Best known for his vivid and astute portrayals of Black life across the written page, Langston Hughes —born James Mercer Langston Hughes—(1901 - 1967) was a poet, playwright, writer and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance who founded jazz poetry. Raised mostly by his grandmother, Hughes was instilled with a lasting sense of racial pride and a love of books from a young age and though not supported by his father in his pursuit of writing, Hughes would attend Columbia with his father’s aid in 1921, before leaving the very next year due to racial prejudice and a desire to focus on his poetry. Hughes first introduced his voice to the world in a 1921 issue of The Crisis where he published, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The poem would come to be known as his signature piece and five years later was included in his debut poetry collection, The Weary Blues. Establishing himself as a key player of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes would be one of a small group of Black intellectuals and artists of the movement who called themselves the Niggerati. Going on to write their manifesto, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes’ use of the literary medium differed heavily from the artistic aspirations of the Black middle class in that he desired to focus on highlighting the lives of working-class Black people and addressing divisions and prejudices that existed within the Black community itself. In a career spanning over four decades, Hughes would publish an award-winning novel (Not Without Laughter), multiple plays—some in collaboration with Zora Neale Hurston—(Mule Bone and Black Nativity), children’s literature (Popo and Fifina) and even an autobiography (The Big Sea); among others in a large volume of work. In his personal life, Hughes maintained lifetime friendships with members of the movement and also is believed to have had private romantic and sexual relationships with men. While Hughes’ emphasis on racial pride had begun to fall out of favor with new and coming movements of the younger generation, his contributions to the African-American literary canon and American literature at all could not be denied and as such at the time of his death was—and continues to be—one of the most talented and respected voices of a generation.

Introducing Langston Hughes to the Reader
Proem

The Weary Blues
The Weary Blues

Jazzonia

Negro Dancers

The Cat and the Saxophone

Young Singer

Cabaret

To Midnight Nan at Leroy’s

To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead

Harlem Night Club

Nude Young Dancer

Young Prostitute

To a Black Dancer

Song for a Banjo Dance

Blues Fantasy

Lenox Avenue: Midnight

Dream Variations
Dream Variation

Winter Moon

Poème d’Automne

Fantasy in Purple

March Moon

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Cross

The Jester

The South

As I Grew Older

Aunt Sue’s Stories

Poem

Black Pierrot
A Black Pierrot

Harlem Night Song

Songs to the Dark Virgin

Ardella

Poem—To the Black Beloved

When Sue Wears Red

Pierrot

Water-Front Streets
Water-Front Streets

A Farewell

Long Trip

Port Town

Sea Calm

Caribbean Sunset

Young Sailor

Seascape

Natcha

Sea Charm

Death of an Old Seaman

Shadows in the Sun
Beggar Boy

Troubled Woman

Suicide’s Note

Sick Room

Soledad

To the Dark Mercedes

Mexican Market Woman

After Many Springs

Young Bride

The Dream Keeper

Poem (To F.S.)

Our Land
Our Land

Lament for Dark Peoples

Afraid

Poem—For the Portrait of an African Boy

Summer Night

Disillusion

Danse Africaine

The White Ones

Mother to Son

Poem

Epilogue