Langston Hughes: A closer look into a poetic genius - Research Paper Example

His works are at its peak during the Harlem Renaissance – a decade long of African-American cultural movement in 1920’s. Hughes’ Background. In his complex ancestral root, he was very effective to represent ample of minorities in America with his works (Berry 1992). His most prevalent are his poems. An example is that history cited him as representative of many writers and artist when he wrote “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” in 1926. It could also be accounted in his life and experiences that made him an important figure in the area of his expertise.

In Grammar School in Illinois, he was elected as the class poet. It was later then he realized that he became class poet because of stereotyping. He stated, "I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet." He may put it that way but certainly it was for his advantage as that’s where his poetic prowess promoted.

In high school in Ohio he wrote for school newspaper. He was also became an editor of their yearbook. Informally, he had also written plays, short stories, and poems - "When Sue Wears Red" was his first poem. He cited Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg as his influence in his early works. When he reached adulthood, he met Vachel Lindsay, a poet, when he worked as a busboy in a hotel. Vachel helped him published his early works in magazines, and then collected as his first book of poetry. Langston earned his B.

A degree in Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, where he was also a member of an all black fraternity, Omega Psi Phi. Some scholars who have studied his works were claiming that Langston is a homosexual. His biographer, Arnold Rampersad, had determined that Langston’s works were projecting subtle desire towards other African-American men. There was also some evidenced issued by other scholars of his affair with a black male. They were also citing his unhealthy relationship with his father as sign of lack of masculine reference to look up into, therefore most likely he might have developed homosexuality.

With such case, he might not only represent the racial minorities in America but of homosexual crowd as well. Category. Langston Hughes poems are filled with entertaining imagery that sometimes audience might be misled with his poems as art in canvass and might totally at lost with the message of the poem. These powerful artistry creations of Langston fall into social movement and had been very much effective and influential in giving voice to the emerging black art that time. During the Harlem Renaissance, he made the mark among contemporaries by putting into a poetic verse the traditional rhythm of African jazz music – making his work the first of its kind.

Major theme of the period was the slavery experience of African in America as well as the racism of the black identity, and reminiscent of African tradition (Ferguson 2008). During the Harlem Renaissance, three of the works of Langston surfaced as the significant pieces for the movement – these are his poems, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, “A Dream Deferred”, and “My People.” The Negro Speaks of Rivers. This poem was published in June 1921 in the magazine publication, The Crisis.

It is said that Langston wrote the poem during his ride in the train going to