GoodPoetry

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart, and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Langston Hughes in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

(To W.E.B. DuBois)

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow

of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went 

down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom

turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart, and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Portrait of American writer and activist Langston Hughes in 1943 (US Library of Congress Archives)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

Kids Who Die

This is for the kids who die,

 Black and white,

 For kids will die certainly.

 The old and rich will live on awhile,

 As  Always,

 Eating blood and gold,

 Letting kids die.

Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi

 Organizing sharecroppers

 Kids will die in the streets of Chicago

 Organizing workers

 Kids will die in the orange groves of California

 Telling others to get together

 Whites and Filipinos,

 Negroes and Mexicans,

 All kinds of kids will die

 Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment

 And a lousy peace.

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart, and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Portrait of American writer and activist Langston Hughes in 1943 (US Library of Congress Archives)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

"Harlem"

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

 like a raisin in the sun?

 Or fester like a sore—

 And then run?

 Does it stink like rotten meat?

 Or crust and sugar over—

 like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

 like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart, and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Portrait of American writer and activist Langston Hughes in 1943 (US Library of Congress Archives)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

"Dreams"

Hold fast to dreams

 For if dreams die

 Life is a broken-winged bird

 That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

 For when dreams go

 Life is a barren field

 Frozen with snow.

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart, and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Langston Hughes in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

American Heartbreak

I am the American heartbreak—

 Rock on which Freedom

 Stumps its toe—

 The great mistake

 That Jamestown

 Made long ago.

"My People" by Langston Hughes

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Info:

Langston Hughes in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poem:

My People

The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.The stars are beautiful,

 So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.

 Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on Audible, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Anchor.Fm, iHeart and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

--------------------------------

When Sue Wears Red

When Susanna Jones wears red

 Her face is like an ancient cameo

 Turned brown by the ages.

Come with a blast of trumpets,

 Jesus!

When Susanna Jones wears red

 A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night

 Walks once again.

Blow trumpets, Jesus!

And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red

 Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.

Sweet silver trumpets,

 Jesus!

Read and more GoodPoetry at www.GoodPoetry.org, and listen on iTunes, Stitcher and GooglePlay Music and connect with us @itsGoodPoetry on Facebook, and Twitter.

--------------------------------

"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write

 a page tonight.

 And let that page come out of you—

 Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

 I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.

 I went to school there, then Durham, then here

 to this college on the hill above Harlem.

 I am the only colored student in my class.

 The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,

 through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,

 Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,

 the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator

 up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me

 at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what

 I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:

 hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.

 (I hear New York, too.) Me—who?

 Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

 I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

 I like a pipe for a Christmas present,

 or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.

 I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like

 the same things other folks like who are other races.

 So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.

 But it will be

 a part of you, instructor.

 You are white—

 yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

 That’s American.

 Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.

 Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

 But we are, that’s true!

 As I learn from you,

 I guess you learn from me—

 although you’re older—and white—

 and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

#GoodPoetry​ presents an excerpt from Phillis Wheatley's poem, entitled "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth". This poem was published in Phillis Wheatley's poetry book, entitled, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" in 1773. This poem is in the public domain.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This colored illustration of Phillis Wheatley is in the public domain.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the text for the excerpt of Phillis Wheatley's poem, entitled, "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth":

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,

Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,

Whence flow these wishes for the common good,

By feeling hearts alone best understood,

I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate

Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat:

What pangs excruciating must molest,

What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?

Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd

That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:

Such, such my case. And can I then but pray

Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can watch more GoodPoetry videos on GoodPoetry's YouTube Channel and on Teyuna Darris' YouTube channel.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can listen to more GoodPoetry episodes at Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Anchor.FM, and other major podcast platforms.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connect with GoodPoetry (@itsgoodpoetry) and Teyuna Darris (@tdarris) on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Ars Poetica

BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean

But be.