Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was an extremely influential writer and poet for the Harlem renaissance and expanding black culture. Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri but grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. His parents divorced shortly after his birth, because of that he was raised primarily by his grandmother. His father left their family after the divorce and fled to Cuba and Mexico to get escape racism. After Hughes graduated from high school, he followed his father to Mexico and spent a year with him. He came back and spent a year at Columbia University in New York City, then finished his college career at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania on an academic scholarship. Shortly after college he worked as a busboy at a local diner where he met Rachel Lindsay. She was a fan of his work and helped him get started with editing and publishing. He published his first poem in 1921 and it immediately quick started the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. 

The Negro Speaks of Rivers, was Hughes’s first poem, published in 1921. It was considered to be his signature poem and was published in a newspaper called, The Crisis and got a lot of attention. His writings contained colorful background and detail specifically explaining life in black culture. Not only did he write poems, but he also wrote novels, plays, essays and children’s books. He wrote a book filled with poems called, The Weary Blues, published in 1926 and it won first prize in opportunity magazine literary competition. His first novel was published in 1929 called, Not Without Laughter. All of Hughes’s works were specifically known for its informational and colorful portrayals of black life in the 20’s through the 60’s. In the 1930’s he traveled around the U.S and abroad to Soviet Union, Haiti and Japan on lecture tours about poetry and his works. 1934 he published his first collection of short stories called, The Ways of White Folks. In 1947 he taught at Atlanta university and from 1942 to 1949 he was on the editorial board of a literary magazine that forced on culture of the U.S. 

Hughes won countless amounts of awards and opportunities. He received the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize, received a Guggenheim fellowship which allowed him to travel to Spain and Russia, and was offered a fellowship with the Rosewood Fund. He received much more that helped him gain confidence and continue to expand black culture and be the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was the beginning of black culture being spread and blacks taking up arms in what they believe. He was considered to be the leader of this because his works all expressed equality, condemned racism and injustice, and brought african american culture and spirituality to the table. Hughes was an extraordinary attribute to the shaping of the renaissance because he refused to differentiate his experience as a black man and the common experience in black culture. He tried to express his stories in ways that reflect their culture. His early works were fought back at by white newspapers, but Hughes continued to contribute to the shaping of the renaissance and the changing of culture and life. He was the first person the be able to make a living off of just his writings and works and he was primarily able to do this because of the love he received from the black culture supporting what he was doing. 

Langston Hughes was an impecable contributor to the spread of black culture and spirituality through his poems that influenced the Harlem Renaissance in any ways. He began the change of segregation and expressed black culture through his works. He died on May 22, 1967 due to complications in a stomach surgery from prostate surgery. He is known as an American poet and writer whose black themes and writings made incredible impacts on the Harlem Renaissance. 

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

 flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

 bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy 
 bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Links for further information

http://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes



Works Cited

pictures

https://literaryfictions.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/langston-hughes-1.jpg

http://thefrontporch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/langston_hughes_020111-thumb-640xauto-2149.jpg

http://a1.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,h_1200,q_80,w_1200/MTE5NDg0MDU1MDA1MzMzMDA3.jpg

Information

• http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes
• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/langston-hughes
• http://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313
• http://www.poemhunter.com/langston-hughes/

See comments for analyzed poem.