As part of my English class for this semester I was required to read Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. I never thought in my life I would read a whole book of poems, mainly because of my attention span, but I got through it. The interesting part about this collection is that Hughes himself put this collection together, and decided what poems should be in the book. In the book he divides the section up into different categories of poems. The most interesting section to me was the “Montage of a Dream Deferred” section. What I did not know about the section is that the whole section is to be read as one big poem. When it is actually read like that it makes sense with how it flows, and the overall theme of the poems.
What I liked about Hughes’s work is that he brought up a lot of topics that were being addressed and pushed under the rug all at the same time. The topics of segregation in America. Through out his poems it can be seen that he talks about the ways that black people are being used socially and economically. It is from these threats to society that the motif of dreams comes through in the black population in Hughes’ work.
For someone like me who is not very good at reading between the lines of poetry, I really enjoyed reading his. Hughes does a great job of talking about the issues in ways that people can understand on the surface, but talking about so much more underneath. If you don’t want to read the whole body of Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, I highly recommend reading a few of them and really thinking about what he is trying to say in this poem.
Until Next Time,
Keep Turning the Pages
Life is a Page Turner 