Langston Hughes, the leader of the Harlem Renaissance, is one of my favorite American poets. In celebration of Black History Month, I'd like to share a poem I wrote several years ago to honor him. Quite fittingly, Hughes was born on the first of February in 1902.
I'm Langston Hughes
The poet of Blues.
My poetry has
All the rhythms of jazz.
You can hear the Harlem streets
In my syncopated beats.
There I met Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith.
I knew their Black America,
Its truth and its myth,
Its pain and its pride.
I dreamt their dreams deferred.
I wept their dreams denied.
I was their prophet and their tongue.
Across the land and light,
My songs have been sung
Of their struggles and their plight.
At the end of their long night,
My music still takes flight.
