anthology from 1899 to the Present. Edited by Langston Hughes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Howard University Library.

The Best Short Stories by Black Writers; The Classic Anthology from 1899 to 1967. Paperback. Little, Brown, 1969.

The Book of Negro Folklore. Edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958. Howard University Library.

The Book of Negro Folklore. Edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1983. Howard University Library.

The Book of Negro Folklore. Microform. edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead, c1958. Library of Congress. Also Howard University Library.

The Book of Negro Folklore. Microform. Edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958. (From Library of Congress Catalog) Also Howard University Library.

The Book of Negro Humor. Edited by Langston Hughes. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966. Carrier Library.

Famous American Negroes. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1954. Howard University Library..

Famous Negro Heroes of America. Illustrated by Gerald McCann. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958. Carrier Library.

Famous Negro Music Makers. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955. Howard University Library.

The New Negro Poets U.S.A.. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1964. Old Dominion.

Poems from Black Africa: Ethiopia, South Rhodesia, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya, Gabon, Senegal, Nyasaland, Mozambique, South Africa, Congo, Ghana, Liberia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963. Howard University Library..

The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1970 An anthology edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. 1st ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949 (Held at College of William and Mary); Rev. and updated ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. Howard University Library.

Yoseloff, Thomas. Seven Poets in Search of an Answer: Maxwell Bodenheim, Joy Davidman, Langston Hughes, Aaron Kramer, Alfred Kreymborg, Martha Millet, Norman Rosten. A poetic symposium edited by Thomas Yoseloff. New York: Ackerman, 1944. University of Virginia.

Works Translated by Hughes

Anthologie Africaine et Malgache Edited by Langston Hughes and Christiane Reygnault. Paris: Editions Seghers, 1962. Library of Congress.

Blood Wedding; and, Yerma. By Federico Garcia Lorca. tr. by Langston Hughes and W. S. Merwin. 1st ed. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1994.

Cuba Libre, Poems By Nicolas Guillen; tr. from the Spanish by Langston Hughes and Ben Frederic Carruther; illus. by Gar Gilbert. Los Angeles: Anderson & Ritchie, 1948. University of Virginia.

Masters of the Dew. By Jacques Rouman. tr. by Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947. University of Virginia.

Collections

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Edited by Arnold Rampersad. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2001. Library of Congress.

Langston Hughes in the Hispanic World and Haiti. Edited by Edward J. Mullen. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books,1977. Library of Congress.

Langston Hughes. Presentation par Francois Dodat. Choix de Textes, Bibliographie, Portraits [et] Fac-Simsimiles.Paris: Editions P. Seghers, 1964. [French]

The First Book of Jazz. Illustrated by Cliff Roberts. Ecco Press, 1995; Paperback ed. Ecco Press, 1997.

The First Book of Negroes. Pictures by Ursula Koering. New York: F. Watts, c1952. Carrier Library.

The First Book of Rhythms. Pictures by Robin King [pseud.]. New York: F. Watts, 1954. Carrier Library.

The First Book of the West Indies. Pictures by Robert Bruce. New York: F. Watts, 1956. Carrier Library.

Jazz. By Langston Hughes; updated and expanded by Sandford Brown. 3rd ed. New York: F. Watts, 1982. (Note: earlier ed. was The First Book of Jazz.)

The Langston Hughes Reader. 1st ed. New York: G. Braziller, 1958; New York: G. Braziller, 1971, c1958. Old Dominion.

The Pasteboard Bandit. By Arna Wendell Bontemps and Langston Hughes; illustrations by Peggy Turley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Popo and Fifina. By Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes; illus. by Simms Campbell. New York: Macmillan, 1932; New York: Oxford University Pr., 1993.

The Sweet and Sour Animal Book. Illustrations by students of the Harlem School of the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. University of Virginia.

Thank You, M'am. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1991. (Note: A teenage tries to steal a purse and is rebuked in a surprising fashion).

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

Essays

Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender: Essays on Race, Politics, and Culture, 1942-62. Edited by Christopher C. De Santis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1995. University of Virginia.

Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings. Edited by Faith Berry. 1st ed. New York: L. Hill,1973; Seacaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1992. (1973 ed. University of Virginia.

Simply Heavenly. Book and lyrics by Hughes, music by David Martin. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1959.

Street Scene. Kurt Weill composer/performer; book by Elmer Rice; lyrics by Langston Hughes. University of Virginia.

