Langston Hughes Georgia Dusk

2) In my found poem I was trying to illuminate the imagery and figurative language found throughout the book, and show how it enhances the reading experience. This passage was describing the sun setting and the night flowers blooming. By condensing the passage into a found poem the figurative language and imagery were highlighted, the not needed words cut out, and the words in general being switched around. In the poem there is one simile that was in the original passage that I think stands out, “Darkness poured out, covering trees till they were dim as the bottom of the sea.” I chose this scene because in my opinion poems are better when they’re full of figurative language, and this one is.

“The Weary Blues,” by Langston Hughes, tells a story of an unnamed narrator recalling an evening of listening to a man sing the blues one night in Harlem. Hughes uses a somber tone, depressed voice, syntax and imagery as language styles to convey a great deal of suffering that was occurring in Harlem during the mid-1900’s.

Dusk. It is that darker side of twilight when the sun has just set, but the moon has yet to take full charge. It is a time of mergings, of vagueness and ambiguity, when an end and a beginning change places. The sun steps aside and lets the moon and stars take over for a while. As the most pervasive image in the first section of Jean Toomer's Cane, it is the time of day when "[t]he sky, lazily disdaining to pursue/The setting sun, too indolent to hold/ A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,/Passively darkens" ("Georgia Dusk," 15). It is also a reflection of the souls of the characters, like Karintha, "perfect as dusk when the sun goes down" (3). Dusk and its smoky, dreamlike

When Langston Hughes was writing his poems, he wanted the reader to get a dive into the life of the black Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. In most of his work, Langston writes about the truth and their actual culture such as, both, their love for music and suffering during this time. In Blues

In 1922 Hughes left Columbia University after having taken only a few classes. He moved to Harlem, part of upper Manhattan near the Columbia campus, in November 1924. Harlem was becoming famous for its rich environment for the flowering arts. In 1925 Hughes won first prize in a magazine contest with "Weary Blues," which gained him the attention of many of the writers we now think of as members of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes published his first book of poems, The Weary Blues, in 1926. The work, though early, is signature in many ways, including its fusion of blues and jazz rhythms with people, especially the musicality of the ordinary daily speech of the African-American dialects.

To begin, Langston Hughes’ ‘Poem’ is an example of how few words can still hold a deeper meaning. Using repetition, punctuation, and free verse, Hughes crafted a poem that was elegant yet powerful in its simplicity.

After reading the letters and the first four chapters of Frankenstein, I have a little bit of an insight of what might happen later in the story. Dr. Frankenstein had been a highly motivated man with little intuition of bad future results. In the first three chapters, he introduces himself and what he is shooting for. In chapter 4 though, Dr. Frankenstein had finally created a living being. This freaked him out to the point where everybody felt that he was sick.

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

     Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes creative intellect was influenced by his life in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Hughes had a very strong sense of racial pride. Through his works he promoted racial equality and celebrated the African American culture. It was in Lincoln, Illinois that Hughes started to write his poetry. In November 1924, he moved to Washington D.C. where he published his first book of poetry. Hughes is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America. Langston is also known for his commitment to jazz. Hughes refused to distinguish between his personal and common understandings of black America. He

“The Harlem Renaissance was a time where the Afro-American came of age; he became self-assertive and racially conscious… he proclaimed himself to be a man and deserving respect. Those Afro-Americans who were part of that time period saw themselves as principals in that moment of transformation from old to new” (Huggins 3). African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers to seek better lives than in the South as the northern economy was booming and industrial jobs were numerous. This movement brought new ideas and talents that shifted the culture forever. Black writers, such as Langston Hughes, used their work to claim a place for themselves and to demand self-respect in society. Poems that Langston Hughes wrote captured the essence of the complexity of a life that mixes joy and frustration of black American life through the incorporation of jazz and blues in order to examine the paradox of being black in mostly white America, the land of the not quite free.

This paper examines the perspective of Langston Hughes and how his style of writing is. It looks at how several interrelated themes run through the poetry of Langston Hughes, all of which have to do with being black in America and surviving in spite of immense difficulties. Langston Hughes is one of the most influential writers because his style of work not only captured the situation of African Americans; it also grabbed the attention of other races with the use of literary elements and other stylistic qualities. Langston Hughes became well known for his way of interpreting music into his work of writing, which readers love and enjoy today.

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

In the first couple of lines in Hughes’s poem he speaks upon past African American struggles and encourages them to move forward from them with the use of his refrain lines, ‘that day is past,’ and ‘bitter was the day.’ He makes various references “responding to the early days of depression, moreover…having a range of tone, language, and insight…” (Shulman 295), to speak upon slavery and inequality. For example, he awakens the memories of slaves being lynched, whipped, and

According to Biography, James Mercer Langston Hughes is considered to be an African American poet who is college educated and comes from a middle-class family (Langston Hughes Biography). He attended college in New York City and became influential during the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes Biography). Although Hughes was a talented writer, he faced some challenges early on and it was stated that his “early work was roundly criticized by many black intellectuals for portraying what they thought to be an unattractive view of black life” (Langston Hughes. American Poet). They believed that his work helps the spread the stereotypes of African Americans. “Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations” (Langston Hughes. American Poet). Langston Hughes’s poems “The Negro Mother”, “Let America be America Again” and “The Weary Blues” were influenced by his life during the Harlem Renaissance and the racial inequality experienced in the late 1920s through the 1960s.

First, in order to better understand Hughes and his works, it’s important to familiarize oneself with his childhood and early influences. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri during the Jim Crow era. Hughes began writing poetry at just age thirteen thanks to racial stereotyping, however, it wouldn’t be until after dropping out of Columbia University and traveling the world working odd jobs would he have the time and incentive to write and