SOURCE: Ford, Karen Jackson. “Do Right to Write Right: Langston Hughes's Aesthetics of Simplicity.” Twentieth Century Literature 38, no. 4 (winter 1992): 436-56.

In the following essay, Ford examines simplicity of form and content in Hughes's poetry and short fiction.

The one thing most readers of twentieth-century American poetry can say about Langston Hughes is that he has known rivers. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” has become memorable for its lofty, oratorical tone, mythic scope, and powerful rhythmic repetitions:

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

(1656)

But however beautiful its cadences, the poem is remembered primarily because it is Hughes's most frequently anthologized work. The fact is, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is one of Hughes's most uncharacteristic poems, and yet it has defined his reputation, along with a small but constant selection of other poems included...