dumbfoundry

In recent appearances, the Democrats' main man has invoked the opening lines of a 1938 poem by Langston Hughes. "Let America be America again," the poem begins, before offering a searing indictment of our nation's failure to meet its glorious potential. I'm pleased whenever poetry captures a bit of attention, although Hughes' lifelong affinity for leftist politics initially makes him seem an odd choice for a candidate clinging so tenaciously to the timid center. [...]

Hughes' populist inclinations earned him the scorn of critics more than his socialist leanings did, according to Maryemma Graham. She is a professor of English at the University of Kansas and co-chair of the Langston Hughes National Poetry Project, which attempts to build a broader audience for Hughes' work and poetry in general. (I have served as one of several unpaid consultants to the project.)

Graham told me, "He was misread by the vast majority of critics, and I think that led them to characterize him as simplistic and not complex enough. He refused to put poetry on such a high pedestal that it was not accessible to the average person. He was writing at a time when poetry was getting farther and farther from readers and moving into the academy, where Hughes felt it didn't belong. He was saying to critics, 'I don't need your approval because what I have is readers."'

Hughes continually devised new ways to communicate with his audience, Graham says, including blues poetry, jazz poetry and gospel plays. "This man was an inventor of new forms that we still don't have the language to talk about yet," she added.

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Wednesday, June 09, 2004 at 8:44 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.