James Mercer Langston Hughes, or known by multiple as Langston Hughes was a poet, social activist, novelist, columnist, and playwright. His playwrights include: “Simply Heaven,” “Soul Gone Home,” “Street Scene,” “Tambourines to Glory,” and “Black Nativity” which was later, in 2013, turned into a movie. A source (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-hughes) titles Langston Hughes as a “central figure in the Harlem Renaissance.” Along with poems and plays, Hughes authored novels, short stories, and essays. An essay written by Langston Hughes, entitled, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” is an example of what Langston Hughes favored to display in his poems. He portrayed the “joys and hardships of working-class black lives” trying to avoid idealization and negative stereotypes.
Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. Sources claim, his father, James Hughes abandoned him and his mother, Carolina (Carrie) Mercer Langston, and moved to Mexico due to his dislike of American racism and black American culture at the time. Also, a specific source claims, his father, Langston Hughes’ father, departed to Mexico also because of his desire to practice law and wanted to escape the racial prejudice in America(http://edwardchrisproject.weebly.com/hardships.html). His mother moved around searching for steady employment after “elder Hughes” left. After a while, Langston Hughes lived with his grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston, in Lawrence, Kansas until her death in 1915. He also worked while living with his grandmother because his grandmother was making enough. She did have a traditional occupation. After the death of his grandmother he went to live with friends of the family, James and Mary Reed and that coming summer, he moved with his mother and her husband, Homer Clark, in Lincoln, Illinois before they settled in Cleveland, Ohio.
During high school, Langston Hughes began to write poetry. Hughes’ first pieces of verse was published in his high school’s magazine, Monthly. It is claimed, his first piece of jazz poetry, “When Sue Wears Red,” was written while he was in high school. His talents were recognized by peers and teachers; Hughes’ poetic influence came from poets he was introduced to by an English teacher, at his high school, who were: Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, and, in some sources, Paul Laurence Dunbar. After high school, Langston Hughes spent the summers of 1919 and 1920 with his father in Mexico. In fact, while traveling on the train to visit his father again in Mexico, during the summer of 1920, he wrote his first “mature poem” entitled “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” It is stated, in a source, Langston Hughes was inspired to write this poem when the train crossed the Mississippi River, and years after its publication, dedicated the poem to W.E.B. Dubois and also was read at Hughes’ funeral service.
While in Mexico, Hughes explained to his father his desires of being a writer even though his father’s desires for him did not match. Langston Hughes’ father became impressed with his son’s poetry, he decided to pay Langston Hughes’ college tuition at Columbia University for one year as long as Langston Hughes studies engineering. After a year at Columbia University, Langston Hughes dropped out because of “racial prejudice,” or racism, on the campus, describes sources. After Columbia University, Langston Hughes taken multiple jobs. He was a cook, a waiter, a truck farmer, a seaman as he was aboard on the S.S. Malone, a doorman at a nightclub in Paris, where he stayed for six months, and then was working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. Hughes’ break happened when Langston decided to slip three of his poems “into the satchel,” written by one source, of Vachel Lindsay. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, who is an American poet, the founder modern of singing poetry, and famous for his performances of poetry, was enthused by Langston Hughes, which, down the line, resulted in a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1929. Also, Langston Hughes was classmates with Thurgood Marshall and pledge Omega Psi Phi.
Langston Hughes’ first poetry collection, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 and his second, Fine Clothes to the Jew, in 1927. Hughes’ first novel, Not Without Laughter, was published in 1930 and in 1932, Langston Hughes traveled to work on a film, never completed, with African-Americans to the Soviet Union about the black experience in America(https://www.shmoop.com/langston-hughes/timeline.html). Langston Hughes received the Guggenheim Fellowship award, in 1935, as well as, opening his first play, The Mulatto, on Broadway in the same year. Hughes, throughout the years opens theaters, one in New York City, The Harlem Suitcase Theater in 1938, the New Negro Theater in Los Angeles in 1939, where he co-writes the screenplay for his first film, Way Down South, and the Skyloft Players in Chicago in 1942. Also, Langston Hughes began to win multiple awards for his works, for the instance, the Rosenwald Fellowship (1941), his book, Simple Takes a Wife, (1954), wins the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, “which honors writing that tackles racism and diversity.” In addition to his awards, he won the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1960 for “outstanding achievement by a black American.”
Joseph McCarthy, a Republican U.S. Senator, better known for his list of 205 names of known communists in the U.S. state department in 1950. His “aggressive anticommunist pursuits” made him the namesake for McCarthyism. On March 24, 1953, Langston Hughes testified before Joseph McCarthy and the Subcommittee. African Americans who voiced objections towards the treatment of blacks at the time, were suspect to McCarthy. Langston Hughes, being a radical poet, was questioned by McCarthy but then was dismissed, because the Subcommittee sensed they were better without attacking him. Possibly, after hearing his statement to defend himself.
Conclusively, besides being questioned about communism, Langston Hughes was, agreed by biographers, a homosexual. It was claimed, by a source, Langston Hughes used gay codes in his writings, similar to Walt Whitman(https://www.uis.edu/gendersexualitystudentservices/langstonhughes/). The source restated a statement voiced by Hughes’ principle biographer Arnold Rampersad, “Hughes found some young men, especially dark-skinned men, appealing and sexually fascinating.” Langston Hughes wrote unpublished love poems, stated by the source, to a man he called “Beauty and also wrote poems “To F.S.” who is thought to be a sailor from Jamaica, by the name of Ferdinand Smith, whom Langston Hughes met in the 1920’s and kept in touch with for over 30 years.

