Hughes, Langston

Excerpt from "The Weary Blues"
Published in 1923

Recognized as the best known and most celebrated of African American poets, Langston Hughes (1902–1967) began his career, which would span five decades, during the Harlem Renaissance. This period of creative and intellectual achievement took place during the 1920s and was centered in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, which had become a gathering place for African Americans. As a young, exciting, up-and-coming poet, Hughes played an important role in setting the tone and style of this era. His vivid, often earthy poems were written in language that echoed both the jazz and blues music that dominated the Harlem Renaissance and the language spoken by the ordinary people of that time and place.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was raised by his mother after his father left for Mexico. They moved often, and Hughes sometimes lived with his grandmother. While attending high school in Cleveland, Ohio, where his mother had moved with her new husband, Hughes began writing poems that were published in his school's literary magazine. These poems were written in traditionally rhymed and metered verse modeled after the work of the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906). However, Hughes was also influenced by some less conventional poets, such as Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) and Walt Whitman (1819–1892).

After graduating from high school, Hughes traveled by train to Mexico to spend a year with his father. He wrote one of his most famous poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," during that journey. Hughes persuaded his father to pay for a year at Columbia University in New York City, where he was supposed to study engineering. But once he reached Harlem, Hughes dove wholeheartedly into the creative life thriving there. In the spring of 1921 he dropped out of Columbia. The next winter, he penned "The Weary Blues" in a voice that imitates those of piano players in the Harlem nightclubs that Hughes frequented. Writing in free verse (poetry that does not employ regular rhyme, rhythm, or other traditional patterns), Hughes used the images and rhythms of the blues to convey the spirit, strength, and cultural richness of the poem's setting.

Eager to see the world, Hughes took a job as a cook on a freighter and traveled to Africa and Europe, finally landing in Paris. He was working as a busboy in a restaurant there when he received a visit from Alain Locke (1886–1954), an older, highly influential Harlem Renaissance leader. Locke was gathering work for an issue of Survey Graphic magazine that was to focus on the accomplishments of young African American writers and artists; Hughes gave Locke some poems. Meanwhile, "The Weary Blues" had been published in Opportunity, one of the leading new magazines targeted to a black audience. After returning to New York, Hughes won a prize for the poem in the magazine's annual poetry contest.

By this time Hughes had met Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964), a well-connected white writer and critic who was an enthusiastic supporter of African American artists. Van Vechten sent a manuscript of Hughes's poems to publisher Alfred A. Knopf, resulting in the appearance of a volume titled The Weary Blues in 1926. Although some commentators, especially the older, more conservative leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, accused Hughes of presenting a negative picture of African Americans, most critics had a high regard for his work. They praised Hughes for his authentic, colorful, and compassionate portrait of both the beautiful and ugly aspects of black life.

Like other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes wanted to celebrate, but not sanitize, the African American heritage that he cherished. In his poetry he aimed to speak in a voice that was both personal and authentic, that expressed his own feelings but was spoken as people really talked and was thus accessible to a wide audience. He wanted to portray black people's lives in a way that was both realistic and dignified.

Hughes's gritty portrayal of the seedy side of African American culture (such as poverty and prostitution) was not appreciated by the Talented Tenth. This was the name given by black leader W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) to the upper crust

of African American society, whose members, it was hoped, would help bring about racial progress through their abilities and achievements. Du Bois and others felt that exposing the less positive aspects of black life would merely confirm the racist assumptions of many whites.

"The Weary Blues" was one of several poems printed on the walls of the Dark Tower, a nightclub and literary gathering place on Striver's Row, where the richest residents of Harlem lived. The Dark Tower was located in the elegant home of A'lelia Walker, heir to the fortune of Madame C.J. Walker, who had made millions through the manufacture of black hair care products. During the Harlem Renaissance, the Dark Tower was the place for both black and white enthusiasts of African American culture to see and be seen.

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Hughes continued to create his detailed portraits of Harlem life in Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), which features finely crafted poems written in the language of the streets. In 1930, a year after Hughes graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, his novel Not Without Laughter was published. Centered on a black family living in mostly white Kansas, the novel was not highly acclaimed. The next year Hughes began a successful poetry-reading tour of the South, during which he was warmly received at numerous black colleges. His interest in socialism (a political and economic system by which the means of production and distribution are owned by the community as a whole) inspired him to spend some time in the Soviet Union. Soon after his return, he wrote the short stories that appeared in The Ways of White Folk (1934).

