POEMS
Langston Hughes
This is a brief collection of the poetry and prose on the representation, or a representation in itself, of the African American and Black community. I encourage you to explore how representation is evident in all of Hughes's work.
WHEN SUE WEARS RED
When Susanna Jones wears red
her face is like an ancient cameo
Turned brown by the ages.
Come with a blast of trumphets,
Jesus!
When Susanna Jones wears red
A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night
Walks once again.
Blow trumphets,
Jesus!
And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red
Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like a pain.
Sweet silver trumphets,
Jesus!
I, TOO
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.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
AUNT SUE'S STORIES
Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
Summer nights on the front porch
Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom
And tells him stories.
Black slaves
Working in the hot sun,
And black slaves
Walking in the dewy night,
And black slaves
Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river
Mingle themselves softly
In the flow of old Aunt Sue's voice,
Mingle themselves softly
In the dark shadows that cross and recross
Aunt Sue's stories.
And the dark-faced child, listening,
Knows that Aunt Sue's stories are real stories.
He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories
Out of any book at all,
But that they came
Right out of her own life.
The dark-faced child is quiet
Of a summer night
Listening to Aunt Sue's stories.
THE WEARY BLUES
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
BRASS SPITTOONS
Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars
Buy shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
Gin on Saturday,
Church on Sunday.
My God!
Babies and gin and church
And women and Sunday
All mixed with dimes and
Dollars and clean spittoons
And house rent to pay.
Hey, boy!
A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.
Bright polished brass like the cymbals
Of King David’s dancers,
Like the wine cups of Solomon.
Hey, boy!
A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.
A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—
At least I can offer that.
Com’mere, boy!
MISSISSIPPI - 1955
TO THE MEMORY OF EMMETT TILL
Oh what sorrow!
oh, what pity!
Oh, what pain
That tears and blood
Should mix like rain
And terror come again
To Mississippi.
Come again?
Where has terror been?
On vacation? Up North?
In some other section
Of the nation,
Lying low, unpublicized?
Masked—with only
Jaundiced eyes
Showing through the mask?
Oh, what sorrow,
Pity, pain,
That tears and blood
Should mix like rain
In Mississippi!
And terror, fetid hot,
Yet clammy cold
Remain.
HARLEM NIGHT CLUB
Sleek black boys in a cabaret.
Jazz-band, jazz-band,–
Play, plAY, PLAY!
Tomorrow….who knows?
Dance today!
White girls’ eyes
Call gay black boys.
Black boys’ lips
Grin jungle joys.
Dark brown girls
In blond men’s arms.
Jazz-band, jazz-band,–
Sing Eve’s charms!
White ones, brown ones,
What do you know
About tomorrow
Where all paths go?
Jazz-boys, jazz-boys,–
Play, plAY, PLAY!
Tomorrow….is darkness.
Joy today!
NEGRO
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave:
Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.
I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer:
All the way from Africa to Georgia
I carried my sorrow songs.
I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me still in Mississippi.
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
A BALLAD OF NEGRO HISTORY
WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE AUTHORS ASSOCIATION AT THE REQUEST OF DR. M. A. MAJORS, JUNE, 1951.
There is so much to write about
In the Negro race.
On each page of history
Glows a dusky face.
Ancient Pharaohs come to mind
Away back in B.C.
Ethiopia’s jeweled hand
Writes a scroll for me.
It was a black man who bore the Cross
For Christ at Calvary.
There is so much to write about
In the Negro race.
Though now of Ghana’s Empire
There remains no trace,
Once Africa’s great cultures
Lighted Europe’s dark
As Mandingo and Songhai
Cradled learning’s ark
Before the Moors crossed into Spain
To leave their mark.
There is so much to write about
In the Negro race.
Ere the ships of slavery sailed
The seas of dark disgrace,
Once Antar added
Winged words to poetry’s lore,
And Juan Latino searched
The medieval heart’s deep core—
All this before black men in chains
At Jamestown were put a shore.
There is so much to write about
In the Negro race,
So many thrilling stories
Time cannot erase;
Crispus Attucks’ blow for freedom,
Denmark Vesey’s too.
Sojourner Truth, Fred Douglass,
And the heroes John Brown knew—
Before the Union Armies gave Black men proud uniforms of blue.
1863—Emancipation!
The Negro race
Began its mighty struggle
For a rightful place
In the making of America
To whose young land it gave
Booker T. and Carver—
Each genius born a slave—
Yet foreordained to greatness
On the crest of freedom’s wave.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Penned his rhymes of lyric lace—
All the sadness and the humor
Of the Negro race.
To the words of colored Congressman, The Halls of Congress rang.
Handy wrote the blues.
Williams and Walker sang.
Still on southern trees today
Dark bodies hang.
The story is one of struggle for the Negro race—
But in spite of all the lynched ropes,
We’ve marched to take our place:
Woodson, Negro History Week,
Du Bois, Johnson, Drew,
Cullen, Manor, Bunche.
The cultural record grew.
Edith Sampson went around the world
To tell the nations what she knew—
And Josephine came home from France
To claim an equal chance through song and dance.
There is so much to write about
To sing about, to shout about
In the Negro race!
On each page of history
America sees my face—
On each page of history
We leave a shining trace—
On each page of history
My race!
My race!
My race!