In the poem, he uses the river to build pride in the African American community. Hughes famous poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” traces the ties of African Americans to the rich cultures and histories of Blacks. His poetry instills in his people a growing sense of pride for Black race by claiming that Negroes have been instrumental in civilization all through history. He describes the heroic role of Blacks and their unending struggle against hate and oppression. Through his poems, Langston Hughes always urges his people to love themselves no matter how other people treat them or think of them. He uses the language, themes, and forms of expressions that are clear and familiar to his people. Hughes’s poetry gives expression to the glorious dreams of the Blacks and their nostalgic memories of their land. His poems such as “I Too”, “Negro”, ‘My People”, “Color”, and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” highlight, beside other themes, the theme of Black pride as well. He always encourages his people to be proud of who they are. He has a strong sense of racial pride and is one of the most powerful spokesmen of his race. Langston Hughes’s poems elicit the themes of Black pride. The Importance of Music, Particularly Jazz and Blues Dreams of African Americans in Hughes’s Poems Let’s discuss in detail all these major themes of Langston Hughes’s poems. Some of the important themes noticed in the works of Langston Hughes are the Black pride, American Dream, racism, dreams of freedom and change, music etc. The major themes in Langston Hughes’s poems come out of his personal life, his experiences with his people, his travels, and his involvement in radical and protest movements. Langston Hughes’ poetry did not merely impact the African American community of his time, but it also became an inspiration for all coming generations. They also depict their joys, laughter, and fondness for jazz and blues. They portray the dignity, resilience, struggle, and soulfulness of his people. His poems are highly subjective, impassioned, and refreshingly powerful. He celebrates the history, folkways, and real lives of his people. Hughes uses poetry to convey the messages of equality, racial justice, and democracy. Langston Hughes’s poems use countless themes to depict the everyday life of African Americans. He is one of the major leaders of the movement and his poems truly capture the spirit of the age. Hughes is especially famous for the verses he composed during the Harlem Renaissance of the 20th century. His poems picture the daily life and struggles of the common Black people. Many scholars and critics refer to him as a “poet laureate of American African experience”. This demonstrates how jazz poetry is an intertextual genre, entailing writing and reciting words that evoke the sounds, pacing and lyrics of music.Langston Hughes has written a myriad of essays, plays, and short stories, but he is most famous for his poems. Jazz poems inspired by the blues do not simply transcribe blues lyrics instead, they ingeniously transform standard twelve-bar and eight=bar blues forms with strategically placed disruptions of the steady flow of standard meter, that recall the sudden stops and starts in improvised jazz. These enact a delicate balance between describing the social conditions of performing the blues and transliterating authentic blues lyrics. It also employs Henry Louis Gates' theoretical concept of "Signifyin(g)"- "black double-voicedness because it always entails formal revision and intertextual relation" (The Signifying Monkey 51)- to analyze two blues poems, "The Weary Blues: (1923) by Langston Hughes and "Ma Rainey" (1932) by Sterling Brown. Beginning with the question "what constitutes jazz poetry?", this paper elucidates the musico-historical link between blues and jazz genres.
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