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Langston Hughes Poetry Response

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Poetry Response Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. American literature and politics were shaped because of his literary works. He promoted equality, condemned racism and injustice, and celebrated African American culture, humor, and spirituality through his poetry, novels, plays, essays, and children’s books (“America’s”). He was an inspiration to many African Americans and he motivated many dreamers. By analyzing several of his poems I have found that his life was a representation of his poetry. Hughes poem Dreams isn’t very long, but it definitely gets the message across.
“Hold fast to dreams/ for if dreams die/ life is a broken-winged bird/ that cannot fly” (1-4). The first stanza of his poem creates excellent imagery. He also uses a metaphor in the first stanza; “Life is like a broken-winged” (3), after reading the poem, this image is the one that sticks in my mind. I can imagine a bird lying there on the ground, helpless and weak because he gave up on his dreams. By being able to visual this …show more content…

I imagine the lifeless barren field with no color and the incapability to produce anything. Hughes’ poem isn’t very long but I think he did this for a reason, because he wanted to get right to the point. He chose his words carefully to help his audience understand the importance of their dreams and holding on to them until they turn into a reality. I think his use of the two metaphors was meaningful, he was showing people a glimpse of what giving up looked like in the hopes that no person would ever have the want to give up. After reading the poem, I am left with the feeling of wanting to accomplish my dreams because I am too afraid to face the consequences if I give

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There are so many writers and people who do not write also that look up to him. He accepted the challenge of expressing the heart and soul of African Americans. Keenly aware of racism, Hughes visioned a nation where domestic problems could be realized. Hughes in his poetry, expressed his own reactions to incidents in his life and in the world at large. Langston Hughes left such a lasting impression on poetry , black culture, and the people in his life, that he changed the way they lived with the spirit and soul he put into his

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880 Words | 4 Pages

Babe Ruth would not become a baseball legend, Louis Armstrong would not be one of the best musicians of the decade and Langston Hughes would not have been the inspiring writing he was. Without these African Americans who followed their dreams, like Hughes implied through disturbing imagery, society would have been extensively hurt. With the use of imagery, Hughes is able to get this idea across. In numerous negative outcomes, he directly states in vivid details all the horrendous things that will happen if these dreams are not achieved. This allows the reader to think of dreams as a physical object that needs to be tended to, like, as Hughes compares it to, a festering sore.

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456 Words | 2 Pages

Langston Hughes was one the most well known names during the Harlem Renaissance. He was a writer whose pieces ranged from novels, to plays. He wrote short stories, children’s books, translations and anthologies as well. However, his most well known pieces were his poems. Langston's writing reflected the idea that black culture should be celebrated, because it is just as valuable as white culture.

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738 Words | 3 Pages

The poem that I chose was Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes I chose this poem because it’s a very confusing and very difficult to understand but if you treat it like a puzzle and take the small parts and put them together and understand what they mean you put the whole picture together. The theme of Dream Deferred was the limitations that African Americans had at the time to come and have the so-called “American Dream”. A simile in the text would be “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun”The author uses this to help his theme by stating that the raisin will become smaller and smaller but it won't disappear. Another part of the poem that contributes is“fester like a sore and the run” this means rejected dream almost physically painful and gets infected and becomes a gross reminder. Finally, the last piece of evidence I could find is “or does it explode” this means that everything is gone and the dream is blown to bits”.

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

Langston Hughes shows that he is aware the American dream is there and knows that it was intended to be equal but it simply was not due to racist and close minded people. Some people gave up on the American dream and knew that it was too far out of reach but Langston Hughes reiterated that in his poem that the American dream is still there and well alive for the taking for anyone who is willing to work for it. Langston Hughes was also quick to point out the difficult path it was for a person of African descent to gain it but that didn 't stop him from reiterating the fact that it is there and there to be taken. To me, I see Langston Hughes as a man that sees a problem and simply wants to make it known an address is in so that everybody sees what he sees. I also see a Visionary and him, how he sees that America can one day be what it was meant and

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444 Words | 2 Pages

Langston Hughes is one of the most well named writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Mr Hughes wrote for a variety of people from children books to plays but his most famous work are his poems. He moved to Harlem to attend college but he dropped out and began spending all his time in harlem writing and working to support himself. All of his writings reflected the African american culture because he believe it was just as important as the white culture. Some of his most famous pieces of work was “ Let America Be America Again” ,”One Way Ticket” and “Democracy”.

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1194 Words | 5 Pages

The poem explains that the freedom and equality America is supposed to stand for only relates to rich white people. Langston Hughes was an African American writer. He wrote fiction, short stories, and poetry. He was also a key member in Harlem Renaissance and the African American literary movement during the 1920s and 1930s. He often times wrote about the racial injustices he and many other faced daily.

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922 Words | 4 Pages

The culture of most blacks was unwanted during this time. For this reason Hughes desired to make a change and illustrate such cultural identities in his poems. In doing this he caused a shift in ideas among all people. Although the change didn’t happen immediately it did eventually occur. With that said the African American people were given less of an opportunity at jobs, schooling, and most importantly culture.

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1179 Words | 5 Pages

At this time, the dream was equality and being accepted as citizens of the United States. Hughes felt that this goal of liberty and quality for African Americans was very hard to reach or match. A poem that resembles this thought well is titled “Youth”, where Hughes writes, “We have tomorrow… Bright before us… Like a flame” (Hughes 39). This poem has a lot of analysis towards the American Dream.

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225 Words | 1 Pages

In the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, several similes are used to portray the reality of dreams. Hughes employs effective metaphors, inviting us to visualize a dream and what may happen to it after it passes from conscious thought. Could a dream dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or even fester like a sore? (Hughes, 1951, p. 631).

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911 Words | 4 Pages

Langston Hughes was an American poet and activist that is most known for his involvement during the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes used his writing to shine a light on the lives of African Americans in the 1920’s. Through his poetry, Hughes was a leading voice during the Renaissance. ‘Harlem’ is one of Langston Hughes’ most well-known poems. It tells of the Black dream in America and how it has been deterred and limited.

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595 Words | 3 Pages

In the 1970s, the drinking age had been lowered to 18, in all 50 states, due to demand and influence by other states. This had increased the drunk driving rate by 30% and during this time, it caused the highest drunk driving accidents in a lot of the American history (Issues & Controversies). This isn’t something that needs or wants to be repeated by lowering the drinking age once again. To start, one reason to not lower the drinking age is it could increase the chances of drug use. If the MLDA was lowered from 21 to 18 it would cause people to irresponsibly drink in nightclubs, not be as safe when in this environment, and could also easily increase the risk of drug use (Procon).

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371 Words | 2 Pages

Dreams is a short poem written by Langston Hughes. This poem discusses the importance of dreams and not losing them. Hughes sets a tone of desperation in this poem. The way it is written causes one to feel the importance of holding on to dreams or such dire consequences will take place. Although this is a short poem, there were three types of figurative language that stood out.

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1089 Words | 5 Pages

Langston Hughes was an American poem born in the early nineteen hundreds, who became known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He published many poems that brought light to the life of people of color in the twentieth century. There are three poems that the speakers are used to portray three major themes of each poem. Racism, the American Dream, and Hopes are all the major themes that Hughes uses to highlight the average life of a person of color. Theme for English B,” “Harlem,” and “Let America Be America Again” were three of Hughes’s poems that was selected to underline the themes.

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761 Words | 4 Pages

Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.

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