An addition to Rita Dove’s choice of poems in her anthropology, are selections from an acknowledgeable divorced couple: Ms. Sonia Sanchez, and Mr. Etheridge Knight. The couple are acknowledgeable because of their awards, their works, and their activism in the Black Arts Movement. The couple was married after Mr. Knight’s release, in 1968, from an 8-year sentence he served for robbery. The couple took care of three children during their marriage: Anita, who, as it is cited, to be conceived when Sonia was with her first husband, Albert Sanchez, and two children she conceived with Etheridge Knight, Morani and Mungu. Also, the reason for Sonia and Etheridge’s divorce, as cited, is to be the effect of Etheridge Knight’s drug addiction. I have seen a cite or two making this claim, however, few cites do put out inaccurate information, and similar to Wikipedia, are not one hundred percent trustworthy.

                Sonia Sanchez, born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama, is a poet, playwright, professor, activist, and one out of numerous foremost leaders of the Black Studies. Poems of Sonia Sanchez were included in the movie Love Jones, one being a poem Nina, a character in the movie played by Nia Long, recited entitled “I am Remembering Love.” Due to the death of Sonia’s mother, in 1935, while giving birth to twins a year after Sonia was born, Sonia went to live with her grandmother and other relatives. Her grandmother taught her to read to at age four, and to write age six. After the death of her grandmother, in 1943, her and her sister, moved to live with their father, a schoolteacher, and his third wife in Harlem. It is cited, she spent three decades in Harlem.

                Though Sonia took creative writing courses at Hunter College in New York, she graduated with a B.A. in political science. She attended graduate school at New York University in 1955 where she studied and focused on poetry alongside of “one of the most accomplished American poet critics of the mid-20^th century,” and the first woman to hold the title of Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945 for four years, Ms. Louise Bogan. Sanchez was a part of CORE, Congress of Racial Equality, and Nation of Islam, but left after three years in protest of their mistreatment of women. She began teaching in 1965, first at the Downtown Community School in New York, later at San Francisco State University teaching on the literature of African Americans from 1968-69, and, additionally, at other Universities. Sanchez also attended workshops in Greenwich Village in New York City. Here she met and formed the “Broadside Quartets” with poets, Amiri Baraka (a.k.a. Leroi Jones), Haki R. Madhubuti, and Sonia’s soon-to-be husband, Etheridge Knight.

                Etheridge Knight, born in Corinth, Mississippi in 1931 on April 19^th. Different cites inaccurately mention the number of his siblings. One writes he was one of six, another writes he was one of seven, but another writes he was one of eight. However, he mentions the number sisters he has in his poem, “The Idea of Ancestry,” but not the number of his brothers. Anyhow, Etheridge was raised in Paducah, Kentucky, where dropped out of high school and spent his teenage years working in pool halls, bars, and juke joints, introducing him to drugs and aided to his “toast” telling art. Toasts are long narrative poems coming from an oral tradition which is performed from memory involving “sexual exploits, drug activities, and violent aggressive conflicts…” using street slang as well.

                Etheridge attempted to enlist in the army at age 17. After forging his parent’s signature to enlist, he was removed for being too young. He later enlisted again, most likely at age 18, and served in the Korean war as a medical technician. He was later discharged from the army because of a shrapnel wound, allegedly, leading to his drug addiction. Though, it is cited on other sources, his drug addiction began while in Korea. For a second, I thought his robbery conviction in 1960 was the effect of his drug addiction because, in “The Idea of Ancestry,” he writes, “The next day in Memphis I cracked a croaker’s crib for a fix.” I depicted, he robbed and stole money for a house for drugs, however, it is cited, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in the Indiana State Prison for robbery in Indianapolis. Though it does not mean his case was not moved elsewhere.

                While in prison he told toasts, wrote poems, and received visits from Dudley Randall and Gwendolyn Brooks. His first poem, “To Dinah Washington” – an American blues singer and pianist and dabbled in R&B and pop music – was published in the magazine for the African American market, the Negro Digest. The same magazine Sonia Sanchez was influenced by Bogan to begin to write in. After his release from prison, in 1968, Knight’s Poems from Prison, was published by Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press. After the success of his book, he joined poets Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, and Sonia Sanchez which then came the Black Arts Movement including Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, etc. This movement was a response to “socio-political landscape of the time…” meaning the prejudice period and the movement was a defense mechanism to protect the rights of African Americans.

