Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Langston Hughes)

What I love about this poem by Langston Hughes is how slowly it reads. I mean the second line is an eighteen word sentence that wouldn't be out of place in a (lovely and rather poetic) school essay. And later on there is a twenty-eight word sentence. How can one not read the poem majestically and slowly?

What I also love in this poem is how it paints in broad brush strokes the history of African-Americans. And for such a complicated past it is a marvel that Hughes is able to do so in only ten lines with such slow, deep, and still beauty.

Favorite line: "My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

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What do you think of today's poem?