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.
I, Too, Sing America
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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 be 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.
David Kresh, from Library Of Congress - Washington D. C., discusses Langston Hughes and His Poetry on the following video.
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Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Copyright‚ © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
Copyright‚ © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
Po' Boy Blues
When I was home de,
Sunshine seemed like gold.
Since I come up North de
Whole damn world's turned cold.I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong.
Yes, I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong,
But this world is weary
An' de road is hard an' long.
I fell in love with
A gal I thought was kind.
Fell in love with
A gal I thought was kind.
She made me lose ma money
An' almost lose ma mind.Weary, weary,
Weary early in de morn.
Weary, weary,
Early, early in de morn.
I's so weary
I wish I'd never been born.
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.Copyright, © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Freedom's Plow (1943)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Scottsboro Limited (1932)
Selected Poems (1959)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
The Weary Blues (1926)
Prose
Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes (1973)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)
Not Without Laughter (1930)
Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
Simple's Uncle Sam (1965)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
Tambourines to Glory (1958)
The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980)
The Big Sea (1940)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)
Drama
Black Nativity (1961)
Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000)
Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938)
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963)
Little Ham (1935)
Mulatto (1935)
Mule Bone (1930)
Simply Heavenly (1957)
Soul Gone Home (1937)
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000)
Poetry in Translation
Cuba Libre (1948)
Gypsy Ballads (1951)
Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957)
Masters of the Dew (1947)
Internet
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Synopsis from the video that you can see at the link above, by
Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He published his first poem in 1921. He left Columbia University after one year, traveling and supporting himself with odd jobs. His poetry was later promoted by Vachel Lindsay, and Hughes published his first book in 1926. He wrote poetry, stories, and plays, as well as a popular column for the Chicago Defender. He died May 22, 1967.
Quotes
Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
– Langston Hughes
Another Profile
Poet, writer, playwright. Born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. After publishing his first poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921), he attended Columbia University (1921), but left after one year to work on a freighter, traveling to Africa, living in Paris and Rome, and supporting himself with odd jobs. After his poetry was promoted by Vachel Linday, he attended Lincoln University (1925–9), and while there his first book of poems, The Weary Blues (1926), launched his career as a writer.
As one of the founders of the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, which he practically defined in his essay, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926), he was innovative in his use of jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his poetry, stories, and plays. Having provided the lyrics for the musical Street Scene (1947) and the play that inspired the opera Troubled Island (1949), in the 1960s he returned to the stage with works that drew on black gospel music, such as Black Nativity (1961).
A prolific writer for four decades, he abandoned the Marxism of his youth, but never gave up protesting the injustices committed against his fellow African Americans. Among his most popular creations was Jesse B Semple, better known as "Simple," a black Everyman featured in the syndicated column he began in 1942 for the Chicago Defender.
In his later years, Hughes completed a two-volume autobiography and edited anthologies and pictorial volumes. Because he often employed humor and seldom portrayed or endorsed violent confrontations, he was for some years disregarded as a model by black writers, but by the 1980s he was being reappraised and was newly appreciated as a significant voice of African-Americans.
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Postado pelo grupo de APS : Alessandra, Fernando, Maria das Dores e Sandra.
Obrigada Alessandra, achei um jeito ...rs
ResponderExcluirLeticia Garcia
Quanto ao poeta Langston Hughes, é impressionante observar a maneira como suas obras lutam pela causa do negro na sociedade. Sempre atento às desigualdades sociais que sua "raça" teve que enfrentar ao decorrer da vida, ele, um negro em meio a sociedade branca, foi um grande representante da cultura e desenvolvimento dos negros no mundo. Até hoje muitos o tem como referência quando o assunto é preconceito racial e desigualdade social entre os povos.
