Langston Hughes

“Langston Hughes”

Langston Hughes was the greatest poet in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes may have even been the greatest poets ever to grace the face of the Earth. He had pure writing talent. He was a very smart man. He knew exactly what he was talking about and how he wanted his works to be portrayed. Hughes grew up in a rough setting, but overcame the odds.

Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes in Joplin, Missouri on February 1,1902. His mother was a teacher and his father was an aspiring lawyer, but did not make it and became a shoekeeper. Langston felt that his father despised his ethnicity race. He felt that his father despised him because of that reason. Hughes and his father had a very distant relationship. His parents soon separated and young Langston was raised by his beloved grandmother. She influenced Hughes in many ways because she was a long time activist. He spent most of his time growing up in Lawrence, Missouri with his grandmother. He started writing poetry when he was at the young age of eight. He soon moved it Illinois with his re-married mother. He then discovered his love for books. Hughes attended high school in Ohio. He started writing when he was in eighth grade and was selected class poet. He continued to write during high school and was even published in his school newspaper. Hughes graduated high school in 1919. He then spent a year in Mexico with his father, but was very unhappy and came back. Hughes’s father told him that writing would not get him anywhere and that he needed a more practical career. His father paid fully for his college. He attended Columbia University but soon left and joined the Navy to become a steward. It was said that Langston Hughes was indeed gay. Through out his poems there are a lot of same sex tendencies.

Through out Langston Hughes’s life he traveled to many places. He got inspiration from each destination he went to. His way of writing developed and matured through out his years. His eyes were opened to all the ways of life, the bad and the good. He saw how bad racism was and his writing gave him an outlet to get his feelings out about it. The majority of his works are about being black in United States. He felt strong about racism and gave the African Americans someone to turn to. Hughes was a big part of the Harlem Renaissance. “The Harlem Renaissance arts movement is generally defined as having occurred between 1919, when World War I ended, and 1929 or shortly thereafter, when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. During these years, black intellectual and artistic life flourished in many northern U.S. cities. It reached its peak, however, in New York City, particularly in that part of the city north of Central Park called "Harlem" which came to be known as "the Negro capital of the world." (www.ku.edu)

One of Langston’s great poems is “A Dream Deferred.” This is also personally my new found favorite poem. At first I didn’t understand this poem then I tried to break it down in a way that I could understand it. This poem is about the dream of Harlem for many African Americans who came here with a dream. This poem is about how in the 1940's, more blacks began flooding into the area from all over the world, fleeing from the racism of the South and other oppressions of the rest of America. Eventually Harlem became an entirely black area. However, this town once filled with much potential soon became overwhelmed with overpopulation, exploitation, and poverty. The end result was that new arrivals was not a dream, it was a dream deferred.

In the second line the poem in my understanding is that when Langston Hughes says that the dream will “dry up like a raisin in the sun” Langston is saying that it will get

smaller and smaller till it finally disappears. In the sixth line of the poem it says the dream “Stinks like rotten meat.” I guess this means that the dream will become a sickening reminder of what will never actually ever happen. In the last line Hughes writes about what may come to blacks in the future. This is the most enlightening line in the poem. Hughes writes “Or does it explode?” this may mean that even after all the racism

and oppression blacks may rise up as the leaders of our great Nation. This is a very true

poem and can be described as sad until the end were the black people rise.

(Quotations are from “A dream deferred” by L. Hughes)

In the poem “Dreams” (by Langston Hughes) Hughes says that you should “Hold onto your dreams because they might die” he is saying that if you pursue your dreams no matter how far away they may seem you may one day catch that dream. Hughes is saying that if you let your “dreams die” then you