Three Negro Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. [Note: Hughes, "Mulatto," Baraka "Slaves," Hansberry "Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window."

Troubled Island: An Opera in Three Acts. Libretto. By William Grant Stills; libretto by Langston Hughes. New York: Leeds Music Company, c1949. University of Virginia.

Musical Settings

Barber, Samuel. Fantasy in Purple. Words by Langston Hughes. 1 music manuscript score. 1925. Library of Congress.

Bartos, Jan Zdenek. Koncert Pro Housle a Orchestr. Original text Langston Hughes. Praha: Panton, 1974. Library of Congress.

Davidson, Charles. Freedom Train. Microform. From a poem by Langston Hughes; music by Charles Davidson. Library of Congress.

Gordon, Ricky Ian. Genius Child: A Cycle of 10 Songs. Music by Ricky Ian Gordon, using poems by Langston Hughes. Williamson Music; distributed by Hal Leondard, c1995. University of Virginia.

Bonds, Margaret. The Ballad of the Brown King. Written by Hughes, Libretto by Hughes, music by Margaret Bonds. New York: Sam fox, 1961.

Gordon, Ricky Ian. Only Heaven: Piano-Vocal. Milwaukee, Wis.: Williamson Music; distributed by H. Leonard Corp.,1997. Library of Congress.

Haden, Charlie. Dream Keeper. By Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra. Hollywood, CA: Blue Note, 1991. Library of Congress.

Siegmeister, Elie. Madam to You. Sound recording. Composers Recordings, p1979. Carrier Library.

Siegmeister, Elie. Ways of Love: Langston Hughes Songs. 1 sound disc. Five pieces for piano. New York: CRI, p1986. University of Virginia.

Swanson, Howard. Seven Songs. 1 sound disc. New York: American Recording Society, 1953. College of William and Mary.

Weston, Randy. Bantu. 2 discs. sound recording. Roulette RE 130, 1976. Music by Randy Weston, words by Langston Hughes. Library of Congress.

Nonprint Media

America's Town Meeting of the Air. 1 tape reel. Cataloged from notes compiled by the Recording Laboratory of the Library of Congress; actual tape contents may vary. Originally broadcast on ABC Radio, New York, Feb. 17, 1944. Address--Radio. Library of Congress.

The Beat Generation. 3 sound discs. Santa Monica, CA: Rhino/Word Beat, p1992. [Note: includes "Blues Montage" Langston Hughes, with Leonard Feather]. Old Dominion.

The First Album of Jazz for Children, with Documentary Recordings from the Library of Folkways Records. New York: Folkways Records, c1954. [Note: narrated by Langston Hughes, based upon his book of the same title]. Old Dominion.

The Glory of Negro History. 1 sound disc. New York: Folkways Records, 19 ? [Note narrated by Langston Hughes]. Old Dominion.

The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond. 1 videocassette. Mt. Kisco, NY: Guidance Associates, c1990. Carrier Library.

Langston Hughes Video recording: The Dream Keeper. Juvenile poetry. South Carolina Educational Television Network, a New York Center for Visual History Production, 1988. Eastern Mennonite University.

Looking for Langston. Video recording. Sankofa Fil and Video. New York: Third World Newsreel, 198? College of William and Mary.

Poems from Black Africa. 1 cassette recording. Performed by Langston Hughes. Caedmon, 1971. University of Virginia.

Poetry and Reflections. 1 cassette. Caedmon, p1980. University of Virginia.

The Poetry of Langston Hughes. 1 cassette. Caedmon, 1969?. University of Virginia.

The Spoken Arts Treasury of 100 Modern American Poets Reading Their Poems. 1 sound cassette. New Rochelle, NY: Spoken Arts, 1985. Old Dominion.

The Subject Is Jazz. Jazz and Other Arts. 3 16mm tapes. NBC Television; in cooperation with the Educational Television and Radio Center; executive producer, Brice Howard. NBC Television, 1958. Gilbert Seldes, host; Langston Hughes, guest. Library of Congress.

Tambourines to Glory. 1 sound disc. Gospel songs by Langston Hughes & Jobe Huntley. Folkways, 1958. University of Virginia.

Migration

A little Southern colored child
Comes to a Northern school
And is afraid to play
With the white children.

At first they are nice to him,
But finally they taunt him
And call him "nigger."

The colored children
Hate him, too,

After awhile.

He is a little dark boy
With a round black face
And a white embroidered collar.

