Langston Hughes
"Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself."-- Excerpt from poets.org
Link to Hughes' full biography-- http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
Link to an audio recording of Hughes reading his poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"-- http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15722
Linked Poems--
Zora Neale Hurston
While in New York Zora became famous for her part in the Harlem Renaissance's Literati. She became well known not only for her writing, but also for her outspokenness, her distinct way of dressing and her refusal to be ashamed of her culture. Zora became close friends with Langston Hughes, another great writer. They were both funded by the same patron, Charlotte Mason, a wealthy white woman. Zora was very adept in her quest for funds and was criticized by many...Zora was a pioneer in the study of African-American folklore writings; she traveled back to Florida in 1927, to New Orleans in 1928 and to the Caribbean later on. In New Orleans she studied voodoo(folklore). In New Orleans she recognized voodoo as a system of faith no stranger than any other religion, but in Haiti and Jamaica, she observed voodoo as a terrifying experience. In 1935 Zora published "Mules and Men", it demonstrated her unique methods of collecting folklore...Zora wrote her masterpiece "Their Eyes Are Watching God", in Haiti, it was published in 1937."-- Excerpted from CUNY's "Women in New York City, 1890-1940"Mules and Men- Anthropological work in which descriptions of the folklore gathered in Eatonville, FL
reflect themes and depictions in Mule-Bone.
Opening passage from Their Eyes Were Watching God--
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others
they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away
in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of
sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated;
the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment."
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