During the Great Depression, the period of economic hardship that followed on the heels of the prosperous 1920s, Hughes's poetry became much darker, reflecting the suffering endured by blacks during these years. He remained busy over the next several decades, producing poetry and plays as well as a weekly column for the Chicago Defender newspaper. The volume titled Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) contains some of Hughes's most powerful poems. For example, the poem titled "Harlem" asks "What happens to a dream deferred?" Up until his death in 1967, Hughes continued to write poetry and to lecture on black history and culture.

• As the Harlem Renaissance drew to a close, several important relationships in Hughes's life also ended. He made a break with Charlotte Mason (1854–1946), an elderly white supporter of African American culture who had given him both moral and financial support but who had become too controlling of his work. Hughes's friendship with Zora Neale Hurston also came to an end over a disagreement about a play called Mule Bone that the two had worked on together.
• At Hughes's funeral, a song by Duke Ellington (1899–1974), one of the most prominent jazz musicians of the Harlem Renaissance, called "Do Nothing Until You Hear from Me" was played. Then his friends gathered in a circle and recited Hughes's early poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" as his body was wheeled away to be cremated. This poem evokes the connections between black people and the great rivers of the world, including the Nile in Egypt, the Congo in southern Africa, and the Mississippi in the United States. It concludes with the words "My soul has grown deep like rivers."

• The popular image of the 1920s is that it was a time of prosperity, fun, and frivolity. How does Hughes's poem present a different view of life during this decade?
• Compare this poem with one written by an earlier African American poet, like Paul Laurence Dunbar. Describe the styles of the two writers, and explain why each may have written the way he did.

"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.…"

Unlike Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen was a favorite of the "Talented Tenth," which was black leader W.E.B. Du Bois's term for the most educated and accomplished segment of African American society. Whereas the poetry of Langston Hughes was written in jazz-inflected free verse and embraced the entire spectrum of black life, Cullen used traditional forms and focused on more universal subject matter.

Born around 1903, Cullen's early childhood was spent in the care of a woman thought to have been his grandmother. He was adopted in 1918 by Reverend Frederick Cullen and his wife. Cullen's adoptive parents were civil rights advocates and active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Cullen absorbed their political values, but did not share their religious beliefs.

Cullen was an excellent student, and he began to write and publish his poetry while still in high school. Soon after graduating in 1922, he became involved with a group of writers who met regularly at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. Well-liked for his gentlemanly manners and sunny personality, Cullen, like Du Bois, believed in projecting a positive image to gain respect, both as an individual and as an African-American in a predominantly white society.

While attending New York University, Cullen won a prominent poetry prize for "The Ballad of a Brown Girl," a poem that highlights his awareness of racial strife. In 1925 he won three more major awards, including one from Opportunity, aleading black magazine. That same year Cullen's first collection of poetry, Color, was published. This volume included some of his best known works, including "Yet Do I Marvel," in which the narrator wonders why God created him as a black poet in a world too racist to accept either him or his poetry.

Cullen received a master's degree from Harvard University in 1926, and then became an assistant editor at Opportunity. He also began writing a weekly column commenting on literature. One of the views he expressed was that African American poets should not expose the more unpleasant aspects of black life, but should focus more on universal subjects and themes. By the end of the 1920s, Cullen had published several more volumes of poetry, including The Ballad of a Brown Girl and Copper Sun, and an anthology of poems by African Americans.

In 1928 Cullen married Du Bois's daughter Nina, but the couple divorced two years later. Soon after the wedding Cullen traveled to France, where he authored a book of poetry and his one novel. Neither received much critical praise. Returning to the United States, Cullen taught French and English in a Harlem high school, a job he held throughout the rest of his life. He published several more books of poetry and two collections of children's stories. After Cullen's death in 1946, a branch of the New York Public Library was named for him.

Berry, Faith. Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1983.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Langston Hughes: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House, 1999.

Emanuel, James. Langston Hughes. New York: Twayne, 1967.

Hill, Christine. Langston Hughes: Poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Hillside, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1997.

"Langston Hughes." Poetry Exhibits. Academy of American Poets. Available online at http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45 442B7C000C0E01. Accessed on June 20, 2005.

"Langston Hughes (1902–1967)." Modern American Poetry. Available online at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/ g_l/hughes/hughes.htm. Accessed on June 20, 2005.

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