the weary blues by Langston hughes

lit 4

langston Hughes lifespan

1901-67

nicknames for hughes (2)

“shakespeare of Harlem” and “poet laureate of the negro race”

born in (city, state), Hughes first arrived in (city, state) in (yr), and immediatley began shaping the emerging aesthetic of the Harlem renaissance

joplin, Missouri; Harlem, new York; 1922

first collection of petty (name, yr, age)

the weary blues in 1926 when he was 24

hughes produced what throughout his lifetime (9)

volumes of poetry, 2 autobiographies, novel, several collections of short fiction, numerous plays, librettos, essays, liner notes, stories and histories for children

his writing often focused on

everyday people

most famous poem

i, too

line from “i, too”

to eat in the kitchen/when company comes

hughes project of poetry and art was to

amplify black voices

hughes was also a (blank) and (blank) forging connections between writers and thinkers interested in racial justice across the globe

world traveler; political actviist

hughes early travels to (country) inspired poems like “poem” and “poem”

meixco; in a Mexican city; mexican market woman

in the picture, Langston Hughes is at (uni), (yr)

lincoln university, 1928

in which poem does Hughes challenge readers to see bound their prejudices about “common” people

mexican market woman

in “mexican market woman” what does the woman sell and what has made her skin so brown

scanty wares; sun

as Hughes grew older, he became especially interested in traveling to what countries

countries that differed in their approach to racial justice

hughes was on what (name) calls “an international odyssey that coincided with a LEFTWARD shift in his political consciousness”

philip kaisary

hughes traveled where (4)

haiti, Cuba, Soviet union, west africa

on his journey, Hughes ecnountered what

radical forms of social solidarity

by the end of his life, he was a widely respected “blank” serging as mentor and leader to new generations of writers

elder statesman

hughes is widely credited with popularizing

use of blues and jazz structures in writing

interets in musical forms allowed him to do what

1) new formal structures that can be used as innovative artistic approaches

2) crucial tools for founding black artistic expression

what was music to hughes

language everyone spoke and that reflected through art and poetry could become more influential

in his (yr) essay “name” Hughes argued that only by incorporating the sounds and genres that people experienced everyday could art truly make an impact on the world

1926; the negro artist and the racial mountain

hughes said “let the blare of negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of (name) singing the blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals…”

bessie smith

in the poem, they hear a negro play on what street

lenox ave (line 4)

what instrument is he playing

piano → ivory keys

the pianist made the piano

moan

what line does he repeat 2 times in a row

he did a lazy sway…

the man slept like a (blank) or perhaps

rock; he’s dead

the poem is about

how the blues sounds and feels like to experience at a nightclub or music hall by trying to approximate some of the same patterns and emotions that's fine the blues as a musical genre

lenox avenue bar is where

harlem

what does the location reflect

how blues is played in ordinary spaces and can turn the “pale dull pallor of an old gas light” into a space of aesthetic experuences

poem also seeks to recreate the blues performance through

direction quotations to the speaker including the singer’s repetition of life’s problems in the SECODN stanza

“and I can’t be satisfied…and cant be satisfied..and I wish that I had died”

the poem is an (blank) rather than a description of it

active presentation of the performance

the poem recreates the texture of the music how

features a “drowsy syncopated” rhythm or a meter that occasionally slips out of an ordered pattern in order to elicit a lsitener’s attention

how does hughes immerse us (4)

1) location

2) describe performance

3) describe texture of music

4) vernacular language

5) pauses and silences

which lines contain pauses and silences

6 and 7 → capture haunting, silent movements of singer

how many lines

35 (22 lines in first part)

blues singers prominiety featured what

moans and whispers

moans and whispers are in the song “name” by (singer)

dark was the night, cold was the ground; blind Willie johnson

accroding to (name), the poem is in fact the first time that “the unmediated blues voice was heard in American poetry”

cheryl A wall

in the world of the poem there is no (blank)

artistsic hierarchy. the singer’s performance and the poet’s recounting of it are equally important

(blank) is elevated into the (blank) as much as the (blank) is elevated into (blank)

poetry elevated into blues as much as blues is elevated into poetry