Langston Hughes- Poet

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Recommended: Theme of racial descrimonation in Langston Hughes selected poems

John Christopher once said, “In the realm of dream and imagination, all men are equal.” Langston Hughes was a man that had this simple dream. He wrote constantly of a hope that someday blacks wouldn’t be mistreated but be equal with whites. Almost all of his poetry had this common theme, especially, “Ku Klux”, “The Bitter River”, and “Let America be America Again”. Langston Hughes focused on dreams in his poetry in hopes of bringing his dream of bringing harmonious relations between blacks and whites to reality.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902. Hughes moved around quite a bit when he was a young boy. His parents were separated, so he was constantly staying with different family members or friends of the family. Carl Sandburg was a poet when Hughes was a teen. He enjoyed reading his work and according to Tom Verde, “Hughes wanted to write poetry as Sandburg did so he could reach ordinary black people who may never in their lives have read poetry”. He went to college for literature, but he wasn’t a fan of it. He then worked his way around the world working on a farm, working as a cabin boy, working as a doorman, and working as a bouncer. The music he heard, jazz, at the club inspired him to start writing other kinds of poetry. He went back to New York at the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Many poets of that time liked his work and some even showed it to their publishers. Hughes went on to be a busboy, where he came upon Vachel Lindsay, a poet that he admired. Too nervous to actually talk to the man, Hughes dropped some of his poems in front of Vachel and fled. The next day his poems were in the paper. He also went on to write a few books. Ironically, white people were the ones that enjoyed his work. Blacks ...

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...hes’ dream was to one day put an end to this. He longed for equality and freedom between blacks and whites. Hughes is known to be one of the most influential black poets. Some blacks were offended by his writing because it was so straight forward and told completely of their lives. However, he gave hope to some people in his writing. “Ku Klux”, “The Bitter River”, and “Let America be America Again”, were some of Hughes’ well known poems. Poems of which he strongly reveals his dream of equality.

Works Cited

Beatty, Jim. "On "The Bitter River"" On "The Bitter River",
2001. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

Brinkman, Bartholomew. "On "Ku Klux"" On "Ku Klux", 2004. Web.
24 Apr. 2014.

Presley, James. "On "Let America Be America Again"" On "Let
America Be America Again", Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

Verde, Tom. "Hughes, Langston." Bloom's Literature. Facts On
File, Inc. Web. 14 Apr. 2.

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