Langston Hughes

BY: SUREYA GULALIYEVA DUE: 1-31-2012

Langston Hughes
I choose Langston Hughes for my research because I had read a few of his poems and thought that it sounded different from other poems. What took my attention is how young he started writing his poems, how fast he succeeded and how simple his poems can be but still readable and likable to many, many people. I also like the fact that in his poems he describes the daily experience of African American and the beauty of nature. Langston Hughess tragic life experience has made his poems factual, sincere and encouraging.

Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, Joplin, Missouri, around the time of the Civil Rights Movement? He began writing in middle school and became the class poet. At high school he started writing poetry of distinction. When he was still and infant his parents had been divorced, so he lived with his grandmother. But just like every other person her life had ended, and he had to live with his father for a year. Since his father thought he wouldnt be able to make a living off of poetry, he sent him to Columbia University to study engineering. Later Langston Hughes dropped out with a B+ average and started writing again. While publishing books full of poems like the Weary Blues, Crisis Harlem, Fine Clothes to the Jew, he traveled around the world. He not only wrote poems, but he also wrote essays, books and many more. Finally, he died on May 22, 1967, by a problem caused by an abdominal surgery similar to prostate cancer. Langston Hughess factual poems mostly depend on African American lives just like Freedoms Plow, and My People. Some of his poems are also sincere and encouraging. For example, Peace, I, Too, Sing America represent his feelings and his perspective on life daily and daily experiences, for example, Silence. He has the ability to make his poems sound like music mimicking the moods of jazz and daily experiences, but most of them are simple and direct. His direct and simple poems are examples of African American lives and what they to go through every day.

The poem, My People, tells his feelings of his people and how beautiful they are by comparing it to nature. The title claims his people in a way of pride. In encourage African American to compare them to nature and realize that they are not different. They do not need to be belittling just because their skin color is different. He looks at it in a positive way that will show everyone how special they are. In this poem, he uses Imagery to compare the night to the faces of his people, the stars to the eyes of his people, and the huge sun to the huge and

powerful souls of his people. The night represents the darkness of their faces, the stars represent the shines in their eyes, and the sun represents their huge and powerful souls.

Everyone has their own way of looking at things which are perspectives and the most common way of describing Langston Hughess work is mostly simple and direct. Some people state that has a creative ability to make impressions of sounds, the mood of jazz and the blues. For example, after reviewing Fine Clothes to the Jew, Julia Peterkin states that He has taken the joys and woes of dishwasher and bell- hopes, crapshooters and cabaret girls, broken women and wandering men, and without losing their strong racial flavor, he has molded them into swift patterns of musical in verse. In a review of The Panther and the Lash, David Littlejohn said, His voice is as sure, his manners as original, his position as secure as , say Edwin Arlington Robinsons or Robinsons Jefferss by retaining his own keen honesty and directness, his poetic sense and ionic intelligence he maintained through four decades newness distinctly his own.

Langston Hughes had been his best at making simple, direct and encouraging poems throughout his life. I am amazed at how a person can start writing poetry at such a young age, succeed quickly, and become history. His poems have to do with the challenges and the obstacles every African American faces, and the truths of this world. The poems he wrote theat I personally like are the humorous ones. Personally, I wouldnt be able to write humorous poems at such a tragic time; no parents, around the time of the Civil Rights Movement. I guess he used his poems as his friends. I love j=his poems now.

BIBILIOGRAPHY

Hughes, Langston- introduction. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Deborah A. Schmitt Vol. 108.Gale Cengage , 1998 eNotes.com 2006.25 Jan , 2011 <http.//www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/hughes-langston>

Hughes, Langston- introduction. Poetry Criticism. Ed .Timothy J.Sisler. Vol. 53 Gale Centage, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006.25 Jan, 2011<http.//www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/hughesLangston> Poem Hunter .com- the worlds poetry archieve. 2004 http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/langston Hughes 2004 9 pdf Wikipedia. January 27th 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Langston Hughes