Langston Hughes PR

Langston Hughes (1925) famous for his poetry, novels, plays, and children’s books. In his poetry he touches on serious topics like: equality, racism and injustice, African American culture and religion (spirituality). It is interesting to note that most of the things he wrote about are still pretty accurate till this day. For example, Christianity, and how this was and is still a big part of African American culture today.

One of my favorite works was: Ruby Brown and The Weary Blues, because it speaks upon people that have to cope with their struggles in different ways in order to survive. The pianist  that “made that poor piano moan with melody” and Ruby Brown who was trying to make enough money, and had no other choice but to go for prostitution. 

As I was reading his poems, I struggled a bit adjusting to the language use and the structure of the writing. He also applied old fashioned language that is found offensive today.

He uses interesting forms that unite the reader and his people together, speaking for a whole culture. The word “me” doesn’t always mean singular form, in fact most of the time it means “we” which changes the passage completely. 

I found it helpful to listen to other people read the same poem after me, which gave me a better idea of the potential feeling and intonation it would be spoken in. Overall, his work made me more of an analytical reader and gave me a better understanding of African American culture.