Wednesday, July 9, 2008



Democracy

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

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.

Langston Hughes

The Trumpet Player

Photobucket

THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS

THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
By Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.

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:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.




Hughes captures the African American's historical journey to America in what
is perhaps his signature poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Dedicated to W E. B. Du Bois
and using water or the river as a metaphor for the source of life.
Hughes's poem, published first in The Crisis in June, 1921, heralded the existence of a mystic union of Negroes in every country and every age. It pushed their history back to the creation of the world, and credited them with possessing a wisdom no less profound than that of the greatest rivers of civilization , from the Euphrates to the Nile and from the Congo to the Mississippi.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

A New Song

A New Song
I speak in the name of the black millions
Awakening to action.
Let all others keep silent a moment
I have this word to bring,
This thing to say,
This song to sing:
Bitter was the day
When I bowed my back
Beneath the slaver's whip.
That day is past.
Bitter was the day
When I saw my children unschooled,
My young men without a voice in the world,
My women taken as the body-toys
Of a thieving people.
That day is past.
Bitter was the day, I say,
When the lyncher's rope
Hung about my neck,
And the fire scorched my feet,
And the oppressors had no pity,
And only in the sorrow songs
Relief was found.
That day is past.
I know full well now
Only my own hands,
Dark as the earth,
Can make my earth-dark body free.
O thieves, exploiters, killers,
No longer shall you say
With arrogant eyes and scornful lips:
"You are my servant,
Black man-
I, the free!"
That day is past-
For now,
In many mouths-
Dark mouths where red tongues burn
And white teeth gleam-
New words are formed,
Bitter
With the past
But sweet
With the dream.
Tense,
Unyielding,
Strongand sure,
They sweep the earth-
Revolt! Arise!
The Black
And White World
Shall be one!
The Worker's World!
The past is done!
A new dream flames
Against the
Sun!

Langston Hughes

Poem to a Dead Soldier

Ice-cold passion
And a bitter breath
Adorned the bed
Of the youth and Death-
Youth, the young soldier
Who went to the wars
And embraced white Death,
the vilest of whores.

Now we spread roses
Over your tomb-
We who sent you
To your doom.
Now we make soft speeches
And sob soft cries
And through soft flowers
And utter soft lies.

We would mould you in metal
And carve you in stone,
Not daring to make statue
Of your dead flesh and bone,
Not daring to mention
The bitter breath
Nor the ice-cold passion
Of your love-night with Death.

We make soft speeches
We sob soft cries
We throw soft flowers,
And utter soft lies.
And you who were young
When you went to the wars
Have lost your youth now
With the vilest of whores.


Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes





James Mercer Langston Hughes

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 explode?




James Mercer Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. This black poet and writer became, through numerous translations, one of the foremost interpreters to the world of the black experience in the United States. Hughes's parents separated soon after his birth, and youngHughes was raised by his mother and grandmother. After his
grandmother's death, he and his mother moved to half a dozen cities
before reaching Cleveland, where they settled. His poem "The Negro
Speaks of Rivers," written the summer after his graduation from high
school in Cleveland, was published in Crisis (1921) and brought him
considerable attention. He began writing poetry in Cleveland while in the eighth grade. In 1924, Hughes moved to Harlem after traveling through Africa and Europe. His first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926. Hughes cited as influences the poets Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg.

Hughes has been called "the poet laureate of the Negro." He is one of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance, producing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, childrens books and plays, and prolific throughout his life. He spoke of pride as a black man, and influenced many black writers and musicians.

Langston Hughes attended Columbia University between 1921
and 1922 and earned his bachelors degree from
Lincoln University (PA) in 1929. He published his
signature poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers in 1921
and his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues in 1926.

By his death in 1967, he had published sixteen books
of poetry, two novels, seven collections of short
stories, two autobiographies, nine children's books
and five works of nonfiction including pictorial
histories of black America and blacks in the
performing arts. The Book of Negro Humor and the
Book of Negro Folklore are counted among the nine
anthologies of poetry, folklore, short fiction and
humor that he edited. His translations of works by
Jacques Roumain, Nicholas Guillen and Federico
Garcia Lorca introduced these Haitian, Cuban and
Spanish writers to American and English-speaking
audiences. Some thirty plays, as well as radio,
television and film scripts and opera librettos are
included in his oeuvres. Hundreds of his poems
have been set to music.

*For more Information and Bio CLICK HERE



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.

[I, too, sing America]