Back to Blog
![]() ![]() For the most part, I felt like a poser whilst reading it – I hadn’t really experienced the oppression or suffering in my fourteen years of life that Arna Bontemps and Claude McKay were describing. The book had a section on the Harlem Renaissance. I was part of our school’s Academic Challenge Bowl team (yes, it’s even nerdier than it sounds) and one of my assignments was to read through this fat anthology of American Literature. I first discovered Langston Hughes in high school. When I hear a really good performance, it makes me want to write songs.Īnd after reading The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, I want to write poetry so badly that all of my thoughts have been forming in blank verse for days. When I read a really good book, it makes me want to write fiction. When I’ve seen someone do something really well, it often inspires me to try it for myself – especially as it pertains to writing. Went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln ![]() I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. ![]() I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young ![]() I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the Awesome and passionate and stirring and lovely, all in ways a 21st century Midwestern white girl probably isn't fully qualified to appreciate. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |