Everyman’s Poetry: The Works of Langston Hughes
Poetry can be a difficult style to understand, and that reputation for difficulty can turn many people away from ever reading poetry. When used properly, can be a unique experience set apart from normal literature styles, music, art, television, and speeches. It can even incorporate some of those mediums, such as having background rhythm or music or being performed aloud. Point is, the difficulty associated with poetry scares prospective readers away from a rich style that can have an ocean of depth, while only having the width of a mud puddle.
Langston Hughes is a great start for newer poetry readers. Hughes, while sometimes dabbling in the use of metaphors and figurative language, is rather straightforward in his style. His messages don’t rely on a depth of literary knowledge to understand, but only a bit of history and empathy, which are concepts that almost everyone has a grasp on.
Hughes’ style makes sense when his motives are understood, those were to share the experiences of the working-class black life, both the good and bad. While African Americans were his main audience, others did take notice as Hughes’ stayed away from esoteric poetry. He developed a style that allowed any literate and interested person to enjoy his works. He found harsh analyses from both black and white critics who disapproved of his writings, despite his success and popularity
Hughes’ work focused on the black working-class experience and their struggles and joys, and spoke to many in the same class, along with all of those who came to America to chase a dream. It is these themes he touches on in many of his works. A key theme he touched on was the importance of dreams, in both “Dreams” and “Dream Dust”. These short, simple, and succinct poems of no more than 14 lines combined the importance of dreams in one’s life. How life would be more akin to a “…a barren field / Frozen with snow” (Dreams Lines 7–8 ). Along with that, he hammers home their importance and tries to get his readers to hang onto their dreams by stating, “Not for sale.” (Line 6) in “Dream Dust”.
With those dreams comes a way to get yourself there; a life motto to hold yourself to as you dream and go about your life working towards it. Such a motto is described thoroughly by our narrator in “Motto”, where they give us an explanation to how they stay “alive”, and that being to “play it cool / And dig all jive” (Lines 1–2). Eventually, the short nine-line poem ends in the narrator’s life philosophy summed up, simply being, “Dig And Be Dug” (Line 7).
Unfortunately, the pathway to some dreams and the life of many aren’t easy. Sometimes things don’t work out and people suffer, a reality that Hughes highlights in “Out of Work”: a
poem following the struggles of a narrator attempting to look for work that will help them feed themselves, but is turned away from both private and public opportunities. Hughes draws attention to the narrator’s suffering, trying to get the reader to empathize with the lines:
I say did you ever try livin’
On two-bits minus two
Why don’t you try it, folks,
And see what it would do to you? (Lines 21–24)
Hughes wants the grim reality of the protagonists suffering to be realized, by simply asking for the reader to empathize with them.
Langston Hughes wanted his poetry to be for the working-class African Americans and wanted to show their struggles and daily joys, woes, and lives. He did this by presenting things as they truly were, and this clear and precise telling won over more than just his target audience, with other minorities and working-class folk being able to relate in some way. His simplicity and for better and for worse, some of his themes, are still able to stand today and can be an excellent introduction to poetry, or a welcome addition to someone’s vast repertoire of poetic knowledge.
