Poet’s Corner- Weary Blues, Indeed- The Poetry Of Langston Hughes
Book Review
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes, drawings by E. McKnight Kauffer, Alfred F. Knopf, New York, 1977
Do you want to hear the blues? Do you want to know what the blues are? Then listen to the songs of Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Charley Patton, Son House and that whole crowd that gave us the classic plantation country-driven blues back in the days. And, read the poetry of the artist under review here, Langston Hughes. Oh sure, Brother Hughes has prettified the expressions and the form (although he has also mastered the double-entente, especially in sexual matters, that the previously mentioned artists provided in plenty) for a more upscale, literary audience, but he KNOWS the blues. Just check out the section of poems here under the title “Shadow Of The Blues”.
Unquestionably, old Langston had his ear to the ground for any and all rumbles coming out of the black community during, roughly, the middle third of the 20th century. From the fearsome, no existence Jim Crow South that blacks were leaving in droves to the semi-Jim Crow North where the complexities of modern life still left the black man and woman down at the bottom of the heap Hughes gives voice to their frustrations and dreams, deferred or otherwise. Despair, luck, no luck, hoping for any luck, once in a while luck. Life on the edge, life for a minute on top, life filled with bumps and bruises. It is all there in this little sampler of his word.
Of course, not all is unrelenting struggle. And Hughes has a high old time with the doings, nothing doings, the to-ing and fro-ing of a Harlem Saturday night (and Sunday morning)…leading to those old Monday blues as developed in the section entitled “After Hours”. Here one can hear the post-World War II change in tempo, as well, with the shift in voice from those old time country-driven blues to the be-bop jazz sound of the 1950s.
That, in the end, well almost the end, is the great sense that Hughes possessed and why he still speaks to those of us who are interested in that period of American life, life as led by the working classes and the black working class in particular. But this reviewer, whose book reviews in this space tend to have some political edge to them, would be remiss if he didn’t point out here, as he has in the past, his favorite image of Langston Hughes. That was of a photograph of him taken as the editor, during the Spanish Civil War, of the newspaper of the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th International Brigade, that band of “premature anti-fascists”, organized by the Communist International, who volunteered to fight for the Republican side in Spain. That picture tells more than anything tells the why of the strong effect of Langston Hughes’ poetry on me and why he is rightly honored every February during Black History Month.
**********
The Weary Blues
by Langston Hughes
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Book Review
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes, drawings by E. McKnight Kauffer, Alfred F. Knopf, New York, 1977
Do you want to hear the blues? Do you want to know what the blues are? Then listen to the songs of Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Charley Patton, Son House and that whole crowd that gave us the classic plantation country-driven blues back in the days. And, read the poetry of the artist under review here, Langston Hughes. Oh sure, Brother Hughes has prettified the expressions and the form (although he has also mastered the double-entente, especially in sexual matters, that the previously mentioned artists provided in plenty) for a more upscale, literary audience, but he KNOWS the blues. Just check out the section of poems here under the title “Shadow Of The Blues”.
Unquestionably, old Langston had his ear to the ground for any and all rumbles coming out of the black community during, roughly, the middle third of the 20th century. From the fearsome, no existence Jim Crow South that blacks were leaving in droves to the semi-Jim Crow North where the complexities of modern life still left the black man and woman down at the bottom of the heap Hughes gives voice to their frustrations and dreams, deferred or otherwise. Despair, luck, no luck, hoping for any luck, once in a while luck. Life on the edge, life for a minute on top, life filled with bumps and bruises. It is all there in this little sampler of his word.
Of course, not all is unrelenting struggle. And Hughes has a high old time with the doings, nothing doings, the to-ing and fro-ing of a Harlem Saturday night (and Sunday morning)…leading to those old Monday blues as developed in the section entitled “After Hours”. Here one can hear the post-World War II change in tempo, as well, with the shift in voice from those old time country-driven blues to the be-bop jazz sound of the 1950s.
That, in the end, well almost the end, is the great sense that Hughes possessed and why he still speaks to those of us who are interested in that period of American life, life as led by the working classes and the black working class in particular. But this reviewer, whose book reviews in this space tend to have some political edge to them, would be remiss if he didn’t point out here, as he has in the past, his favorite image of Langston Hughes. That was of a photograph of him taken as the editor, during the Spanish Civil War, of the newspaper of the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th International Brigade, that band of “premature anti-fascists”, organized by the Communist International, who volunteered to fight for the Republican side in Spain. That picture tells more than anything tells the why of the strong effect of Langston Hughes’ poetry on me and why he is rightly honored every February during Black History Month.
**********
The Weary Blues
by Langston Hughes
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
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