Harlem Renaissance and Poem

¶ … Harlem Renaissance. Two Poet Writers from Harlem Renaissance Many people familiar with Langston Hughes' works refer to him as the literature Nobel laureate of Harlem because of the way he accurately captured Harlem's passions, moods and events. However, his works were never provincial. By telling the story of Harlem through his poems, he shed light on truths that were important to people from all backgrounds.

Langston Hughes was without a doubt one of the main figures of the Harlem Renaissance -- the 1920s' blossoming of arts and culture among people of color that happened in that New York area. Hughes knew for sure that being black was beautiful and powerful and for this reason he did all he could to advocate for the cause of all the other people who mainstream white artists had pushed out of the public's eye (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance).

Langston's professional career took off in 1926 when Knopf agreed to publish his first book -- a collection of poem titled The Weary Blues. A short while later, he together with several other writers such as Wallace Thurman and Zora Hurston, launched a literary publication they called Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro. Of the many literary publications doing rounds in Harlem at that particular point, Fire!! was one of the most important and popular outlets for new and upcoming writers of color.

However, the publication didn't continue for long. The following year, Hughes published his second collection of poetry entitled Fine Clothes to the Jew. At this point, other African-American writers were not happy with what Hughes' works showcased. They were of the opinion that, by penning poems about the day-to-day life of a common man, Hughes was bringing to light the negative side of black life -- the streets, nightclubs and slums. Hughes responded to his critics by ignoring them.

As he stated in The Negro Artist, he as a young black artist intended to express his dark-skinned self without any fear or shame. And that other people were pleased he would be happy and if they were not pleased then he and other black artists taking his path wouldn't care (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance).

He finishes in the work stating that "We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves." In other words, regardless of what critics thought, Hughes knew that black people were beautiful and ugly too; i.e. you will find good mannered and good natured black people and you will also find bad people and behaviors among black people.

Hughes continued with his theme of black is beautiful in another of his poems entitled Harlem Sweeties where he celebrates the different color tones of black people: "Molasses taffy/ Coffee and cream/ Licorice, clove, cinnamon/ To a honey-brown dream." After hundreds of years of poets and writers calling darkness and blackness as insidious, evil and foreboding, Hughes changed the tone and wrote of it as something beautiful again in another poem he wrote called Dream Variations where he states: "Then rest at cool evening/ Beneath a tall tree/ While night comes on gently, / Dark like me/ That is my dream!" His goal was seemingly to cast away the internalized racism and hate for their own color that he felt many black people felt (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance).

This is seen in one of his works where he states that the duty of a young black artist is to change through the force of his writing, that internalized whispering 'I want to be white' among his people. One of the other most influential artists of color was Sterling Brown. Mr. Brown was born on May first, 1901 in Washington, DC. He went to Dunbar High School and later to Williams College where he received a bachelor's degree. Even though he studied the works of T.S.

Eliot and Ezra Pound, he was more interested in the other works penned by the likes of Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Edgar Lee, and Amy Lowell. And similar to other influential black poets of his time, his own works were influenced by spiritual songs, work songs, the blues and jazz music of that time. Sterling Brown also dives right into the issues of race and race relations like most, if not all, other black poets of his time. He expresses his concerns in his poetry work entitled Southern Road.

This poetry collection was well received by critics from different background and it firmly placed Brown in the Harlem Renaissance culture. However, the fact that the writing careers took off just before the Great Depression meant that he couldn't get someone to publish his second book of verse (Sterling A. Brown - Poet - Academy of American Poets). This led to him taking up a teaching job at Howard and writing essays. He taught at Howard until he reached retirement in 1969.

After some time, out of work, he published the second collection of poetry entitled The Last Ride of Wild Bill in the year 1975. Brown's writing is unique in its frank and unsentimental portrayal of people of color and their day-to-day lives and the use of contemporary idioms and African-American folklore into his verses. His works added a lot of fervor to the post Harlem Renaissance scene. He won many poetry prizes during his time and became known for his commitment to his race and his unpretentious nature (Sterling Brown (1901-1989).

This can be seen in his urging of black artists to discredit the trend of glorifying the south of the past (the slave-era times). The term "double consciousness" was introduced by William Burghardt Du Bois to signify the inner conflict that people of color were experiencing between retaining their African identities and embracing American culture and values. There is evidence of double consciousness in Hughes' work, the Weary Blues in which the author describes an evening listening to blues in Harlem (Shaduri, 2010).

The poem evokes sad memories and a yearning for better times with its repetition, use of blues lyrics and diction. For instance, the stanza "Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quit ma frownin' And put ma troubles on the shelf," (Shaduri, 2010). Brown's poem, Elder Mistletoe, also has evidences of double consciousness. In the poem, Brown shows that not just preachers and priests can be hypocritical -- any group of people.