Harlem Renaissance and Poem Creative Writing

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Harlem Renaissance.

Two Poet Writers from Harlem Renaissance

Many people familiar with Langston Hughes' works refer to him as the literature Nobel laureate of Harlem because of the way he accurately captured Harlem's passions, moods and events. However, his works were never provincial. By telling the story of Harlem through his poems, he shed light on truths that were important to people from all backgrounds.

Langston Hughes was without a doubt one of the main figures of the Harlem Renaissance -- the 1920s' blossoming of arts and culture among people of color that happened in that New York area. Hughes knew for sure that being black was beautiful and powerful and for this reason he did all he could to advocate for the cause of all the other people who mainstream white artists had pushed out of the public's eye (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance).

Langston's professional career took off in 1926 when Knopf agreed to publish his first book -- a collection of poem titled The Weary Blues. A short while later, he together with several other writers such as Wallace Thurman and Zora Hurston, launched a literary publication they called Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro. Of the many literary publications doing rounds in Harlem at that particular point, Fire!! was one of the most important and popular outlets for new and upcoming writers of color. However, the publication didn't continue for long. The following year, Hughes published his second collection of poetry entitled Fine Clothes to the Jew. At this point, other African-American writers were not happy with what Hughes' works showcased. They were of the opinion that, by penning poems about the day-to-day life of a common man, Hughes was bringing to light the negative side of black life -- the streets, nightclubs and slums.

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Hughes responded to his critics by ignoring them.

As he stated in The Negro Artist, he as a young black artist intended to express his dark-skinned self without any fear or shame. And that other people were pleased he would be happy and if they were not pleased then he and other black artists taking his path wouldn't care (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance). He finishes in the work stating that "We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves." In other words, regardless of what critics thought, Hughes knew that black people were beautiful and ugly too; i.e. you will find good mannered and good natured black people and you will also find bad people and behaviors among black people.

Hughes continued with his theme of black is beautiful in another of his poems entitled Harlem Sweeties where he celebrates the different color tones of black people: "Molasses taffy/ Coffee and cream/ Licorice, clove, cinnamon/ To a honey-brown dream."

After hundreds of years of poets and writers calling darkness and blackness as insidious, evil and foreboding, Hughes changed the tone and wrote of it as something beautiful again in another poem he wrote called Dream Variations where he states: "Then rest at cool evening/ Beneath a tall tree/ While night comes on gently, / Dark like me/ That is my dream!"

His goal was seemingly to cast away the internalized racism and hate for their own color that he felt many black people felt (Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance). This is seen in one of his works where he states that the duty of a young black artist is to change through the force of his writing, that internalized whispering 'I want to be….....

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