Read the four poems by Langston Hughes and answer one of the questions below.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44428/the-negro-speaks-of-rivers
(Hughes wrote this poem, one of his best known and most celebrated, on the back of an envelope when he just 17 years old. As he recounts in his autobiography The Big Sea, he was traveling to visit his father when his train crossed the Mississippi, and he “began to think what that river … meant to Negroes in the past.” from Poetry Foundation)
The Weary Blues
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47347/the-weary-blues
Po’Boy Blues
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=17392
Morning After
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47878/morning-after
1. Pick up a poem to write a newspaper article out of it. Read the poem to get as many details as you can recall from it and re-create the story. You can use some imagination but be careful to align with what the poem originally attempts to commemorate. Doing some research on the oppressive conditions of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration as well as on Harlem Renaissance (as a reaction to the oppression) would help you envisage the situation that the black community came across at the time. In addition to Wikipedia and other sources you can find online, here are “Seven Letters from the Great Migration”(http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5332) to learn further information of the time. These letters reflect the feelings and desires of thousands of African Americans, who were anxious but a bit hopeful to leave the South during this time period. Leave a little note after the news article that how each format of news articles and blues poems passes down the story and how do you think the storytelling legacy of the blues works.
2. Write a new blues poem, imitating the structure and format that I explained in the first question. You can choose any subject matter, but consider addressing common themes of the blues, including hard times, love, oppression, alienation, the search for identity, and the suffering of African Americans. In addition to this, look at how “The Weary Blues” also calls on honoring blues singers, places, and instruments and tries to incorporate the rhythm and music of African American vernacular speech.
3. Examine the thematic similarities among the poems of the week. As I listed on the third question, there are common themes that appear repeatedly in the poems. Look closely for how the poems illustrate the themes such as North vs. South, physical and mental violence, skin color, death, travel. Those are the themes that will be relevant to our next-week reading, too.