"Minha busca foi explicar e iluminar a condição do negro na América e de toda a espécie humana". (frase dita pelo próprio poeta)
É interessante ressaltar que Langston Hughes dá um panorama de como era a vida de afro-americanos nos EUA. Uma vida sofrida, com trabalho duro(escravo) e muitas complicações devido ao preconceito. Tudo isto contradiz os preceitos desta nação que prega a liberdade e, Hughes mais uma vez elucida esta idéia também. Porém, apesar de todos problemas citados em seus textos, vemos que há esperança em um dia melhor, onde a América voltará a ser o que era realmente. Uma terra de esperança e oportunidades para todos os seus integrantes.
ResponderExcluirHeloisa Rocha Pires,
ResponderExcluirAdorei Hughes. Um intelectual do porte dele e com jeito de pianista de jazz! Chique no último. Tudo nele me parece musical. As rimas, as palavras usadas, as repetições, as metáforas...senti às vezes sua poesia como se fosse um sapateado. Legal ele ser o spokesman do Renascimento do Harlem, mas tinha que ser mesmo. Legal também ter incluido os poor white, red man, immigrant aos negroes.Quem se lembraria do infortúnio dos outros, sendo negro nos EUA? "America never was America to me". Weary. E as crianças...ele as incluiu em seus trabalhos: Introducing children to jazz, Children's book. Po' boy blues é o máximo.Weary,weary. Credo em cruz se ele não tivesse nascido, ele é O CARA!!!!!
O mundo de Langston Hughes está embutido no Universo da Literatura e cultura norte americanas; fez poesia, teatro, prosa...em sem trabalho literário está presente o não abater-se pelas pressões psicológicas da não consideração da sociedade de uma época; se chegasse visitas, iria comer na cozinha, e comia da própria felicidade assim mesmo, mas nesse mesmo momento, era como estivesse presente na sala em comunhão às visitas, marca de uma valoração íntima que tinha do ser humano, exemplificado por ele mesmo, e isto independia das origens...
ResponderExcluirPesquisando a vida de James Langston Hughes , acho importante compartilhar:
ResponderExcluirEm seu manifesto, seu ensaio mais famoso: " The negro artist and the racial mountain", que é um episódio em que o jovem poeta diz que espera ser "um poeta", naõ um poeta negro. Hughes, forçando a nota ou conhecendo os complexos de uma personagem concreta, conclui que ele queria dizer que pretendia ser um poeta branco e portanto um branco.
Todos os grandes poetas assumem o que são segundo Hughes.
Langston Hughes foi um dos poetas do Harlem Renaissance, cuja obra era permeada pelo delicioso ritmo do jazz afro-americano, pelas musicas religiosas do spirituals e pelo swing do blues. Além de poeta, Hughes iniciou vários grupos teatrais de atores negros.
ResponderExcluirSua poesia enaltecia a cultura negra e predestinava seu aprofundamento e resistência.
Silvana Bueno
ResponderExcluirLangston Hughes era um artista completo, além de poesia, também escreveu romances, contos e peças de teatro. Esse é o típico artista que usou de todos os recursos que estavam ao seu alcance para contar as histórias de seu povo da maneira mais real possível.
Liliane Lima
ResponderExcluirO poema I, too sing America, fala do preconceito com relação aos negros, da herança escravocrata e do desejo de também fazer parte dessa América dividida entre negros e brancos. O eu-lírico se coloca como parte desse país e de sua construção e que um dia ele não precisará se esconder e todos terão orgulho e verão sua beleza.
Heloisa Rocha Pires 10/11/2012
ResponderExcluirVoltando a comentar Hughes, minha admiração pela arte engajada é tendenciosa e declarada...a arte é a arma do artista, para denunciar a opressão, as injustiças, os problemas sociais, as guerras....
Claro que existe valor na arte pela arte, mas na medida em que ela contribui para alguma coisa, ainda que pequenininha....
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be….
ResponderExcluirApesar do poema LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN ter sido escrito na década de 30, o título remete muito aos dias atuais, até porque hoje a America não possui mais o sinônimo que tinha há alguns anos . Ou seja, uma região que oferecia grandes oportunidades, devido a sua riqueza, e era o sonho de muitos imigrantes que realizavam a busca pela felicidade no país que costumava ser a terra prometida. Encontramos ao longo do texto algumas características da escrito de Langston Hughes.