Concerning this
Little frightened child
One might make a story
Charting tomorrow.

Collection, 1921-1941 21 items, Library of Congress Manuscript Material. Library of Congress.

Langston Hughes Collection, 1926-1967. Microform. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1995. College of William and Mary. [Note: biographical material, research notes, manuscripts, galley proofs.]

Papers of Langston Hughes, 1925-1982. 84 items. Manuscripts of the poems "Motto," "Youth," "Snail," "Alabama Earth (At Booker Washington's Grave)," "Cross" and "Mississippi-1955 ("To the memory of Emmett Till lynched in Mississippi, USA/August 1955")," and reprints of "Low to High" and "High to Low". University of Virginia.

Letters to Mrs. Ina Steele. 2 items. University of Letters of Langston Hughes to H. R. Hays. 1942 July 4-25. 3 items. University of Virginia.

Letter to F. Coleman Rosenberger. 1948 October 21. 1 item. University of Virginia.

Alain Locke Papers 1841 - 1954

These papers are rich in documentation on the Harlem Renaissance including correspondence , manuscripts, and photographs of many of the prominent figures of this period . Langston Hughes is prominently featured here. Moorland Springarn Research Center; Howard University Libraries.

Glenn C. Carrington Papers 1861 - 1977

The Carrington papers include a broad selection of materials documenting the Harlem Renaissance, including programs, flyers, newsclippings, articles, and photographs. Noteworthy is the material on Langston Hughes, which includes correspondence, photographs, autographed writings and programs.

Moorland Springarn Research Center; Howard University Libraries.

Arthur B. Springarn Papers 1914 - 1971

Among the Arthur B. Springarn Papers is a series (l 1/2 linear foot in size) of materials on Langston Hughes, including correspondence and drafts of the play, Mule Bone, by Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Moorland Springarn Research Center; Howard University Libraries.

Joel E. Springarn Papers.

Of note in these papers is the correspondence of Langston Hughes with Joel and his wife, Amy Springarn. Moorland Springarn Research Center; Howard University Libraries.

Nonfiction

African American History: Four Centuries of Black Life. By Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. New York: Scholastic, 1990.

Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the African-American in the Performing Arts. By Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. New York: Da Capo Press, 1990; Pbk reprint ed., 1990; Reprint ed. 1993. (1990 ed. Old Dominion)

Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment. By Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967.

Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. New York: Norton, 1962. Carrier Library.

The First Book of Africa. New York: F. Watts, 1960; rev. ed, 1964. Carrier Library.

Das Buch vom Jazz. Feldafing, Buchheim Verlag, 1955.

A New Song. Frontispiece by Joe Jones. New York: International Workers Order, c1938. University of Virginia.

A Pictorial History of Black Americans. By Langston Hughes, Milton Meltzer, and C. Eric Lincoln. 5th rev. ed. New York: Crown, 1983. ( University of Virginia + 4th ed). Formerly :A Pictorial History of the Negro in America.

A Pictorial History of African Americans. 6th ed. New York: Crown Publishers, c1995.

Proletarian Literature in the United States. Anthology edited by Granville Hicks, Joseph North, Michael Gold, Paul Peters, Isido Schneider and Alan Calmer. New York: International Publishers, 1935.

The Sweet Flypaper of Life. By Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955. University of Virginia. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967, c1955. College of William and Mary. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1984.

Criticism and Interpretation

Barksdale, Richard. Langston Hughes: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: American [1977]. Carrier Library.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Langston Hughes. New York: Chelsea House, c1989. Carrier Library.

Bonner, Pat E. Sassy Jazz and Slo'Draggin' Blues: Music in the Poetry of Langston Hughes. New York: P. Lang, 1996.

Cobb, Martha. Harlem, Haiti, and Havana: A Comparative Critical Study of Langston Hughes, Jacques Roumain, Nicolas Guillen. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1979.

Dace, Tish. Langston Hughes: The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Carrier Library.

Emanuel, James A. Langston Hughes. New York: Twayne, 1967. Twayne's United States Authors Series. Carrier Library..

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad. Dist. by Penguin USA, c1993. Carrier Library.

Harper, Donna S. Not So Simple: The "Simple" Stories by Langston Hughes. Columbia: University of Missouri Press,c1995.

Miller, R. Baxter. The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, c1989. Carrier Library.

McLaren, Joseph. Langston Hughes: Folk Dramatist in the Protest Tradition, 1921-1943. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Old Dominion.

