{"id":10032,"date":"2010-04-16T06:43:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T10:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=10032"},"modified":"2015-04-06T09:31:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T13:31:44","slug":"the-books-the-norton-anthology-of-modern-and-contemporary-poetry-langston-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=10032","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cThe Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry\u201d \u2013 Langston Hughes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"15210828.JPG\"Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry<\/p>\n

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 2: Contemporary Poetry<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair<\/p>\n

Hughes is one of the most American of poets. There were other poets of the Harlem Renaissance, and it was a diverse group, despite the fact that they were part of a movement. There were other black poets who looked to Europe for their poetic forms, to the old white masters. There were artists who were really part of the modernist tradition, wrapping themselves in the existing culture (by that I mean FORM), and yet wrote the experience of black America at that time. Langston Hughes was not one of those poets. His inspiration was strictly local. He looked to black music at that time, the blues, jazz, Negro spirituals – homegrown American forms – instead of trying to write in “white” forms. There were others like him. Melvin Tolson (although you would never mistake a Tolson poem for a Hughes poem), who wrote long rollicking story-poems, full of characters and voices. Tolson was more like Carl Sandburg (although Hughes counted Sandburg as a huge influence). Hughes’ poems are simpler, more to the point. And, like a lot of this stuff, it’s political.<\/p>\n

\n\"hughes.bmp\"<\/p>\n

Michael Schmidt in Lives of the Poets<\/a>\"\"<\/i> writes:<\/p>\n

During the Harlem Renaissance, which centered on the vital musical culture, the novelists wrote some powerful, though conventional novels that included dialogue, but the narrative was generally in a standard form. What Langston Hughes set out to do was to use the cadences, the natural metaphors and dialect elements as the primary material for his verse and for his famous Jesse B. Semple letters. “Speak that I may see thee,” said Ben Jonson. In Hughes’s work a whole community is made visible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hughes wrote, about his influences:<\/p>\n

The Blues always impressed me as being very sad, sadder even than the Spirituals, because their sadness is not softened with tears, but hardened with laughter … of a sadness where there is no god to appeal to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It may seem like a done deal now, that Hughes would rise to the top of that group of poets, and be anthologized still today, but it was not at all clear at the time. He got a lot of flak, mainly from the rising black middle-class at that time, who wanted nothing to do with black forms, black influences. They thought it lacked dignity, held them back. One middle-class black newspaper referred to Hughes as a “sewer dweller”. I can’t say I blame anyone involved. It’s easy to sit in the present day and judge those for not having the foresight to recognize that it ALL is America (“I, too, am America”, said Hughes) – but it certainly wasn’t clear in real-time. Dangerous days. Other black poets of the same generation criticized Hughes for his rhythms, his “black” sounding poems. They wanted to advance in life, and they thought that Hughes represented a step backward. On the whole, it was white writers who supported Hughes, financially and otherwise, championing him, publishing him in “their” magazines. This was also <\/em>a strike against him in certain black quarters, especially later in the century, the 50s and 60s, as “black power” was rising. Hughes had the whole “house Negro” insult thrown at him repeatedly. He couldn’t win, if you look at it one way – and yet, who’s the last man standing?? <\/p>\n

Hughes kept doing what he wanted to do, and in his way, made the space larger for other voices. His work said: “This is poetry too. This language can be included in poetry.” <\/p>\n

A very well-read man, he moved to New York in 1921 to attend Columbia. He went there for a year, then moved to Paris in 1924. He returned a couple of years later, and by that point, he was starting to get published. He wrote all kinds of things – novels, political writing – and in 1926 he published an essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”, which became “a manifesto for the Harlem Renaissance” (according to Norton). In it, he called for black artists to stop denying their race. They could create a literature out of their own home-grown forms. This message was not immediately embraced, but it was a hugely influential essay, and an important document in the history of 20th century American cultural life.<\/p>\n

Langston Hughes was the first black poet to make his living from poetry. What an amazing advancement. It was not easy for him. He experienced racism and prejudice of the most vicious kind. As a child, he witnessed lynchings (par for the course at the time; many poets, white and black, wrote stories of what they saw, as children, and it’s harrowing stuff).<\/p>\n

His reputation has just grown. He influenced a generation of poets. The roots of his poetry was in black American music, not white European literature, and I would say, knowing that about him, you really can’t even measure his influence. He is everywhere. He is definitive.<\/p>\n

Michael Schmidt again:<\/p>\n

Time has moved on, and Hughes’s poems of protest, while they are still resonant, belong, as much protest poetry does, primarily to their moment in history. What makes them durable is their voice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is one of his later poems, late 40s, early 50s, and I really love it:<\/p>\n

THEME FOR ENGLISH B<\/big><\/p>\n

The instructor said,<\/p>\n

Go home and write
\na page tonight.
\nAnd let that page come out of you—
\nThen, it will be true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder if it’s that simple?
\nI am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
\nI went to school there, then Durham, then here
\nto this college on the hill above Harlem.
\nI am the only colored student in my class.
\nThe steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
\nthrough a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
\nEighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
\nthe Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
\nup to my room, sit down, and write this page:<\/p>\n

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
\nat twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
\nI feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
\nhear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
\n(I hear New York too.) Me—who?
\nWell, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
\nI like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
\nI like a pipe for a Christmas present,
\nor records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
\nI guess being colored doesn’t make me NOT like
\nthe same things other folks like who are other races.
\nSo will my page be colored that I write?
\nBeing me, it will not be white.
\nBut it will be
\na part of you, instructor.
\nYou are white—
\nyet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
\nThat’s American.
\nSometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
\nNor do I often want to be a part of you.
\nBut we are, that’s true!
\nAs I learn from you,
\nI guess you learn from me—
\nalthough you’re older—and white—
\nand somewhat more free.<\/p>\n

This is my page for English B.<\/p>\n

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