Uma obra cheia de perguntas que muitas vezes não há respostas:
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
Hughes, um escritor que incorpora ritmos do jazz, abusa do dialeto negro e utiliza um tom de crítica e é profundamente irônico.
Francisco Reinaldo.
Hughes é conhecido como um dos poetas do Modernismo mais expressivo, considerado também multifacetado, transitando por diversos gêneros: contos, peças teatrais e poesia traduzida muitas vezes em música - Jazz. Seu trabalho está diretamente ligado a cultura negra e a resistência de seu povo.
ResponderExcluirUm dos poemas que também retrata essa postura critica e reafirma a identidade negra, opondo-se a alienação e a exploração é Negro.
Negro
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave:
Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.
I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer:
All the way from Africa to Georgia
I carried my sorrow songs.
I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me now in Mississipi.
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
Em "I, Too, Sing America" de Langston Hughes as influências de W. Withman e C. Sandburg são bem evidentes, mas seu olhar diferentemente de Withman não é tão otimista como expressado no final do poema "Besides,/They'll see how beautiful I am/
ResponderExcluirAnd be ashamed-/I, too, am America.", esse "canto bárbaro" está mais próximo de Sandburg, constatando que o fervor democrático norte americano não é tão belo assim, pois os negros estão a margem...
Posteriormente, o escritor da beat A. Ginsberg - entre outros - cantaria a America do Norte em o "Uivo" de forma criticamente semelhante.
Langston Hughes foi um importante ícone da luta dos negros nos EUA. Sua poesia evidencia uma realidade que concretizou árduas manifestações advindo dos negros em busca da conquista de um espaço na sociedade norte-americana.
ResponderExcluirEdmar Moreira
O poeta Langston Hughes foi um importante crítico de seu tempo, onde mostrava através da sua poesia como era o cotidiano do povo negro. Mostrava as contradições da sociedade americana em relação ao preconceito com os negros. Sua poesia é marcada pelo Jazz, pela luta do negros. Langston Hughes transitou por diversos gêneros, e com isso lutou para uma América melhor, sem preconceitos com a cultura negra.
ResponderExcluirLangston Hughes em suas obras retratava a vida dos negros americanos, os que estavam esquecidos e praticamnete não citados pelos poetas brancos por eles não serem considerados americanos também. Acredito que ele teve um grande papel na difusão da ideia de igualdade das etinias nos Estados Unidos.
ResponderExcluirHellen Pamela.
Embora tenhamos postado Langston Hughes e sua poesia, quero também comentar. O poeta negro afro-americano foi um dos poetas negros de maior expressividade no movimento que nasceu no bairro cujos moradores eram negros, o Harlem, nos Estados Unidos. Movimento esse que ficou conhecido como The Harlem Renaissance, não tratava-se somente de produções literárias mas principalmente de música, o Jazz. Que foi imortalizado pelos músicos negros dessa época, que podiam entrar nos Clubes para tocar mas não para apreciar a música, devido as diferenças raciais. Fico muito grata de não ter nascido nessa época e nem ter vivido nessa época de luta pela afirmação do negro na sociedade em sua posição de igualdade de direitos e não de inferioridade. Contudo a luta continua pois, ainda hoje existem barreiras invisíveis a serem rompidas em busca de vencer o preconceito racial que ainda hoje é presente na vida de várias pessoas, não só os negros. Devemos todos dizer não a toda forma de preconceito e discriminação.
ResponderExcluirSandra Severo
Hughes foi um poeta, dramaturgo, novelista colunista e contista. Nascido em Missouri, nos Estados Unidos, foi um grande ativista e um dos maiores poetasne gros que eram esquecidos por poetas brancos. Hughes tinha uma poesia que era marcada pelo Jazz.
ResponderExcluirDiego Candido