Mullen, Edward J., ed. Langston Huges in the Hispanic World and Haiti. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1977. University of Virginia.

Neilson, Kenneth P. To Langston Hughes, with Love. Hollis, NY: All Seasons Art, c1996. [Note: Selected newspaper articles published in The New York Voice/Harlem

Onwuchekwa, Jemie. Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. (Held by Averett)

Ostrom, Hans. Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, c1993. Carrier Library.

O'Daniel, Therman B. Langston Hughes: Black Genius; A Critical Evaluation. For the College Language Association. New York: Morrow, 1971. Carrier Library.

Tracy, Steven C. Langston Hughes and the Blues. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1988. College of William and Mary. [Note: Folklore & mythology].

Trotman, C.James, ed. Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art, and His Continuing Influence. New York: Garland,1995. Carrier Library.

Bio/Bibliography

Dickinson, Donald C. A Bio-Bibliography of Langston Hughes, 1902-1967. 2nd rev. ed. Hamden, Conn.:Archon Books, 1972. Carrier Library.

Mikolyzk, Thomas A. Langston Hughes: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Carrier Library.

Miller, R. Baxter. Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, c1978. Old Dominion.

Other Content

Anch'io Sono America. Milano: Accademia, 1971.

"Banquet in Honor". in Negro Quarterly. Vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer, 1942), p. 176-178. University of Virginia.

Barrel House: Northern City. U.S.?: s.n., 19--?. [Broadside, 1 sheet] Library of Congress.

Girls from Esquire. 1952. Library of Congress.

Jim Crow's Last Stand. New York: Negro Publ. Soc. of America, c1943. College of William and Mary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes Painting by Artist Winold Reiss, National Portrait Gallery LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967) ~Dream Deferred~ What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Langston Hughes biography and poetry. A history of Jazz before 1930. This site contains over 1000 songs from this era in Real Audio 3 format, as well as hundreds of biographies and discographies of Jazz musicians.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jay Parini: The list could go on and on, but these are the poems that seem to me to have left the deepest mark on US literature – and me

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
California Poetry Out Loud 2010 Cheryl Evans of Contra Costa County Rd. 3

# data[].attributes.headline
45. Langston Hughes - Theme for English B

# data[].attributes.subject
45. Langston Hughes - Theme for English B

# data[].attributes.headline
44. Langston Hughes - Theme for English B

# data[].attributes.subject
44. Langston Hughes - Theme for English B

# data[].attributes.body
Poem: Parsley

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rita Dove's poem "Parsley" with explanation

# data[].attributes.body
Poem: The Abduction

# data[].attributes.body
on the future of literature

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rita Dove was 41 years old when, in 1993, she became poet laureate of the United States-the youngest person and the first African-American to serve in the post. She has published nine books of poetry, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas and Beulah, based on her grandparents, and this past year's Sonata Mulattica. Dove, who has also written short stories, a verse play and a novel, is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She spoke with associate editor Lucinda Moore.

What is the future of literature?
With the advent of technology and cyberspace and iPads and Kindle, I feel change happening even at the level of composition. In the past, a reader had to rely upon the author to supply all the details of what it was like to hike in Nepal, let's say. Thanks to search engines, now you can quickly look it up, and that's going to change the way literature is written.

How will blogs, YouTube and other technology affect authors?
The intimacy that literature affords-that feeling that you are really in the head of the characters portrayed-used to be almost the private privilege of plays, novels and poetry. Now there's another place that has it-be it blogs, Facebook or Twitter-and it gives you second-by-second accounts. That does not diminish the power of literature, because literature is shaped intimacy. For the writer, it raises the bar, as it should. The very fact that we can be found at any moment, through a cellphone or whatever, changes the way plot will work. How many plots were dependent upon the fact that a note had to be passed here or there or that someone didn't answer the phone?

What is shaping literature and its future?
I flash back to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which came out in 1969. It seemed to be a plot that had exploded, which you then had to piece together. It seemed to acknowledge the fact that you couldn't put all the pieces together right away. At the end of the novel, it still felt like it was going on. The acknowledgement that things are going to be playing out beyond the provenance of the work of fiction had some of its seeds right there. I think you see more of a willingness in literature to acknowledge the fact that this is not a perfectly shaped whole, that lives are going to be messy.

