Please find below the full list of the poems by Langston Hughes in our program, along with the pages. I of course recommend that you read and re-read… and perhaps even re-re-read (!) these poems by next March, when we start working on Hughes’s poetry. And I will shortly suggest a few additional ones that are not officially part of the program but that will offer fruitful examples of comparison.

However, it will not have escaped you that some of the poems in the jury’s selection are actually quite short, tiny even, and would never lend themselves to an oral exam on their own. Out of sheer common sense, I therefore advise you to pay extra attention to the sixteen poems I underlined in the list, which more or less have the right ‘format’ for said exams.

Below the list, you will also find a selection of clips of Hughes reading, in some cases chanting some of his poems – which is probably the best way for you to familiarize yourselves with them, their rhythm, their beat. In due time, I will pass around a CD in class with other recordings.

Finally, if you are not at all familiar with African-American history, African-American literature, the Harlem Renaissance and jazz music, please take the time to do some preliminary research, at least in the various books and anthologies by Françoise Grellet that I recommended you acquire at the beginning of the year. Watch this space in the coming days for more precise bibliographical suggestions, as well as film tips. And to learn more about the author, please read the Wikipedia entry: I usually am not a great fan of the website, especially not when it comes to writers’  biographies, but for once it is fairly reliable and un-gossipy.

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The complete selection of poems

Afro-American Fragments (p.3)

The Negro Speaks of Rivers (p.4)

Sun Song (p.5)

Aunt Sue’s Stories (p.6)

Danse Africaine (p.7)

Negro (p.8)

American Heartbeat (p.9)

October 16 (p.10)

As I Grew Older (p.11)

My People (p.13)

Dream Variations (p.14)

The Weary Blues (p.33)

Hope (p.35)

Late Last Night (p.36)

Bad Morning (p.37)

Sylvester’s Dying Bed (p.38)

Wake (p.39)

Could Be (p.40)

Bad Luck Card (p.41)

Reverie on the Harlem River (p.42)

Morning After (p.43)

Early Evening Quarrel (p.44)

Evil (p.45)

As Befits a Man (p.46)

Daybreak in Alabama (Magnolia Flowers) (p.157)

Mulatto (Magnolia Flowers) (p.160)

Dream Boogie (Montage of a Dream Deferred) (p.221)

Theme for English B (Montage of a Dream Deferred) (p.247)

Deferred (Montage of a Dream Deferred) (p.252)

I, too (p.275)

Freedom Train (p.276)

Georgia Dusk (p.279)

Lunch in a Jim Crow Car (p.280)

In Explanation of Our Times (p.281)

Africa (p.284)

Democracy (p.285)

Consider Me (p.286)

The Negro Mother (p.288)

Refugee in America (p.290)

Freedom’s Plow (p.291)

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Langston Hughes reads some of his poems

The Negro Speaks of Rivers (p.4)

The Weary Blues (p.33): with the Doug Parker Band on the 7 O’Clock Show (1958)

Mulatto (p.60)

I, too (p.275)