Rate this book

The Negro Speaks Of Rivers (2013)

by Langston Hughes(Favorite Author)

4.29 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0786818670 (ISBN13: 9780786818679)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Hyperion Books

review 1: Date: October 14th, 2014Author: Langston Hughes; Illustrated by E.B. LewisTitle: The Negro Speaks of RiversPlot: A poem written by the late Langston Hughes is reimagined in a picture-storybook representing men of color and the human mind and soul. Setting: Various River SitesCharacters: Various Characters (African American Men)Point-of-Views: First-Person Theme: Ancestry, Mind and SoulStyle: PoetryCopyright: 2009Notes: I love Langston Hughes and his poetry, so having his poetry in a children picture-book is a must have in my classroom!
review 2: James Mercer Langston Hughes, more commonly known as merely Langston Hughes, is a famous American poet, among many other things. With the separation of his parents and a semi-dysfunctional relationship with his father,... more Hughes was mainly raised by his grandmother in Lawrence, KS. This left him unhappy and lonesome. It was there he began to enthrall himself into books and literature. His father, hoping Langston would study to be an engineer, did not approve of him becoming a writer. Wanting to attend Columbia University, Hughes prepared to go to Mexico in order to visit his father and convince him to pay his tuition. Prior to leaving, Hughes said, “I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn’t understand it, because I was a Negro, and I like Negroes very much.” Nonetheless, he compromised with his father to study engineering so long as he paid his tuition to Columbia where he maintained a B+ average, but had to leave due to racial prejudice. Langston Hughes became most notably accredited with his poetic work during the Harlem Renaissance. With his focus turned toward Harlem, his most renowned work is The Negro Speaks of Rivers.The poem starts out with a grand pastoral scene. As the rhyme scheme is bleak, it is more of a narrative story put into a poetic structure; however, he always believed he didn’t have much rhythm. “There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm…” he states as he denies the typical poetic format. Even so, this poem is amazing in its own right as “[his] seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.” The Negro Speaks of Rivers portrays vast imagery and a majestic fullness of history. It takes us back to a pre-race mentality, forward to Ancient times, wraps us in times of slavery and then completes our journey in the present of his time. Much like the words of Heraclitus, “You can never step into the same river”, everything is constantly changing. Over time, with everything passed down from his ancestors, he has the knowledge of the world – a wise soul. less

Download links for: The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Advertising