Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes (1 February 1902 - 22 May 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaper columnist.

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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.
  • "I, Too, Sing America"

• They'll see how beautiful I am
  And be ashamed —
  I, too, am America.
  • "I, Too, Sing America"

• I was so sick last night I
  Didn't hardly know my mind.
  So sick last night I
  Didn't know my mind.
  I drunk some bad licker that
  Almost made me blind.
  • Morning After (l. 1-6).

• Way Down South in Dixie
  (Break the heart of me)
  They hung my black young lover
  To a cross roads tree.
  • Song for a Dark Girl (l. 1-4).

• Love is a naked shadow
  On a gnarled and naked tree.
  • Song for a Dark Girl (l. 11-12).

• I swear to the Lord
  I still can't see
  Why Democracy means
  Everybody but me.
  • The Black Man Speaks, Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943).

• While over Alabama earth
  These words are gently spoken:
  Serve — and hate will die unborn.
  Love — and chains are broken.
  • Alabama Earth (at Booker Washington's grave), Golden Slippers (1941).
  • Edited by:Arna Bontemps

• Hold fast to dreams
  For if dreams die
  Life is a broken-winged bird
  That cannot fly.
  • Dreams, Golden Slippers,
  • Edited by: Arna Bontemps (1941)

Let America Be America Again

• Let America be America again.
  Let it be the dream it used to be.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

• I've known rivers:
  I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
  flow of human blood in human veins.
  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

• I've known rivers:
  Ancient, dusky rivers.
  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

• My motto,
  As I live and learn,
      is:
  Dig And Be Dug
  In Return.
  • "Motto"

• When you turn the comer
  And you run into yourself
  Then you know that you have turned
  All the corners that are left.
  • "Final Curve"

• Good evening, daddy
  I know you’ve heard
  The boogie-woogie rumble
  Of a dream deferred
  • "Boogie: 1 a.m."

• Why should it be my loneliness,
  Why should it be my song,
  Why should it be my dream
      deferred
      overlong?
  • "Tell Me"

• What happens
      to a dream deferred?
  Daddy, ain’t you heard?
  • "Good Morning"

• What happens to a dream deferred?
  Does it dry up
  like a raisin in the sun?
  Or fester like a sore
  And then run?
  Does it stink like rotten meat?
  Or crust and sugar over
  like a syrupy sweet?
  Maybe it just sags
  like a heavy load.
  Or does it explode?
  • "Harlem"

• There’s a certain
      amount of traveling
      in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• A certain amount
      of nothing
      in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• Daddy, daddy, daddy,
  All I want is you.
  You can have me, baby —
  but my lovin’ days is through.
    A certain amount
      of impotence
      in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• You talk like they
  don’t kick dreams
  around downtown.
  • "Comment on Curb"

• Democracy will not come
  Today, this year
      Nor ever
  Through compromise and fear.
  • "Democracy"

• I tire so of hearing people say,
  Let things take their course.
  Tomorrow is another day.
  I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
  I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
  • "Democracy"

• Dream within a dream,
  Our dream deferred.
  Good morning, daddy!
  Ain’t you heard?
  • "Island"

Attributed

• Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

• Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

• Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

• Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

• Negroes — Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day — They change their mind.

• We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives ... Censorship for us begins at the color line.

• When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

External links

• Langston Hughes on Poets.org With poems, related essays, and links, from the Academy of American Poets
• A Centennial Tribute to L. Hughes at Howard University
• Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto
• Montage of a Dream Deferred
• Review of Hughes’ I Dream A World
• Hughes' Homosexuality
• A selection of Langston Hughes's more political poetry
• 1988 audio interview of Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes. Interview by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio