Langston Hughes (1902–67,) fully James Mercer Langston Hughes, was an American poet, fiction writer, and dramatist. An important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, he made the African-American experience the subject of his writings.
Born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes published his first poems while still in high school. During his early adulthood, he spent several years drifting, traveling to Africa, and Europe as a mess-man on a freighter. While working as a kitchen helper in a Washington hotel, he showed his poems to poet Vachel Lindsay, who championed his work. He was awarded a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
Black critics who saw his use of African-American idioms and speech patterns as betraying their efforts to elevate the race initially rejected Hughes. However, he was eventually recognized as a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Weary Blues (1926) was his first of several collections of verse, culminating in Selected Poems (1959.) His memorable character ‘Jesse B Simple’ first appeared in racy newspaper sketches and appeared in several volumes, including The Best of Simple (1957.) His poetry collections include The Negro Mother (1931)
Hughes’s lyrical verse, resonant with his vast knowledge of folk culture, jazz, and the blues, profoundly influenced the development of African-American literature and later poets of the Beat generation. The Big Sea (1940) and I Wonder as I Wander (1956) are autobiographical.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Langston Hughes
I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing … not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Authors & Writing
Well, Son, I tell you, life for me aint been no crystal stair.
Its been hard and bare and rough places on the floor,
But all the while I’se been climbing, and going forth
In the dark, cause there ain’t been no light.
So don’t you sit down cause its kinds hard,
Don’t you quit because its rough
Cause you see, I’se still climbing
And life for me aint been no crystal stair.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Poverty
I swear to the Lord
I still can’t see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Democracy
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Forethought, Foresight, Ambition, Dreams, Vision, Inspiration
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. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Equality
I play it cool, and dig all jive, and that’s the reason I stay alive.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Life
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Weather, Rain
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Goals
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Humor
I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
—Langston Hughes
Topics: Democracy
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 overlie a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy lead. Or does it explode?
—Langston Hughes
Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.
—Langston Hughes
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