Things like the iPad and Kindle will allow us to carry around massive amounts of literature. Because of that, literature is going to be looking for different ways to distinguish itself from mass media, and it's going to feel freer to experiment. Because of movies, which satisfy so many people's need for a visual effect and aural effect combined, theater is going to go increasingly toward things that only theater can do. In the new poetry, I see a fascinating confidence in switching viewpoints very quickly, in mid-sentence practically. So there's a speeding up of changing viewpoints and expressions that comes from technology speeding us up and the fact that you can keep several screens open at a time and divide your attention. The narratives are getting faster and are having more interruptions because we can tolerate interruption.

Genealogical research is causing more people to embrace a multiracial heritage. How will this affect literature?
It cuts down on stereotyping and the fear of the other, because we all are the other or the other is us. The assumptions of the mainstream change. A mainstream novel of the early '70s or so would contain the dilemmas of, say, a household in Connecticut. Everything that had to do with country clubs or the tensions at a cocktail party was assumed to be the mainstream. That left a burden of explanation for any writer who was not of the mainstream. So a Jewish-American writer had to go into great details to explain Seder, or an African-American writer had to explain-somehow in the context of their story-how they did their hair. Now that we are more and more identifying ourselves as multiracial, these elements of other cultures are becoming better known. That will change the nature of the mainstream, and that is quite a tidal wave.

You once asked, "Why can't we find the universal in our differences?" Is literature getting there?
Absolutely. That's one of the great shining lights of the future. I think as we become more multicultural and able to look at each corner of the world, the more at ease we are with our differences. And we are going to be more comfortable reading something about experiences which are, on the surface, very different from ours. Yet we'll still feel confident that we can access the common humanity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Pulitzer-Prize winning poet discusses how new technologies will affect the creative process

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Popular Poets & Member Poets - Poem Hunter Poets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Different poets all around the world. Thousands of poets. Search for poets using the Poetry Search Engine.

# data[].attributes.body
Poem: Lady Freedom Among Us

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rita Dove (she/her) was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. A 1970 Presidential Scholar, she attended Miami University of Ohio, Universität Tübingen in Germany, and the University of Iowa, where she earned her creative writing MFA in 1977. In 1987, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her third...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The author of numerous collections of poetry, Rita Dove served as the US Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2005 to 2011.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Langston Hughes - "The Weary Blues" on CBUT, 1958

# data[].attributes.headline
6. Langston Hughes & the Harlem Rennaissance

# data[].attributes.subject
6. Langston Hughes & the Harlem Rennaissance

# data[].attributes.body
Video course

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Literature 215

# data[].attributes.body
Poem: Dream Variations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dream Variations - Dream Variations Poem by Langston Hughes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read Dream Variations poem by Langston Hughes written. Dream Variations poem is from Langston Hughes poems. Dream Variations poem summary, analysis and comments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We invite you and your family to participate in these activities, inspired by the collections, programs, and expertise of the Library of Congress.

Author Programs

Activity Kits

The activities below require just a few simple items you can find easily around the house and items from the Library's website. Kids are encouraged to use their creativity to enhance, adapt, or recreate anything we share. Check back often for new activities and opportunities with engage with us!

All Ages

Ages 7-10

Ages 10-12

Printables

More Online Resources for Kids and Families

Imagination Library

View bedtime stories from Goodnight with Dolly External and Imagination Library story times at the Library of Congress. Imagination Library is a 2014 Library of Congress Literacy Awards Program Best Practice Honoree.

Stay in Touch!

We'd love to hear from you!

Find activity ideas and connect with us on our blog for families, Minerva's Kaleidoscope.

Share your feedback on these resources or others you'd like to see at learn@loc.gov.

Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and sign up for email updates for new resources as they become available.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Resources for Family Engagement from the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We invite you and your family to participate in these activities, inspired by the collections, programs, and expertise of the Library of Congress.

# data[].attributes.body
Poem: Life is Fine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Life Is Fine - Life Is Fine Poem by Langston Hughes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read Life Is Fine poem by Langston Hughes written. Life Is Fine poem is from Langston Hughes poems. Life Is Fine poem summary, analysis and comments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. As he wrote in his essay " The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," "We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too."

