[Plazma's Poet and Wallpaper Blog]

Collected poets and selected wallpaper links.

Langston Hughes

2007-07-14

photo: Consuelo Kanaga

Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period-Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen-Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known "Simple" books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim,Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

Dream Variations

by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide 
In some place of the sun, 
To whirl and to dance 
Till the white day is done. 
Then rest at cool evening 
Beneath a tall tree 
While night comes on gently, 
    Dark like me-- 
That is my dream! 
 
To fling my arms wide 
In the face of the sun, 
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl! 
Till the quick day is done. 
Rest at pale evening . . . 
A tall, slim tree . . . 
Night coming tenderly 
    Black like me.

Madam and Her Madam  
by Langston Hughes 

I worked for a woman, 
She wasn't mean-- 
But she had a twelve-room 
House to clean. 
 
Had to get breakfast, 
Dinner, and supper, too-- 
Then take care of her children 
When I got through. 
 
Wash, iron, and scrub, 
Walk the dog around-- 
It was too much, 
Nearly broke me down. 
 
I said, Madam, 
Can it be 
You trying to make a 
Pack-horse out of me? 
 
She opened her mouth. 
She cried, Oh, no! 
You know, Alberta, 
I love you so! 
 
I said, Madam, 
That may be true-- 
But I'll be dogged 
If I love you!

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if everyone cared

2007-07-12

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that youâ€^TMd be mine
But here we are, weâ€^TMre here tonight

Singing Amen, Iâ€^TMm alive
Singing Amen, Iâ€^TMm alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Weâ€^TMd see the day when nobody died
And Iâ€^TMm singing

Amen I, Iâ€^TMm alive
Amen I, Iâ€^TMm alive

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
Weâ€^TMll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along

Singing Amen Iâ€^TMm alive
Singing Amen Iâ€^TMm alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Weâ€^TMd see the day when nobody died
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Weâ€^TMd see the day when nobody died

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Weâ€^TMd see the day when nobody died

Weâ€^TMd see the day, weâ€^TMd see the day
When nobody died
Weâ€^TMd see the day, weâ€^TMd see the day
When nobody died
Weâ€^TMd see the day when nobody died

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Love Song For Alex

2007-06-24

Love Song For Alex,1979

My monkey-wrench man is my sweet patootie;
the lover of my life, my youth and age.
My heart belongs to him and to him only;
the children of my flesh are his and bear his rage
Now grown to years advancing through the dozens
the honeyed kiss, the lips of wine and fire
fade blissfully into the distant years of yonder
but all my days of Happiness and wonder
are cradled in his arms and eyes entire.
They carry us under the waters of the world
out past the starposts of a distant planet
And creeping through the seaweed of the ocean
they tangle us with ropes and yarn of memories
where we have been together, you and I.

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love poet

2007-06-24

GO, lovely Rose-
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.	5

Tell her that 's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.	10

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.	15

Then die-that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!	20