Transcript of a video presentation by David
Kresh
When the Langston Hughes Reader was published in 1958,
the publisher felt able to call Hughes "the unchallenged spokesman
of the American Negro." That Hughes was unchallenged in the
role of spokesman may itself have been open to challenge--after all,
Martin Luther King Jr. had already, the year before, appeared on
the cover of Time Magazine and delivered his first major
address at the Lincoln Memorial--but Hughes's importance was and
remains beyond question.
Why was this? Let's look at a poem:
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,--
I, too, am America.
This is, in part, a spokesman's poem, an assertion of a claim.
The poem conveys a note of threat, as the speaker grows strong so
that tomorrow "nobody'll dare." But it has many other
notes, too: sensuality, intimacy, humor, self-confidence, and individual
personality--it sounds like Langston Hughes.
Hughes was more than a spokesman, and he was more than a poet.
Only about 80 of the 500 pages of the Langston Hughes Reader
contain poetry. The cover of the book lists the other categories
included: novels, stories, plays, autobiographies, songs, blues,
articles, speeches, and a pageant called "The Glory of Negro
History." Part of Hughes's importance was that, however much
he may have wished to speak for the Negro, he was equally interested
in speaking to the Negro. One of the principal means was in the
series of stories he began publishing in the 1940s in his weekly
column in the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper,
stories dealing with the adventures and observations of Jesse B.
Semple, known as Simple, a citizen of Harlem with a lot on his mind.
In 1950, the first collection of these stories in book form, Simple
Speaks His Mind, appeared. More collections and even a Broadway
musical, Simply Heavenly, followed. Many people met Simple
before they ever read a poem by Hughes.
The continuing interest of the Simple stories is shown by the fact
that, if you turn on the local jazz radio station here in Washington
on a Saturday around noon, you're likely to hear the host of the
blues show reading one of the Simple stories to his audience.
Hughes was everywhere, figuratively and literally. He visited every
continent except Australia and Antarctica. An example of his wide
range is a small book, published in Moscow in 1934, called A
Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia.
Hughes held no regular teaching position or other day job. He supported
himself as a writer , and he wrote everything there was to write.
Look at some of his output in the dozen years leading up to the
Langston Hughes Reader:
In 1947, Hughes wrote the lyrics for the Broadway opera Street
Scene, with libretto by Elmer Rice and music by Kurt Weill;
and he translated a novel by Haitian poet and novelist Jacques Roumain;
and published a book of his own poems, Fields of Wonder.
In 1948 came a collection of translations of Cuban poet Nicolas
Guillen.
In 1949, Hughes was co-editor with Arna Bontemps of The Poetry
of the Negro, 1746-1949, including some of Hughes's translations
as well as his own poems. In its expanded 1970 version, this anthology
is still useful, and has a place in the Library's Main Reading Room
reference collection.
Also in 1949 came a book of his own poems, One Way Ticket,
with illustrations by Jacob Lawrence; and an opera, Troubled
Island, with words by Hughes and Verna Arvey and music by William
Grant Still.
In 1950, Simple Speaks His Mind, the first collection
of the Simple stories.
In 1951, Montage of a Dream Deferred, a high point in
his own poetry.
In 1952, a collection of stories, Laughing to Keep from Crying;
and a children's book, The First Book of Negroes.
In 1953, another collection of Simple stories.
In 1954, another couple of children's books; and an album on the
Folkways label introducing children to jazz.
In 1955, more children's books; and The Sweet Flypaper of Life,
a wonderful collection of photographs of Harlem life by Roy DeCarava
with text by Hughes.
In 1956, a volume of autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander;
and a Pictorial History of the Negro in America.
In 1957, another Simple book; the musical Simply Heavenly;
and a collection of translations of Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral.
In 1958, The Book of Negro Folklore, edited with Arna
Bontemps; a novel, Tambourines to Glory; and a recording
of his own poems accompanied by jazz musicians.
And even that list leaves a few things out.
In 1925, Hughes was bussing tables in a Washington, D.C., hotel,
and he slipped a few poems to the famous poet Vachel Lindsay, who
was visiting the hotel. The next day, newspapers announced Lindsay's
discovery of a new poet. "The Weary Blues" was one of
these poems, and it became the title poem of Hughes's first book
the following year.
- Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
- I heard a Negro play.
- Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
- He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
- To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
- O Blues!
- Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
- Sweet Blues!
- Coming from a black man's soul.
- O Blues!
- In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
- "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
- Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
- "I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
- And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Think of it. Here was a young man in his early twenties. Here was
a musical form that hadn't been around much longer than he had.
W. C. Handy first heard the blues in 1903, the year after Hughes
was born. Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, made her first
recording in 1923. And Hughes was able to create this wonderful
poem.
Although he's writing about the blues, he reserves his use of the
classic 3-line blues stanza ("I got the Weary Blues / And I
can't be satisfied") almost until the end of the poem, and
leads up to it with a skillful variety of structures: rhymed couplets
in four-beat lines, interspersed 3-beat lines recalling the ballad
stanza, interpolated cries ("O Blues!"), 2/3 of a classic
blues stanza, then the thing itself, followed by a rhymed couplet
and a rhymed triplet to end the poem. And look at the syncopated
handling of rhythm: you have to be alert to read a couplet like
"Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool / He played that sad
raggy tune like a musical fool / Sweet blues!"
And what is this drowsy, dreamlike scene, which connects at the
end to the night sky, sleep, rock, and death? And who is the "I"
who observes the scene? Not for nothing did Hughes proclaim his
kinship with the great father of American poetry, Walt Whitman.
Montage of a Dream Deferred in 1951 was a book-length
suite of related poems presenting a panorama of Harlem life, using
the sounds and methods of contemporary African-American music and
a group of repeating motifs, and displaying the many tones Hughes
was master of. From the opening section, "Boogie Segue to Bop,"
here's the first poem, "Dream Boogie."
- Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
-
- Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a --
-
- You think
It's a happy beat?
-
- Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a --
-
- What did I say?
-
- Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
-
- Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
-
- Y-e-a-h!
From the "Lenox Avenue Mural" section, the poem called
"Harlem":
- What happens to a dream deferred?
- Does it dry up
- like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
-
- Maybe it just sags
- like a heavy load.
-
- Or does it explode?
And the final poem in the book, called "Island," ending
with the two lines that opened the book many pages earlier:
Between two rivers,
North of the park,
Like darker rivers
The streets are dark.
Black and white,
Gold and brown--
Chocolate-custard
Pie of a town.
Dream within a dream,
Our dream deferred.
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard?
These are spokesman poems, but just before that final "Island,"
at the climax of his suite, Hughes turns aside for a moment and
lets an ordinary Harlemite, maybe a younger version of Jesse B.
Semple, be heard in this poem called "Letter":
Dear Mama,
Time I pay rent and get my food
and laundry I don't have much left
but here is five dollars for you
to show you I still appreciates you.
My girl-friend send her love and say
she hopes to lay eyes on you sometime in life.
Mama, it has been raining cats and dogs up
here. Well, that is all so I will close.
Your son baby
Respectably as
ever,
Joe
Along the way to those final poems, there are many quick and longer
sketches of Harlem, including "Dead in There":
Sometimes
A night funeral
Going by
Carries home
A re-bop daddy.
Hearse and flowers
Guarantee
He'll never hype
Another paddy.
It's hard to believe,
But dead in there,
He'll never lay a
Hype nowhere!
He's my ace-boy,
Gone away.
Wake up and live!
He used to say.
Squares
Who couldn't dig him,
Plant him now--
Out where it makes
No diff' no how.
There is the famous Hughes "Motto":
I play it cool
And dig all jive
That's the reason
I stay alive.
My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.
And there are a couple of what, for us New Yorkers, pass as nature
poems. This one is "Dive":
Lenox Avenue
by daylight
runs to dive in the Park
but faster ...
faster ...
after dark.
And this one is "Wonder":
- Early blue evening.
Lights ain't come on yet.
- Looky yonder!
They come on now!
And now, here's Langston Hughes.
- Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
- I heard a Negro play.
- Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of a one-bulb light
- He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
- To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
- O Blues!
- Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
- Sweet Blues!
- Coming from a black man's soul.
- O Blues!
- In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
- "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
- Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
- "I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
- And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
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