The 1920's, the age that followed the conclusion of the Great War was a time of great prosperity in America. Around the country, stocks boomed, and the artistic community flourished. Jazz music flooded the speakeasies along with flappers and alcohol, the first movie studios began to emerge in Los Angeles, and in the world of literature, some of America's foremost writers to this day broke into the scene -- names that include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Coined "The Jazz Age" by the former of aforementioned novelists, much of one of the most vibrant eras in the United States would not have been possible, if not for The Harlem Renaissance -- a sub-movement within the Jazz Age that saw the reemergence of African American musicians, activists, and poets. Returning to the arts scene to prove, and reminds those with an American passport and zip code that America was not America until the African American voice and conscience was allowed to join the hysteric chorus that was the 1920s.
Of these writers emerged poet Langston Hughes. Praised by critics and historians as one of the pioneers of jazz poetry, a style adopted by fellow African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, Hughes not only established himself as one of the foremost innovators and leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, but perhaps arguably as one of the greatest writers in the Cannon of American Poetry. Capturing his personal longings and yearnings of the African American community to be recognized, and heard the way they expressed with a biblical, but amorous conviction, here five of the most powerful quotes delivered by the poetic virtuoso:
1. "I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
As one well aware of how little African-American history was recognized in America as the people who lived, and made it, Langston Hughes understood that what made a person unique did not preside in just what was inside him waiting to be expressed, but perhaps, the heritage that was to be learned because of that expression.
2. "Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby."
During this period, the image of rain on anything affiliated with water was often equated with fecundity or an element that alluded to the fertile nature of intimacy. In a country driven by commercial demands, it was easy to become disconnected, or disillusioned but the monetary nature of its culture. Nevertheless, Hughes believed that the true reward and promise America had to offer was not that of a large bank account, but a large heart, able to pump blood to fill the hearts of others. With life, with meaning, and a sense that one belonged.
3. “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”
A more profound way to reword the old cliche 'you only live once', it wasn't uncommon to find writers during this period who shared a more skeptical view that digressed from the Victorian Judeo-Christian belief of an afterlife after death. In the era of modernism, you only lived once, and so that life was your heaven if you choose to make it that way.
4. "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?"
As one who had to aspire, and pursue before he found success as a writer like many writers who came before him, Hughes knew that in order to become what you dream of becoming, you must pursue it, and after you pursue it, you must pursue it again. Because if you wait, its the same as giving up.
5. "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
As one of few writers to realize a dream that ever remains desired by many as much as in desire it remains, Hughes believed in the necessity to retain dreams regardless of whether we got to hold them in the palm of our hand or watch it crumble into dust like sand in an hourglass. Because in our dreams, that's where we feel fulfilled, feel whole, and in being able to feel, we are able to be.
One of many Great American Dreamers like many writers who rose to prominence during his time, Langston Hughes's yearnings and longings forever remain. For those who yearn and long. For it is in our ability to yearn and long, that we pursue, and only in our pursuit do we have a chance to feel. To feel realized. Recognized. Legitimate. To feel human.
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