The Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes

Overview

With a new introduction by poet and editor Kevin Young, this celebratory edition of The Weary Blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of Langston Hughes.

Hughes—who was just twenty-four at the time of The Weary Blues's first appearance—spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans at a time when their voices were newly being heard in American literature, beginning with the opening “Proem” (prologue poem)—“I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa."

As the legendary Carl Van Vechten wrote in a brief introduction to the original 1926 edition, “His cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race . . . Always, however, his stanzas are subjective, personal,” and, he concludes, they are the expression of “an essentially sensitive and subtly illusive nature.” That illusive nature darts among these early lines and begins to reveal itself, with precocious confidence and clarity.
 
In a new introduction to the work, the poet and editor Kevin Young suggests that Hughes from this very first moment is “celebrating, critiquing, and completing the American dream,” and that he manages to take Walt Whitman’s American “I” and write himself into it. We find here not only such classics as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and the great twentieth-century anthem that begins “I, too, sing America,” but also the poet’s shorter lyrics and fancies, which dream just as deeply. “Bring me all of your / Heart melodies,” the young Hughes offers, “That I may wrap them / In a blue cloud-cloth / Away from the too-rough fingers / Of the world.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385352970
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/10/2015
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

LANGSTON HUGHES was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, then a year studying at Columbia University. His first poem published in a nationally known magazine was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which appeared in Crisis in 1921. In 1925, he was awarded the First Prize for Poetry from the magazine Opportunity for “The Weary Blues,” which gave its title to this, his first book of poems. Hughes received his B.A. from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt.D. by his alma mater; during his lifetime, he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1935), a Rosenwald Fellowship (1940), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). From 1926 until his death in 1967, Hughes devoted his time to writing and lecturing. He wrote poetry, short stories, autobiography, song lyrics, essays, humor, and plays. A cross section of his work was published in 1958 as The Langston Hughes Reader; a Selected Poems first appeared in 1959 and a Collected Poems in 1994. Today, his many works and his contribution to American letters continue to be cherished and celebrated around the world.

Read an Excerpt

Dream Variation
 
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me,—
That is my dream!
 
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! whirl! whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening….
A tall, slim tree….
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Table of Contents

Introducing Langston Hughes to the Reader Carl Van Vechten ix

Proem 1

The Weary Blues

The Weary Blues 3

Jazzonia 5

Negro Dancers 6

The Cat and the Saxophone 7

Young Singer 8

Cabaret 9

To Midnight Nan at Leroy's 10

To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead 11

Harlem Night Club 12

Nude Young Dancer 13

Young Prostitute 14

To a Black Dancer in "The Little Savoy" 15

Song for a Banjo Dance 16

Blues Fantasy 17

Lenox Avenue: Midnight 19

Dream Variations

Dream Variation 21

Winter Moon 22

Poème d'Automne 23

Fantasy in Purple 24

March Moon 25

Joy 26

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

The Negro Speaks of Rivers 27

Cross 28

The Jester 29

The South 30

As I Grew Older 31

Aunt Sue's Stories 33

Poem 34

Black Pierrot

A Black Pierrot 35

Harlem Night Song 36

Songs to the Dark Virgin 37

Ardella 38

Poem 39

When Sue Wears Red 40

Pierrot 41

Water-Front Streets

Water-Front Streets 43

A Farewell 44

Long Trip 45

Port Town 46

Sea Calm 47

Caribbean Sunset 48

Young Sailor 49

Seascape 50

Natcha 51

Sea Charm 52

Death of an Old Seaman 53

Shadows in the Sun

Beggar Boy 55

Troubled Woman 56

Suicide's Note 57

Sick Room 58

Soledad 59

To the Dark Mercedes of "El Palacio de Amor" 60

Mexican Market Woman 61

After Many Springs 62

Young Bride 63

The Dream Keeper 64

Poem 65

Our Land

Our Land 67

Lament for Dark Peoples 68

Afraid 69

Poem 70

Summer Night 71

Disillusion 72

Danse Africaine 73

The White Ones 74

Mother to Son 75

Poem 76

Epilogue 77

Alphabetical List of Titles 79

Alphabetical List of First Lines 81

Editorial Reviews

Langston Hughes is a titanic figure in 20th-century American literature . . . a powerful interpreter of the American experience.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Publisher