The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
Home : Langston Hughes: Poems : Wikipedia : Notes

Langston Hughes: Poems

by Langston Hughes

This content is from Wikipedia. GradeSaver is providing this content as a courtesy until we can offer a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it.

Notes

  1. ^ Francis, Ted. (2002). Realism in the Novels of the Harlem Renaissance.
  2. ^ Langston Hughes (1940). The Big Sea. p. 36. ISBN 0-8262-1410-X(v. 13) Check |isbn= value (help). 
  3. ^ a b Faith Berry, Langston Hughes, Before and Beyond Harlem, Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1983; reprint, Citadel Press, 1992, p. 1.
  4. ^ a b Richard B. Sheridan, "Charles Henry Langston and the African American Struggle in Kansas", Kansas State History, Winter 1999, accessed 15 December 2008.
  5. ^ Laurie F. Leach, Langston Hughes: A Biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, pp. 2–4.
  6. ^ Ohio Anti-Slavery Society
  7. ^ William and Aimee Lee Cheek, "John Mercer Langston: Principle and Politics", in Leon F. Litwack and August Meier, eds., Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century, University of Illinois Press, 1991, pp. 106–111.
  8. ^ "African-Native American Scholars". African-Native American Scholars. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-30. 
  9. ^ West, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, 2003, p. 160.
  10. ^ Hughes recalled his maternal grandmother’s stories: "Through my grandmother’s stories life always moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother’s stories. They worked, schemed, or fought. But no crying." Rampersad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 620.
  11. ^ The poem "Aunt Sues’s Stories" (1921) is an oblique tribute to his grandmother and his loving Auntie Mary Reed, a family friend. Rampersad, vol. 1, 1986, p. 43.
  12. ^ Imbued by his grandmother with a duty to help his race, Hughes identified with neglected and downtrodden black people all his life, and glorified them in his work. Brooks, Gwendolyn, (October 12, 1986). "The Darker Brother", The New York Times.
  13. ^ The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1914-1967, I Dream a World Arnold Rampersad Oxford University Press, p. 11 ISBN 9780195146431
  14. ^ Langston Hughes Reads His Poetry with commentary, audiotape from Caedmon Audio
  15. ^ "Langston Hughes, Writer, 4, Dead", (May 23, 1967). The New York Times.
  16. ^ Langston Hughes (1940). The Big Sea. pp. 54–56.
  17. ^ a b Gwendolyn Brooks, Review: The Darker Brother, The New York Times, 12 October 1986. Quote: And the father, Hughes said, "hated Negroes. I think he hated himself, too, for being a Negro. He disliked all of his family because they were Negroes." James Hughes was tightfisted, uncharitable, cold.
  18. ^ Rampersad, vol. 1, 1986, p. 56.
  19. ^ Poem or To. F.S. first appeared in The Crisis in May 1925, and was reprinted in The Weary Blues and The Dream Keeper. Hughes never publicly identified F.S., but it is conjectured he was Ferdinand Smith, a merchant seaman whom the poet first met in New York in the early 1920s. Nine years older than Hughes, Smith first influenced the poet to go to sea. Born in Jamaica in 1893, Smith spent most of his life as a ship steward and political activist at sea—and later in New York as a resident of Harlem. Smith was deported back to Jamaica for alleged Communist activities and illegal alien status in 1951. Hughes corresponded with Smith up until 1961, when Smith died. Berry, p. 347.
  20. ^ In 1926, a patron of Hughes, Amy Spingarn, wife of Joel Elias Spingarn who was president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), provided the funds ($300) for him to attend Lincoln University. Rampersad.vol. 1, 1986, p. 122-23.
  21. ^ In November 1927, Charlotte Osgood Mason, ("Godmother" as she liked to be called), became Hughes's major patron. Rampersad. vol. 1, 1986, p. 156.
  22. ^ "Mule Bone: Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Dream Deferred of an African-American Theatre of the Black Word.", African American Review, March 22, 2001. Accessed March 7, 2008. "In February 1930, Hurston headed north, settling in Westfield, New Jersey. Godmother Mason (Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason, their white protector) had selected Westfield, safely removed from the distractions of New York City, as a suitable place for both Hurston and Hughes to work."
  23. ^ " J.L. Hughes Will Depart After Questioning as to Communism". The New York Times, July 25, 1933.
  24. ^ a b Nero, Charles I. (1997). "Queer Representations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures", In Martin Duberman (Ed.), Re/Membering Langston, p. 192. New York University Press
  25. ^ Yale Symposium, Was Langston Gay? commemorating the 100th birthday of Hughes in 2002.
  26. ^ Schwarz, pp. 68–88.
  27. ^ Although Hughes was extremely closeted, some of his poems may hint at homosexuality. These include: "Joy," "Desire", "Cafe: 3 A.M.," "Waterfront Streets", "Young Sailor", "Trumpet Player", "Tell Me", "F.S." and some poems in Montage of a Dream Deferred. Langston Hughes page [1]. Retrieved January 10, 2007.
  28. ^ ...Cafe 3 A.M. was against gay bashing by police, and Poem for F.S. which was about his friend Ferdinand Smith. Nero, Charles I. (1999), p. 500.
  29. ^ Jean Blackwell Hutson, former chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, said, "He was always eluding marriage. He said marriage and career didn't work...It wasn't until his later years that I became convinced he was homosexual." Hutson & Nelson. Essence magazine, February 1992. p. 96.
  30. ^ "Though there were infrequent and half-hearted affairs with women, most people considered Hughes asexual, insistent on a skittish, carefree 'innocence.' In fact, he was a closeted homosexual." McClatchy, J. D. (2002).Langston Hughes: Voice of the Poet. New York: Random House Audio, p. 12.
  31. ^ Aldrich, (2001), p. 200.
  32. ^ "Referring to men of African descent, Rampersad writes "...Hughes found some young men, especially dark-skinned men, appealing and sexually fascinating. (Both in his various artistic representations, in fiction especially, and in his life, he appears to have found young white men of little sexual appeal.) Virile young men of very dark complexion fascinated him. Rampersad, vol. 2, 1988, p. 336.
  33. ^ "His fatalism was well placed. Under such pressure, Hughes's sexual desire, such as it was, became not so much sublimated as vaporized. He governed his sexual desires to an extent rare in a normal adult male; whether his appetite was normal and adult is impossible to say. He understood, however, that Cullen and Locke offered him nothing he wanted, or nothing that promised much for him or his poetry. If certain of his responses to Locke seemed like teasing (a habit Hughes would never quite lose with women, or, perhaps, men) they were not therefore necessarily signs of sexual desire; more likely, they showed the lack of it. Nor should one infer quickly that Hughes was held back by a greater fear of public exposure as a homosexual than his friends had; of the three men, he was the only one ready, indeed eager, to be perceived as disreputable." "Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol I, p. 69.
  34. ^ Sandra West states: Hughes's "apparent love for black men as evidenced through a series of unpublished poems he wrote to a black male lover named 'Beauty'." West, 2003, p. 162.
  35. ^ Whitaker, Charles. Langston Hughes: 100th birthday celebration of the poet of Black America, Ebony magazine, April 2002.
  36. ^ "The Negro Speaks of Rivers". Audio file, Hughes reading. Poem information from Poets.org
  37. ^ "The Negro Speaks of Rivers: First published in Crisis (June 1921), p. 17. Included in The New Negro (1925), The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes Reader, and Selected Poems. The poem is dedicated to W. E. B. Du Bois in The Weary Blues, but it is printed without dedication in later versions. Rampesand, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, pp. 23 & 620, Knopf.
  38. ^ Rampesand, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. pp. 23 & 620, Knopf.
  39. ^ Hughes "disdained the rigid class and color differences the 'best people' drew between themselves and Afro-Americans of darker complexion, of smaller means and lesser formal education. Berry, 1983 & 1992, p. 60.
  40. ^ "....but his tastes and selectivity were not always accurate, and pressures to survive as a black writer in a white society (and it was a miracle that he did for so long) extracted an enormous creative toll. Nevertheless, Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations." Patterson, Lindsay (June 29, 1969). "Langston Hughes—The Most Abused Poet in America?", The New York Times.
  41. ^ Rampersad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p. 3.
  42. ^ Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 418.
  43. ^ West. 2003, p. 162.
  44. ^ "My People" First published as Poem in Crisis (October 1923), p. 162, and The Weary Blues (1926). The title "My People" was collected in The Dream Keeper (1932) and the Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (1959). Rampersad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. pp. 36 & 623, Knopf.
  45. ^ a b Rampersad. vol. 2, 1988, p. 297.
  46. ^ Rampersad. vol. 1, 1986, p. 91.
  47. ^ Mercer Cook, African-American scholar of French culture wrote: "His (Langston Hughes) work had a lot to do with the famous concept of Négritude, of black soul and feeling, that they were beginning to develop." Rampersad, vol. 1, 1986, p. 343.
  48. ^ Rampersad. vol. 1, 1986, p. 343.
  49. ^ Charlotte Mason generously supported Hughes for two years. She supervised his writing his first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930). Her patronage of Hughes ended about the time the novel appeared. Rampersad. "Langston Hughes", in The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 2001, p. 207.
  50. ^ Tanenhaus, Sam (1997). Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. Random House. 
  51. ^ Tanenhaus, Sam (1997). Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. Random House. 
  52. ^ "Witnesses to the Struggle," Anne Loftis, University of Nevada Press, 1998, p. 46
  53. ^ [Whittaker] (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 44–45 (includes description of Lieber), 203, 266fn, 355, 365, 366, 388, 376–377, 377fn, 394, 397, 401, 408, 410. ISBN 52-5149 Check |isbn= value (help). 
  54. ^ Noel Sullivan, after working out an agreement with Hughes, became a patron for him in 1933. Rampersad, vol. 1, 1986, p. 277.
  55. ^ Sullivan provided Hughes with the opportunity to complete The Ways of White Folks (1934) in Carmel, California. Hughes stayed a year in a cottage Sullivan provided. Rampersad. Langston Hughes. In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 2001, p. 207.
  56. ^ Rampersad (2001). Langston Hughes, p. 207.
  57. ^ Co-written with Clarence Muse, African-American Hollywood actor and musician. Rampersad. vol. 1, 1986, pp. 366-69
  58. ^ Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 207.
  59. ^ Langston’s misgivings about the new black writing were because of its emphasis on black criminality and frequent use of profanity. Rampersad, vol. 2, p. 207.
  60. ^ Hughes said,

