#3) Langston Hughes Poetry ebook

[elf]

My quest for DRM-free ebooks by authors of color means that I expect to read a lot of public domain works, a lot of things written before 1923. Langston Hughes wrote poems that I remember reading in elementary school--although I don't remember hearing anything about the author; they were just short poems that caught my eye, random-seeming inclusions in the Literature Studies books.

A collection of 49 of his poems is available as a free PDF download from poemhunter.com. Actually, it's a few less than that, because a couple are accidentally duplicated under different names.

They're all good, and some have surprising resonance. "Dream" and "Dream Deferred" were the two I remembered from childhood--poignant and direct, without any mention of racial overtones, those are often put in poetry collections. (The cynical side of me thinks that it's so the textbook creators get credit for racial diversity without including any content that makes children think about race.)

It's touching and frightening, how relevant and accurate they still are. Dinner Guest: Me begins:

I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To Probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.--
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently
Over fraises du bois,
"I'm so ashamed of being white."

His poems encompass both bitterness and hope, a heady combination, sometimes in the same short verse. Highly recommended. I'm going to be looking for more of his poetry; my husband knows at least one not in this set, so some of his poems are probably still under copyright and not easily available online.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

he cynical side of me thinks that it's so the textbook creators get credit for racial diversity without including any content that makes children think about race.

I think the cynical side of you has a point.

And oh, the poem you picked brought back a memory. I remember sitting on my dorm room bed, feeling sick and puzzled because a friend had complimented me by saying, "you're so great, sometimes I forget you're Black!". I couldn't figure out why I was upset until, flipping through the volume of Hughes I was reading at the time, I read "Dinner Guest: Me". It was like he'd reached across time to tell me, yeah, that wasn't really a compliment at all, that my reaction made sense and fit into a wider context.

I should reread some of Mr. Hughes' poetry. Thank you for reminding me.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

The link doesn't work, though.

[elf]

Oops! Sorry; is fixed now. (I'd left off the "http://" in the front, and LJ parses those weirdly.)

[anahcrow.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link; it's nice to get a refresher. i remember reading "I, Too, Sing America" in my book of children's poetry, and it had a picture of a little black boy in the art-style of the rest of the book. i think "My People" was in it as well. i'll have to find it and look.

i thought a great deal about "I, Too" back then, when i was very small. i was a very literal child and i was very offended on the little boy's behalf. i always made up in my head this picture of him as a 'grown up' getting to sit at the real table and everyone being sorry they sent him away when he was small because he was so smart and lovely. i also remember the moment when i understood that it wasn't really just about a single little dark-skinned boy in a house where people had no sense of fairness.

i agree completely that poems of Hughes' could have been chosen that addressed race; as a child, i had no illusion that the poem i was reading was about something other than the colour of the child's skin, and as soon as i was out in the world a little, i knew it was about a much bigger problem. i love Hughes' poetry for that, that it is so direct and accessible and honest. i would love to see him taught in school more, especially to younger children, because i think we do not talk to children about race soon enough and there are starting places to be found in his work.