Langston Hughes (John)
Engineering background, went to Columbia, relationship with father who supported his college. Dropped out and went to Harlem, wanted to write poetry. Writes primarily about the problem of race relations in America. Possibly homosexual but doesn’t claim it openly.
Negro Speaks of Rivers
Liked Carl Sandburg as a poet, who was writing his first book, considered too extreme, too abstract. Tried to write like him. Liked him because he could relate (Midwest cities, poor people). Also liked Dunbar, a famous Negro poet, who wrote in a singing rhyme verse, quaint Negro dialect of the post-war period.
Has a couple of black grandmothers and many others but identifies with Black people. Speaks to their plight.
He tried to write like both of them, combining very different styles.
Write this poem at age 18 on a train. Saw a muddy river flowing to the South, what it meant, in slavery time to be down the Mississippi, to be sent down there you might not live long. Abe Lincoln had seen slave trading in New Orleans. He later signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves. Sent it to the Crisis, an Afro magazine.
We are the American Heartbreak: the Negro problem in American democracy. Tries to capture aspects of this problem in the poetry. People double the prices of houses to Black people.
Colored Child at Carnival
Where is the Jim Crow section of this merry-go-round? Going on a train up north, girl tries to find her place.
Dinner Guest: Me
White response to the Negro problem. “I know I am the Negro Problem…”
Commentary
He sees the river as taking Negros down into slavery and death.
Holds up the dignity of the African peoples, those who have a rich heritage.
What connection to Jazz does he make? As Jazz becomes the American music, what relation to poets is present? He’s a Jazz Poet.
Trumpet Player
“The negro with the trumpet at his lips, his dark moons of weariness…trouble mellows to a golden note.”
W.H. Auden (Wendy)
1907-1973, lived in England, moved to America later, re-wrote the poems from England in America (you can link old and new versions). He’s a modernist but tended to be focused on previous poetry, more of the rhyming and meter. Criticized for this by his contemporaries. Focused on relationships and community, not individuality for its own sake.
Grew up Protestant and ended up later going back to it, seeing Christianity as the embodiment of friendship and equality among all me. Did he become a Christian or just appreciate the values? Homosexual, but married.
Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love
Philip Larkin (Angie)
Professional librarian, only child, poor eyesight, stuttered as a youth, buried in stacks of books imagining other people’s lives, seeing the sad in life. Could be grouchy, foul mouthed, right-wing curmudgeon, shied from publicity, depressed with fame.
Why do poets right? Poets often write on scraps of paper that are only later found. Like painters who just need to get it out. Dancers who just need to dance. Composers who can’t not compose.
Reflected the distress of post-war England. Limited to England, his emotional territory. Part of the Movement, an association of British writers returning to traditional techniques, anti-experimental. His work reflects a life unspent, but with moments of beauty.
Since the Majority of Me
Counting
This Be the Verse: encouraging people not to have kids because parents mess them up.
He’s an observer, recluse, curmudgeon, separate from the world.