    "There are millions of blacks who never murder anyone, or rape or get raped or want to rape, who never lust after white bodies, or cringe before white stupidity, or Uncle Tom, or go crazy with race, or off-balance with frustration." Rampersad, p. 119, vol. 2.

  61. ^ Langston eagerly looked to the day when the gifted young writers of his race would go beyond the clamor of civil rights and integration and take a genuine pride in being black... he found this latter quality starkly absent in even the best of them... Rampersad, vol. 2, p. 310.
  62. ^ "As for whites in general, Hughes did not like them...He felt he had been exploited and humiliated by them." Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 338.
  63. ^ Hughes's advice on how to deal with racists was "'Always be polite to them...be over-polite. Kill them with kindness.' But, he insisted on recognizing that all whites are not racist, and definitely enjoyed the company of those who sought him out in friendship and with respect." Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 368.
  64. ^ Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 409.
  65. ^ The end of "A New Song" was substantially changed when it was included in A New Song (New York: International Workers Order, 1938).
  66. ^ "Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives". Alba-valb.org. Retrieved 2010-07-24. 
  67. ^ Langston Hughes (2001), Fight for Freedom and Other Writings. p. 9, University of Missouri Press.
  68. ^ Irma Cayton, African American, said "He had told me that it wasn't our war, it wasn't our business, there was too much Jim Crow. But he had changed his mind about all that." Rampersad, 1988, vol. 2, p. 85.
  69. ^ Kimberly Winston, Religious News Service, "Blacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes"], Washington Post, 22 February 2012.
  70. ^ Executive sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, Volume 2 Volume 107, Issue 84 of S. prt, Beth Bolling, ISBN 9780160513626. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Publisher: U.S. G.P.O., Original from the University of Michigan p988
  71. ^ a b Langston Hughes: A Biography (2004) Laurie F. Leach Greenwood Publishing Group, p118-119 2004 ISBN 9780313324970
  72. ^ "h2g2 - Langston Hughes — Poet". BBC. Retrieved 2010-07-24. 
  73. ^ Jean Carlson(2007).[2]. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
  74. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. 
  75. ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.

Wikipedia Entries for Langston Hughes: Poems

Langston Hughes: Poems Essays and Related Content