50books_poc | #3) Langston Hughes Poetry ebook

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.