Langston Hughes
Blues for a Dream Deferred
1902-1967
Bio from the Academy of American Poets
Bio from Pegasos (Okay, so what do the Finnish know about Hughes? Quite a bit, apparently.)
The Boston Book Review's article on the Collected Poems gives a good overview of his career and influences.
To get a sense of the artistic and social world Hughes saw around him, read the following two essays:
"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926)
You can also take a look at a couple of sites on the Harlem Renaissance:
Jill Diesman's Harlem Renaissance Page (which also includes the visual arts)
A brief bit of background from the I Hear America Singing page.
If you're interested in the music of the time, check out The Red Hot Jazz Archive.
Click here to see an interesting interview and reading of "Merry Go Round" at the Favorite Poem Project.
(Just as a side note, there's also a segment on Walt Whitman from a construction worker that's better than anything I could've said about him in class...)
Poems:
Dream Boogie (in book)
Theme for English B (in book)
Negro Speaks of Rivers (Group One)
Letter from Spain (Group Two)
Movies (Group Three)
Same in Blues (Group
Four)
Dear Mr. President (Group
Five)
Wait (Group Six)
Deferred (Group Seven)
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