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How Did Langston Hughes Use Poetry During The Harlem Renaissance

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Poetry During the Harlem Renaissance

Poetry was one of the most well-known and defining aspects of the Harlem Renaissance. Because the main themes of art during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of slavery and racial pride, it should come as no surprise that poems developed from the Harlem Renaissance focused on these themes. African American poets utilized their poems as a way to portray the feelings of the African American race as a whole. An example of this is the work of Langston Hughes, one of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry and considered to be a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. One of the many poems that Langston Hughes wrote about the influence of slavery was The Negro Mother. According to Poemhunter.com, the speaker of The Negro Mother states “I am the woman who worked in the field …show more content…

I am the one who labored as a slave, Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave”. Langston Hughes uses the brutalities of slaveholders and overseers to describe the consequences of slavery on the current generation of African Americans. However, one of Hughes’ decisions that came close to destroying his career as a poet was when he decided to collaborate with the Soviet Union on a movie titled Black and White. Hughes and many African Americans had felt that the Soviet Union treated them as equals despite their skin color whereas the people of the United States would respect that African Americans had equal rights yet never cease to ridicule them. According to Jennifer Wilson, “It was this promise of a creative solidarity unhindered by racial segregation that propelled Thompson, Hughes and the cast to invest their hopes in ‘Black and White.’”. Despite the failure of the production of Black and White, other African American cast members decided that the Soviet Union was a better place to live in than the United States. Examples of writers and poets who thought this

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In his writing piece, “That Word Black” (1958), Langston Hughes accentuates the issue over the negative connotation of the term ‘black’, and how its usage associates black individuals with immoral concepts, implying that they are terrible people. By providing imagery, a series of examples of black’s adverse use, and juxtaposition between that of the white’s, the writer heightens pathos. Langston Hughes’ purposes is to reveal the abysmal correlation of the word ‘black’ in order to demonstrate the underlying racism and disparity between black and white people. Because the author uses AAVE to show the ethos and sincerness that he is a black person, and discusses an educational, racial topic, he appeals to the white people who hold a cultural stereotypes

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