Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902. He only

lived there for a couple of months until he moved to Central Plains, Kansas.

Where he started to practically raise himself so in one form or another he

grew up mother and fatherless.

In 1915 he moved from Kansas to Lincoln, Illinois where he wrote

"Chicago Poems" and "To Youth" which were written in the time frame of

1916-1918. Then he went traveling the world and came back after the war

on September 4, 1921 and when he came back to New York he sat down his

bags in Harlem and looked at what he called "his people". By now "The

Negro Speaks of River" has been published and America loves it. He tells

his family that he was just sitting on a train on his way to St. Louis when he

started scribbling on a envelope he took out of his pocket. During this time

he also wrote a poem called "Simple John" and a poem called "Never Far

Away" was the nurturing thought of death, as in "Poem".

Langston Hughes wrote day in and day out and usually was never

really satisfied with his poems. Honestly, he really did not like dressing up

and doing public readings. At least that is what he told his friend Fauset.

In 1923-1924 Langston visited his motherland Africa, what he called

"Home of the Negro People", but after drinking a whole botle of white wine

his perspective changed. He saw it mostly as ridiculous customs that

should have been changed by now. After bieng there for eighteen days he

left Nigeria and moved