Short biography langston hughes

Claude McKay, who was born in Jamaica inwrote about social and political concerns from his perspective as a Black man in the United States, as well as a variety of subjects ranging from his Jamaican homeland to romantic love. Clarissa Scott Delany was a poet, essaysist, and social worker associated with the Harlem Renaissance movement.

She died in Search Submit. Poets Search more than 3, biographies of contemporary and classic poets. Page submenu block find poems find poets poem-a-day literary seminars materials for teachers poetry near you. Langston Hughes —. Read poems by this poet. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays Prentice Hall, that Hughes differed from most of his predecessors among black poets… in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people.

In MayHughes died in his mids from prostate cancer. His birth date—likely February 1, —is the subject of some debate. For decades, scholars believed his birthday was February 1,but archived newspaper evidence found in suggests Hughes was born one year earlier. Whatever the year, his parents, James Hughes and Carrie Langston, separated soon after his birth, and his father moved to Mexico.

While Carrie moved around during his youth, Hughes was raised primarily by his maternal grandmother, Mary, until she died when he was in his early teens. From that point, he went to live with his mother, and they moved to several cities before short biography langston hughes settling in Cleveland. It was during this time that Hughes first began to write poetry, and one of his teachers introduced him to the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitmanboth of whom Hughes later cited as primary influences.

Hughes graduated from high school in and spent the following year in Mexico with his father. Also that year, Hughes returned to the United States and enrolled at Columbia University where he studied briefly. The young poet dropped out of Columbia in and worked various odd jobs around New York for the following year, before signing on as a steward on a freighter that took him to Africa and Spain.

He left the ship in and lived for a short biography langston hughes time in Paris, where he continued to develop and publish his poetry. Hughes was one of the first Black Americans to earn a living as writer. His poems appeared in 16 volumes of poetry during his lifetime, starting with The Weary Blues These poetry books account for roughly half of the more than 35 books Hughes published.

His work centers the experiences of everyday African American in the 20 th century. Through the black American oral tradition and drawing from the activist experiences of her generation, Mary Langston instilled in her grandson a lasting sense of racial pride. In his autobiography The Big Seahe wrote: "I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother.

Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas. After the death of his grandmother, Hughes went to live with family friends, James and Auntie Mary Reed, for two years.

Later, Hughes lived again with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois. She had remarried when he was an adolescent. The family moved to the Fairfax neighborhood of ClevelandOhiowhere he attended Central High School [ 16 ] and was taught by Helen Maria Chesnuttwhom he found inspiring. His writing experiments began when he was young. While in grammar school in Lincoln, Hughes was elected class poet.

He stated that in retrospect he thought it was because of the stereotype about African Americans having rhythm. I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet.

During high school in Cleveland, Hughes wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, [ 20 ] and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, "When Sue Wears Red", was written while he was in high school. Hughes had a very poor relationship with his father, whom he seldom saw when a child.

He lived briefly with his father in Mexico in Upon graduating from high school in JuneHughes returned to Mexico to live with his father, hoping to convince him to support his plan to attend Columbia University. Hughes later said that, prior to arriving in Mexico, "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much.

He was willing to provide financial assistance to his son on these grounds, but did not support his desire to be a writer. Eventually, Hughes and his father came to a compromise: Hughes would study engineering, so long as he could attend Columbia. His tuition provided, Hughes left his father after more than a year. He published poetry in the Columbia Daily Spectator under a pen name.

He was denied a room on campus because he was black. Hughes worked at various odd jobs before serving a brief tenure as a crewman aboard the S. Malone inspending six months traveling to West Africa and Europe. Malone for a temporary stay in Paris. During his time in England in the early s, Hughes became part of the black expatriate community. In Novemberhe returned to the U.

After assorted odd jobs, he gained white-collar employment in as a personal assistant to historian Carter G. As the work demands limited his time for writing, Hughes quit the position to work as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel. Hughes's earlier work had been published in magazines and was about to be collected into his first book of poetry when he encountered poet Vachel Lindsaywith whom he shared some poems.

Impressed, Lindsay publicized his discovery of a new black poet. The following year, Hughes enrolled in Lincoln Universitya historically black university in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. After Hughes earned a B. Except for travels to the Soviet Union and parts of the Caribbeanhe lived in Harlem as his primary home for the remainder of his life.

During the s, he became a resident of Westfield, New Jersey for a time, sponsored by his patron Charlotte Osgood Mason. Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, as did Walt Whitmanwho, Hughes said, influenced his poetry. Hughes's story "Blessed Assurance" deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and "queerness".

West, author of the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissancecontends that his homosexual love of black men is evidenced in a number of reported unpublished poems to an alleged black male lover. However, Arnold RampersadHughes' primary biographer, concludes that the author was probably asexual and passive in his sexual relationships rather than homosexual, [ 45 ] despite noting that he exhibited a preference for African-American men in his work and life, finding them "sexually fascinating".

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Short biography langston hughes

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. Except for McKay, they worked together also to create the short-lived magazine Fire!!

Devoted to Younger Negro Artists. Hughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class. Hughes and his fellows tried to depict the "low-life" in their art, that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices within the black community based on skin color.

The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either.

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture.

He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America's image of itself; a "people's poet" who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality. 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. Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people of African descent and Africa across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic. Hughes was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists.

A radical black self-examination was emphasized in the face of European colonialism. At a time before widespread arts grants, Hughes gained the support of private patrons and he was supported for two years prior to publishing this novel. InHughes and Ellen Winter wrote a pageant to Caroline Decker in an attempt to celebrate her work with the striking coal miners of the Harlan County Warbut it was never performed.

It was judged to be a "long, artificial propaganda vehicle too complicated and too cumbersome to be performed. Maxim Lieber became his literary agent, — and — Chambers and Lieber worked in the underground together around — Hughes's first collection of short stories was published in with The Ways of White Folks. He short biography langston hughes the book at "Ennesfree" a Carmel-by-the-Sea, Californiacottage provided for a year by Noel Sullivan, another patron since Overall, they are marked by a general pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism.

InHughes received a Guggenheim Fellowship. The same year that Hughes established his theatre troupe in Los Angeles, he realized an ambition related to films by co-writing the screenplay for Way Down Southco-written with Clarence MuseAfrican-American Hollywood actor and musician. In Hughes wrote the long poem, Madridhis reaction to an assignment to write about black Americans volunteering in the Spanish Civil War.

One example of the book, Madrid 37signed in pencil and annotated as II [Roman numeral two] has appeared on the rare book market. In Chicago, Hughes founded The Skyloft Players inwhich sought to nurture black playwrights and offer theatre "from the black perspective. The column ran for twenty years. Hughes also mentored writer Richard Durham [ 68 ] who would later produce a sequence about Hughes in the radio series Destination Freedom.

Semple, often referred to and spelled "Simple", the everyday black man in Harlem who offered musings on topical issues of the day. Inhe spent three months at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as a visiting lecturer. Born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was the descendant of enslaved African American women and white slave owners in Kentucky.

He attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote his first poetry, short stories, and dramatic plays. Hughes returned to the United States in and to Harlem after graduating from Lincoln University in His first poem was published in in The Crisis and he published his first book of poetry, T he Weary Blues in If white people are pleased we are glad.