                 Though Etheridge Knight and Sonia Sanchez would later divorce in 1972 they both were ventured and lived their lives. Etheridge, winning both Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations for Belly Song and other poems, winning prizes such as the Guggenheim Foundation and earning a Bachelor’s Degree in American Poetry and Criminal Justice from Martin Center University in Indianapolis. As well as Sanchez, winning the National Academy of Arts Award, in 1978, and the National Education Association Award, 1977-1988, also lecturing in over 500 colleges and Universities

https://poets.org/poet/sonia-sanchez

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sonia-sanchez

https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/sonia-sanchez-39

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/etheridge-knight

https://poets.org/poet/etheridge-knight

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Etheridge-Knight

-Jacqui Paige

The Introduction to “The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry,” written by Rita Dove and criticized by Helen Vendler in a response entitled “Are These the Poems to Remember,” listed names of black and white poets which Rita Dove sensed they were important to list to which Helen Vendler didn’t quite share the same beliefs, henceforth the criticism by Helen Vendler. The introduction speaks of time during American industrialization, such as World War 1, World War 2, The Civil War, the Great Depression, etc. and how the art poetry during these times gave hope and/or changed perspectives and views, also how these times changed poetry. She also jumps back and forth between the 19^th century and the 20^th century speaking of past poets, their works, their writing styles, and achievements.

                She begins sections in her introduction with a line from a poem then displays who wrote the quote. For instance, she began one of the sections by quoting Delmore Schwartz, a poet, Caucasian, from Brooklyn, New York who won the Bollingen Prize. His quote makes the statement, “The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.” This statement by itself could have more than one meaning. It could mean everyone is so hungry, metaphorically, to get “theirs” or what they want during a time of suffrage for the Americans. Or, secondly, it could mean a hunger struggle or people battling against their own hunger. After penning this quote, Dove gives us the names of poets who served in the Second World War in the army, navy and air force such as, Kenneth Koch, Robert Bly, and James Dickey, to proclaim these poets to have been “conscientious objectors.” A conscientious objector is a person who, for reasons of conscience, objects to following a particular requirement, especially serving in the armed forces (google dictionary). In other words, it is an individual who refuses to serve on the grounds of religion, conscience, and freedom of thought.

Dove remembered these poets because the aftermath “opened American consciousness” to concepts such as, absurdism (the belief of human existence being meaningless) and nihilism (the belief of life being meaningless). This, in my opinion, is written down by Dove to explain how poets began to develop their own style of writing because of the opened consciousness during this time of despair and hope. Coming to a breakthrough of no longer being held back or “indebted to the old British school of articulate reasoned oratory and less beholden to social, ethnic, or regional confines…” She then jumps to metaphorical characteristics and traits to describe the new and “fresh” style of other writers such as Langston Hughes, claiming he moved from the “decorous pronouncements of his Harlem Renaissance poems” to his poems now being infused with a jazz and bebop rhythm. Dove then compares Margaret Walker’s poem For My People to a black sermon and stating her achievement as the first African American poet to win the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Obviously, she was also the first African American female poet to win the prize as well. Soon after, Dove pens about another African American female poet who won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and the first huge recognition of a nonwhite poet, with her second book entitled Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks. Dove declares, Gwendolyn Brooks not only won a Prize for her second book, but Gwendolyn’s first book, “confirmed that black women can express themselves in poems as richly innovative as the best male poets of any race.”

There were events happening in the African American community surrounding the 1950’s time period. Other than Gwendolyn Brooks winning the Pulitzer Prize, Supreme Court case justices ruled racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court case on May 17, 1954. A year later, on September 6, 1955, the funeral of Emmett Till took place in Mississippi, the state where he was killed. It was during this 1950 time period Dove suggests African American influences were increasingly permeating mainstream life and art. I am suggesting this means, the African American culture influenced the mainstream of poetry. In other words, the influence of African American culture was penetrating the American culture of life and art and changing it. Jazz and blues went North, scat singing evolved into bebop and the “musical innovation and improvisation loosened screws on other traditions as well…” Possibly, also in my own opinion, influencing the writing style in Howl written by Allen Ginsberg which Dove describes the personal style stood as an “unabashed antiestablishment stance and confessional rawness” ultimatum. The African American culture around this time seemed to have their own style of writing and a bit of confessional rawness because of the voice they were then trying to have. In Dove’s words the Black Arts movement was “a necessary explosion.” Dove goes on to elaborate, the Black Arts Movement was hitting targets they did not aim for. White students were wearing dashikis and crooning to Marvin Gaye. Could this have been the start of culture appropriation? This success inspired feminist poets, Native Americans, Hispanics, gays, and Asian Americans to use their neglected voices. Though the Black Arts movement was making an influence on other cultures, Dove states there was a lack of African Americans in poetry establishments. Though how could this be if African Americans made an impact with their art and style and rhythm in their poetic pieces? Are black poets in 20^th century appreciated as an influence in poetry, or are they only appreciated in the black community for influencing and new black aesthetic, or way of writing?