Langston Hughes - A Literary Genius

Langston Hughes (1902-1967), one of the most prominent figures in the world of Harlem, has come to be an African American poet as well as a legend of a variety of fields such as music, children's literature and journalism. Through his poetry, plays, short stories, novels, autobiographies, children's books, newspaper columns, Negro histories, edited anthologies, and other works, Hughes is considered a voice of the African-American people and a prime example of the magnificence of the Harlem Renaissance who promoted equality, condemned racism and injustice that the Negro society endured, and left behind a precious literary and enduring legacy for the future generations. In an endeavor to explore why and to what extent his poetry has still been read and used in modern days, I've found no African American writer has ever been an extreme inspiration to all audiences of every ethnic society as much as Langston Hughes was. More than 30 years after his death, the works of Hughes continue to appear, extensively used in the world of literature, education, filming and music, and is still relevant as an evidence of his nationwide and worldwide popularity in the present days.

According to the article “Langston: This Year’s ‘Come Back’ Kid� that quoting a comment from Maryemma Graham, co-director of the Langston Hughes National Poetry Project at the University of Kansas , Hughes reached that level of prominence because all his works appeal to audiences of all generations, races and nations, and interest in his work cuts across socioeconomic lines. With the same idea, Arnold Rampersad, Langston Hughes biographer and cognizant dean of humanities at Stanford University, wrote in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes : “These volume of the work of Langston Hughes are to be published with the same goal that Hughes pursued throughout his lifetime: making his books available to the people.�. Also, he assesses that Hughes’ key of success was his loyalty to simple writing style from which he showed no interest in poetry that most people could not read or understand “Modern poetry often appeals to a limited audience, deliberately, and contains complex vocabulary and arcane allusions...� Rampersad said. “He did not want to write like that; he had an aesthetic of simplicity." Personally, I agree with Rampersad since I’ve found no unnecessary words in Hugh...

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...dhood, said that Hughes was well regarded on his 100th anniversary of his birth because delivered such a powerful message about the joys and sorrows of black life. According to Watkins, a half day teacher’s workshop, like the rest of the symposium, attracted a wide range of participants working in education, including more than 150 professors and teachers from many elementary schools, community college and universities as well as Headstart program teachers and AARP program facillitators. From this certain fact, we could affirm Hughes' contribution and influence to the nation's educational system. “Through his works and his own life experiences, Hughes hoped to change the way people treated each other,� said Sabra Dupree, my former English teacher who was previously teaching Hughes’ poetry at San Jose City College. In addition, she makes a point that today’s teachers are using the

factors of beauty and humanism in Hughes' poetry to addresses racial issues to the young

generation, and 'although it has been 30 years since Hughes left this world, his brilliant talent would have been reminded of as an eternal flame shining through the world of literature'? (Dupree).