Langston Hughes Biography

I’m reading Milton Meltzer’s biography of Langston Hughes, the 1997 illustrated edition, with artwork by Stephen Alcorn; grades 6 and up. The original 1968 release was a National Book Award finalist in children’s literature. It’s good reading for anyone interested in learning more about Hughes’ emergence as a writer and a voice of black America in the 1900s. More than that, it paints a portrait of a very real young man, facing racism, economic struggle, and the pull of what is expected of him, and choosing poetry and the writer’s path–for which we are all the beneficiaries.

There’s a scene in the introduction of the book that reveals Hughes’ character. Quoting Meltzer here:

“One of the last times I saw him [Hughes] was in the spring of 1967. It was a warm Saturday afternoon. The stoops of the Harlem tenements were full of gossiping men and women; 127th Street was jumping with children’s games. Near one end of the block was a storefront church; and at the far end, toward Lenox Avenue, a big new public school turned windowless brick walls to the neighborhood.

“Number 20, where Langston lived, is a three-story brownstone, much like the old houses that crowd it in. The only difference was the plot of ground beside the stoop. It was hardly a yard square, but Langston had put a garden in. At first the kids had stepped all over the greenery. He got around that the next spring by calling them in to help with the planting. He had each one print his name on a stake to show where he had sown. The garden came up safe, with nasturtiums and marigolds and asters blooming all summer.”
(Langston Hughes: An Illustrated Edition by Milton Meltzer, The Millbrook Press, Brookfield, CT; 1997.)

I’m about half-way through the book, which also includes a selected (though substantial) bibliography of Hughes’ works, including poetry, autobiography, fiction, plays, history, humor, books for young readers, anthologies edited by Hughes, translations, and sound and video recordings; also other works about the writer.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me
To eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see
How beautiful I am
And be ashamed–

I, too, am America.

– By Langston Hughes

This week’s poetry roundup is at Mommy’s Favorite Children’s Books.