skateboarding…..

Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, in
Joplin Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child and was raised by his grand mother until the age of around thirteen. He then moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her new husband. He lived there for a while and began to write poetry there. Right after his graduation he spent one year in Mexico and one year in Columbia University, and during these years he worked a lot of odd jobs like assistant cook, launderer, and bus boy. He also traveled to Africa and to Europe working as a sea man. Hughes claims that his inspiration came from Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman, and he is primarily known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He was not only a poet but also wrote many short stories and novels and plays. Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself. Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. I read many poems from many of the poets but only really liked Hughes poems. They are very simple yet they describe a lot, for example in this short little poem you understand what he feels about being black. His dream is to one day fling his arms out wide and dance and sing until evening where he will rest until night comes. I think he is trying to show us that in his dream he does not have to worry about being black and he can do whatever he wants without being discriminated, specially becuase he is was from the times where blacks where considered wrong or bad. He uses almost no figurative languag at all in this poem. he only has one conparison where he says the day is white and the night is black lik him refering to white and black people.

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.