Langston Hughes

"Nearly ninety years after its first publication, this celebratory edition of The Weary Blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of Langston Hughes, who was just twenty-four at its first appearance. Beginning with the opening "Proem" (prologue poem)--"I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa"--Hughes spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans at a time when their...

Introduction by Arnold Rampersad. Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet--at the center of the "Harlem Renaissance." Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction...

A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was the first to use his poetry to reflect the real daily lives of average Black people. This collection celebrates Black pride and contains messages of hope and optimism from the 1920s. Langston Hughes is often referred to as the Poet Laureate of African-American experience. The writer featured themes of cultural heritage, racial discrimination, and optimism in his poetry. He used his work...

“The Mule-Bone”, written by renowned African American poet Langston Hughes, is a satirical play that engages the complexities of race relations and the significance of the cultural heritage of African Americans in the early 20th century. The play follows two friends, Dave and Bones, who enter into a heated debate about which one of them will be able to buy a mule at an auction.

Hear rare recordings from five of the most-respected African American poets reading their own works: Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers; Arna Bontemps, Nocturne At Bethesda; Countee Cullen, Heritage; Gwendolyn Brooks, The Vacant Lot; and Sonia Sanchez, Black Magic. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan.

A collection of fifty-nine poems, selected by the author for young readers, including lyrical poems, songs, and blues, many exploring the black experience.

"Dream Variation," one of Langston Hughes's most celebrated poems, about the dream of a world free of discrimination and racial prejudice, is now a picture book stunningly illustrated by Daniel Miyares...An African-American boy faces the harsh reality of segregation and racial prejudice, but he dreams of a different life--one full of freedom, hope, and wild possibility, where he can fling his arms wide in the face of the sun"--

A teenager tries to steal the purse of Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones and is rebuked in a surprising fashion.