Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Oct 26, 2011 - Poetry - 320 pages

Langston Hughes electrified readers and launched a renaissance in Black writing in America—the poems in this collection were chosen by Hughes himself shortly before his death and represent stunning work from his entire career.

The poems Hughes wrote celebrated the experience of invisible men and women: of slaves who "rushed the boots of Washington"; of musicians on Lenox Avenue; of the poor and the lovesick; of losers in "the raffle of night." They conveyed that experience in a voice that blended the spoken with the sung, that turned poetic lines into the phrases of jazz and blues, and that ripped through the curtain separating high from popular culture. They spanned the range from the lyric to the polemic, ringing out "wonder and pain and terror—and the marrow of the bone of life."

The collection includes "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "The Weary Blues," "Still Here," "Song for a Dark Girl," "Montage of a Dream Deferred," and "Refugee in America."  It gives us a poet of extraordinary range, directness, and stylistic virtuosity.

Contents

• AfroAmerican Fragment 3 American Heartbreak: 4
• Feet o Jesus: 17
• Sinner: 23
• The Weary Blues: 33
• Wake: 39
• Evil: 45
• WaterFront Streets: 51
• Seascape: 53
• Snail: 59
• Mexican Market Woman: 65
• Young Sailor: 73
• One: 92
• Four Songs: 98
• Midnight Raffle: 107
• Miss Blueses Child: 113
• Life Is Fine: 121
• Little Lyric: 127
• Sssssssh: 134
• Ballad of the Fortune: 144
• Cora: 151
• Daybreak in Alabama: 157
• Ku Klux: 163
• OneWay Ticket: 177
• Interne at Provident: 184
• Note on Commercial: 190
• Madams Past History: 201
• Madam and the Number Madam and the Wrong: 212
• MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED: 219
• I Too 275 Africa: 284
• In Explanation of Our Refugee in America: 290

About the author

LANGSTON HUGHES (1901–1967), one of the great poets of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Joplin, Missouri, and spent much of his childhood in Kansas before moving to Harlem. Among his numerous awards and honors were a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935, a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1940, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant in 1947.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
• Author: Langston Hughes
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011
• ISBN: 0307949400, 9780307949400
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / American / African American & Black; Poetry / Subjects & Themes / Death, Grief, Loss; Poetry / Subjects & Themes / Places