This approach was not without its critics. Much of Hughes's early work was roundly criticized by many black intellectuals for portraying what they thought to be an unattractive view of black life. In his autobiographical The Big Sea, Hughes commented:

Fine Clothes to the Jew [Hughes's second book] was well received by the literary magazines and the white press, but the Negro critics did not like it at all. The Pittsburgh Courier ran a big headline across the top of the page, LANGSTON HUGHES' BOOK OF POEMS TRASH. The headline in the New York Amsterdam News was LANGSTON HUGHES THE SEWER DWELLER. The Chicago Whip characterized me as 'the poet low- rate of Harlem.' Others called the book a disgrace to the race, a return to the dialect tradition, and a parading of all our racial defects before the public. ... The Negro critics and many of the intellectuals were very sensitive about their race in books. (And still are.) In anything that white people were likely to read, they wanted to put their best foot forward, their politely polished and cultural foot-and only that foot.

In fact, the title Fine Clothes to the Jew, which was misunderstood and disliked by many people, was derived from the Harlemites Hughes saw pawning their own clothing; most of the pawn shops and other stores in Harlem at that time were owned by Jewish people. Lindsay Patterson, a novelist who served as Hughes's assistant, believed that Hughes was

critically, the most abused poet in America. ... Serious white critics ignored him, less serious ones compared his poetry to Cassius Clay doggerel, and most black critics only grudgingly admired him. Some, like James Baldwin, were downright malicious about his poetic achievement. But long after Baldwin and the rest of us are gone, I suspect Hughes' poetry will be blatantly around growing in stature until it is recognized for its genius. Hughes ... was unashamedly black at a time when blackness was démodé. He had the wit and intelligence to explore the black human condition in a variety of depths, but his tastes and selectivity were not always accurate, and pressures to survive as a black writer in a white society (and it was a miracle that he did for so long) extracted an enormous creative toll.

Nevertheless, Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations.
In Hughes's own words, his poetry is about "workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters on Lenox Avenue in New York, or Seventh Street in Washington or South State in Chicago-people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to help pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter-and pawning that suit before the Fourth of July."

Hoyt W. Fuller commented that Hughes "chose to identify with plain black people ... precisely because he saw more truth and profound significance in doing so. Perhaps in this he was inversely influenced by his father-who, frustrated by being the object of scorn in his native land, rejected his own people. Perhaps the poet's reaction to his father's flight from the American racial reality drove him to embrace it with extra fervor." (Langston Hughes's parents separated shortly after his birth and his father moved to Mexico. The elder Hughes came to feel a deep dislike and revulsion for other African-Americans.)

Although Hughes had trouble with both black and white critics, he was the first black American to earn his living solely from his writing and public lectures. Part of the reason he was able to do this was the phenomenal acceptance and love he received from average black people. A reviewer for Black World noted in 1970: "Those whose prerogative it is to determine the rank of writers have never rated him highly, but if the weight of public response is any gauge then Langston Hughes stands at the apex of literary relevance among Black people. The poet occupies such a position in the memory of his people precisely because he recognized that 'we possess within ourselves a great reservoir of physical and spiritual strength,' and because he used his artistry to reflect this back to the people."

Hughes brought a varied and colorful background to his writing. Before he was 12 years old he had lived in six different American cities. When his first book was published, he had already been a truck farmer, cook, waiter, college graduate, sailor, and doorman at a nightclub in Paris, and had visited Mexico, West Africa, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Holland, France, and Italy. As David Littlejohn observed in his Black on White: A Critical Survey of Writing by American Negroes: "On the whole, Hughes' creative life [was] as full, as varied, and as original as Picasso's, a joyful, honest monument of a career. There [was] no noticeable sham in it, no pretension, no self-deceit; but a great, great deal of delight and smiling irresistible wit. If he seems for the moment upstaged by angrier men, by more complex artists, if 'different views engage' us, necessarily, at this trying stage of the race war, he may well outlive them all, and still be there when it's over. ... Hughes' [greatness] seems to derive from his anonymous unity with his people. He seems to speak for millions, which is a tricky thing to do.

Hughes reached many people through his popular fictional character, Jesse B. Semple (shortened to Simple). Simple is a poor man who lives in Harlem, a kind of comic no-good, a stereotype Hughes turned to advantage. He tells his stories to Boyd, the foil in the stories who is a writer much like Hughes, in return for a drink. His tales of his troubles with work, women, money, and life in general often reveal, through their very simplicity, the problems of being a poor black man in a racist society. "White folks," Simple once commented, "is the cause of a lot of inconvenience in my life." Simple's musings first appeared in 1942 in "From Here to Yonder," a column Hughes wrote for the Chicago Defender and later for the New York Post. According to a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews, their original intent was "to convince black Americans to support the U.S. war effort." They were later published in several volumes.

