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The Great American Poet

Posted by Karen on September 7, 2010 in General

  

I received a Twitter post yesterday about one of the greatest American poets in the early to mid 1900′s, Langston Hughes! This post reminded me of the love I have for poetry and how he and the great Nikki Giovanni helped shape my love for this form of creative writing.  So this week, I thought I’d give honor to the great late Hughes and share a few poems with you!  

First, I will share a brief history of a man who was forward thinking and provocative.  He was born in Missouri in 1902 but spent his adulthood in New York. He was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and thus many of his poems reflect that wonderful era of Black awareness.  He experienced racism (of course) but what gets me is that he often received criticism from his contemporaries like W.E.B Dubois. There was conflict because Hughes chose to write about the lower socio-economic group of Blacks and exposed a lot of prejudices within the Black community that were based on skin color (which is still prevalent today, unfortunately). Hughes stressed the importance of racial consciousness & Black pride during this period too… now how forward thinking was that? 

  

Dreams 

Hold fast to dreams
For  if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. 

~by Langston Hughes

I LUV THIS!!!

 
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I Drank the Kool-Aid

Posted by Karen on April 29, 2010 in General

I drank the Kool Aid and bought into the ‘Platinum Rule’ of  treating others as you want to be treated.

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