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 Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 8:48 am Post subject: |
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Poetry for Young People
Langston Hughes
Hardcover
Edited by David Roessel & Arnold Rampersad
Illustrated by Benny Andrews
| Quote: | The Weary Blues
Hughes called this "my lucky poem" after it won first prize in a literary contest sponsored by Opportunity magazine in 1925. The poem includes the first blues verses he'd heard as a child growing up in Lawrence, Kansas. It is also one of the first poems where Hughes began to experiment with how to incorporate African-American musical motifs from the blues, jazz, and spirituals into his verse.
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway...
He did a lazy sway...
To the tune 'o those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan -
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more -
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied -
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singe stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
(-- p. 24) |
Listen:
Weary Blues
With Langston Hughes, Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather
Audio CD
Contains 33 of Langston Hughes' poems set to music composed, arranged and conducted by Mingus and Feather, recorded in 1958.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=4301#4301 |
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