A more recent collection, 1994's The Return of Simple, contains previously unpublished material but remains current in its themes, according to a Publishers Weekly critic who noted Simple's addressing of such issues as political correctness, children's rights, and the racist undercurrent behind contraception and sterilization proposals. Donald C. Dickinson wrote in his Bio-Bibliography of Langston Hughes that "[the] charm of Simple lies in his uninhibited pursuit of those two universal goals, understanding and security. As with most other humans, he usually fails to achieve either of these goals and sometimes once achieved they disappoint him. ... Simple has a tough resilience, however, that won't allow him to brood over a failure very long. ... Simple is a well-developed character, both believable and lovable. The situations he meets and discusses are so true to life everyone may enter the fun."

A reviewer for Black World commented on the popularity of Simple: "The people responded. Simple lived in a world they knew, suffered their pangs, experienced their joys, reasoned in their way, talked their talk, dreamed their dreams, laughed their laughs, voiced their fears-and all the while underneath, he affirmed the wisdom which anchored at the base of their lives." Hoyt W. Fuller believed that, like Simple, "the key to Langston Hughes ... was the poet's deceptive and profound simplicity. Profound because it was both willed and ineffable, because some intuitive sense even at the beginning of his adulthood taught him that humanity was of the essence and that it existed undiminished in all shapes, sizes, colors and conditions. Violations of that humanity offended his unshakable conviction that mankind is possessed of the divinity of God."

It was Hughes's belief in humanity and his hope for a world in which people could sanely and with understanding live together that led to his decline in popularity in the racially turbulent latter years of his life. Unlike younger and more militant writers, Hughes never lost his conviction that " most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been." Reviewing The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times in Poetry, Laurence Lieberman recognized that Hughes's "sensibility [had] kept pace with the times," but he criticized his lack of a personal political stance. "Regrettably, in different poems, he is fatally prone to sympathize with starkly antithetical politics of race," Lieberman commented. "A reader can appreciate his catholicity, his tolerance of all the rival-and mutually hostile-views of his outspoken compatriots, from Martin Luther King to Stokely Carmichael, but we are tempted to ask, what are Hughes' politics? And if he has none, why not? The age demands intellectual commitment from its spokesmen. A poetry whose chief claim on our attention is moral, rather than aesthetic, must take sides politically."

Hughes's position in the American literary scene seems to be secure. David Littlejohn wrote that Hughes is "the one sure Negro classic, more certain of permanence than even Baldwin or Ellison or Wright. ... His voice is as sure, his manner as original, his position as secure as, say Edwin Arlington Robinson's or Robinson Jeffers'. ... By molding his verse always on the sounds of Negro talk, the rhythms of Negro music, by retaining his own keen honesty and directness, his poetic sense and ironic intelligence, he maintained through four decades a readable newness distinctly his own."

The Block and The Sweet and Sour Animal Book are posthumously published collections of Hughes's poetry for children that position his words against a backdrop of visual art. The Block pairs Hughes's poems with a series of six collages by Romare Bearden that bear the book's title. The Sweet and Sour Animal Book contains previously unpublished and repeatedly rejected poetry of Hughes from the 1930s. Here, the editors have combined it with the artwork of elementary school children at the Harlem School of the Arts. The results, noted Veronica Chambers in the New York Times Book Review, "reflect Hughes's childlike wonder as well as his sense of humor." Chambers also commented on the rhythms of Hughes's words, noting that "children love a good rhyme" and that Hughes gave them "just a simple but seductive taste of the blues." Hughes's poems have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Russian, Yiddish, and Czech; many of them have been set to music.

Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays that Hughes

has perhaps the greatest reputation (worldwide) that any black writer has ever had. Hughes differed from most of his predecessors among black poets, and (until recently) from those who followed him as well, in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read. He has been, unlike most nonblack poets other than Walt Whitman, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg, a poet of the people. ... Until the time of his death, he spread his message humorously-though always seriously-to audiences throughout the country, having read his poetry to more people (possibly) than any other American poet.

Hughes died on May 22, 1967, due to complications from prostate cancer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Langston Hughes - Poems, Quotes & Harlem Renaissance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Langston Hughes was an African American writer whose poems, columns, novels and plays made him a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A poet, novelist, fiction writer, and playwright, Langston Hughes is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties and was important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance.