The Well-Educated Mind: Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

1902-1967

American Writer/Poet

The Well-Educated Mind Poetry

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Missouri-born Langston Hughes was an influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, a creative period of art, music, and literature for African-Americans. He had attended Columbia University in NYC, but left after a year and instead spent time in the black neighborhoods of Harlem. This is probably where he gathered his ideas for writing about the black experience through his observation. He had already experimented with poetry in high school, but it wasn't until 1925 when he shared his work with an established poet, that he was able to publish his poems. While  he used every literary genre to write, jazz poetry became his signature. He died in NYC, 1967.

The following are poems I read for The Well-Educated Mind Reading Challenge and my opinions.  

The Negro Mother

This poem tells the story of the black American slave through a "Negro Mother," from her beginning, her trials, struggles, and suffering. She returns to tell the story in order that "the race might live and grow."

She tells them of her crossing the ocean from Africa to America, "carrying in [her] body the seed of the free." She worked the fields, "labored as a slave, beaten and mistreated." Her children and husband were sold away from her.

But God preserved her: He "put a song and prayer in her mouth and put a dream like steel in her soul." She is passing that on to her children...all who come after her.

Now her children are free and may do all the things she was unable to do. Her dreams may come true through them. Her "years of sorrow" have become the "torch for tomorrow." Keep looking up and she will guard her children, that no white man shall ever keep them down.

And nor have they...

Democracy

Democracy, proclaims Hughes, will not happen "through compromise or fear."
Hughes declares that he has equal rights as any man "to stand on [his] own two feet and own the land."

Hughes is "tired" of hearing others say be patient, "let things take their course," because freedom is nothing to him when he is dead.
And he finishes up with:

"Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom

Just as you."

Dream Boogie

Two people talking about jazz music: one listens and hears the happy upbeat beat; the other knows and understands the underlying message. He tries to correct the one who only hears the beat, but to no avail. Yeah, sure...ok. You think he's happy? The words tell otherwise.

Interne at Provident

In the late 1880s, Chicago hospitals had a racist problem with serving blacks in the community. There also was nowhere to train blacks who wanted to get into the medical field. So the black community built their own hospital to train black nurses and medical staff and serve the populace. They even had a local black minister bless the hospital. And Langston Hughes wrote a snappy poem to praise the work done at the school: the sights and sounds of the corridors and work stations; healing all the typical injuries and conditions that came their way. And that's the way you do it. Rise to the occasion!

Still Here

A short poem that many people can relate to. When you've been scarred or battered but you are not down or out. Everyone, everything seems to be against you. But, you are still standing, and nothing was able to ruin you. Hughes says he doesn't care what you do or don't do because: he's still here.

The South

Hughes is painting a picture of the South -- cruelly used and abused, bloody-mouthed. In a series of complementary descriptions, he describes the overall trait of the people -- strong, but "idiot-brained," and "child-minded." He describes the beautiful magnolia flower scents. He explains the South is "like a woman, seductive like a dark-eyed whore."

Then he states that he, being black, would have loved the South, but because of the racism that existed, it rejected him. He could have given so much of himself to the region, the people; but "she turns her back on me."

In response, he must seek the North, only a little better than the South, but at least there is a chance for "his children to escape the spell of the South" and not perpetuate the curse

I Sing, Too, America

This poem was written in 1926, just a little over half a century since Emancipation.

In the first stanza, Hughes explained how [the black man] must eat in the kitchen when the company comes, for now; he laughs (to himself) because he knows the time is coming when he will eat at the table. He is growing stronger.

In the second stanza, he foretells of tomorrow when he will eat at the table and no one will tell him to eat in the kitchen. In addition, [America] will see him and be ashamed of how they treated black Americans because they are America, too.

Dream Variations

The poet describes himself dancing and flinging his arms wide under the sun during the "white day," and then to rest under a tree, at night, "black like" himself. In the second stanza, he repeats similarly the same idea, to dance and whirl in the sun, and to rest under a tree at night, "black like" himself.

That's his dream.

After some analysis: Hughes is imagining a time when he can live without racism in his world. Almost in defiance, he "flings his arms wide" to the current racist culture, which does not hold him back. And one day he dreams of a time when he can be at rest and not concerned with racism.

A Dream Deferred

I started reading these online from FlipHTML...a collection of short and VERY SHORT poems showcasing life and thoughts of people living, working, playing in Harlem, in NYC.

Montage was published in 1951, but I do not know the individual dates of the poems included. One of the more popular poems was "A Dream Deferred" or "Harlem," which prompts the reader to think about what happens to a dream that is postponed.

After a while, I lost interest in reading any more of these, and I quit. Again, I no longer have the patience to persevere through works that I have to drag myself through. It frustrates me to read more contemporary poetry. Hughes wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, so, to me it is contemporary enough.

The Weary Blues

A black musician is playing the blues on his piano, in Harlem. The narrator is listening to the humming, lethargic sound." The musician is "crooning" about his blues..."He aint got nobody but in all this world."

Yet, he says he is going to quit complaining and put up his whining.

However, he wishes he was never born. And he didn't stop playing those weary blues until the moon and stars went out. Then he went to bed. But the tune was still in his head.

"And he slept like a rock...or like one who was dead."

The blues were a way for black artists to express their suffering in the world, and the poet brought light to their art with his medium, poetry.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

This is a pleasant, beautiful poem connecting African Americans through the story of the great rivers, from the ancients to the present (1920s). In every river noted, beginning with the Euphrates, and the Congo, the Nile, the Mississippi, the black man has been part of that history. The narrator says that his soul has grown deep like the rivers -- (have become part of the history and the story that the rivers tell).

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