Saturday, October 24, 2009

Anybody who wants to learn to write can do worse than to study Langston Hughes



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.

3 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I've got a couple of Hughes's collections. Very fine poetic sensibility.

Riss said...

ah ha...that's hilarious that you chose that poem to post online...I am working on this Transcription Training (which I *just* completed)and one of the lectures was about that poem. I had never heard it before. I like it! And they didn't tell me who wrote it and being the troglodyte that I am, I didn't know...so now I do! Funny how things work sometimes...(c:

writtenwyrdd said...

Hughes is one of America's best poets, and his choice of topics was so evocative! But my favorite poem of his still remains "Dream Deferred."