The Ninjanurse posts about the Langston Hughes Reading at RISD

This is an annual event, and I find a way to miss it every year.

Of course, there is a basketball game for my son on Sunday, and of course, it is in the middle of the afternoon, and of course, it is possibly the last one of this season.
(This is not the Rec league -- this is his other team...)

I love Langston Hughes and his writing and am very happy that this happens ....

Thank you, dear Ninjanurse and Kmareka for keeping this up front.

Philliss remastered has a Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes ! post.

Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes, one day late !!

Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes !

I am impressed by the detail of the wikipedia entry on Langston Hughes.

In the Further Reading section, there is a link to a "stub" about the Langston Hughes Society which was founded, of course, by George Houston Bass who with Rhett S. Jones, founded my beloved Rites And Reason Theatre.

If you are in or near New York City, and I understand the Snow and Sleet, etc, are not that bad there at the moment, there is a Long Community Langston Hughes Reading today at The Schomburg Center.

Come one, come all to this non-stop, five-hour community read-in honoring the poet laureate of Harlem, Langston Hughes on his birthday! Groups and individuals are invited to sign-up to read selections from Langston’s works in the Schomburg’s atrium that bears his name.

Contact schomburged@nypl.org or (212) 491-2234.

I recommend visiting the websites for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture ... which is part of The New York Public Library ....

This blogger loves libraries.

Rhode Islanders will celebrate Langston Hughes this Sunday thanks to Isis Storm and RISD, starting at 1:00 P.M.

If the snow, sleet and rain continue, I hope there is consideration for rescheduling, however.


Why is George Houston Bass' name not mentioned in the History of the Langston Hughes Society ?


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

~~ Langston Hughes

Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America Again


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

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.

(It never was America to me.)

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.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

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.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
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.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

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!

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes, 1964

Politics can be the

Graveyard of the poet.

And only

Poetry can be

His

Resurrection.


I found this somewhere as a "quote" not a poem, and copied it. Now I confess I've no idea if the line breaks are a product of my fevered pen or those of the author. Also, the notion of "resurrection" is far more foreign to me than that of any "graveyard" nonetheless, I like this.

There is a connection between Langston Hughes' life and work and the Rites & Reason Theatre. For another post...