Poems by Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. He was descended from slave owners and from slaves. Most of his childhood was spent in the town of Lawrence, Kansas and Cleveland, Ohio, where he went to high school. After a stint as a merchant sailor, he gained a degree from Lincoln University and moved to New York. He lived there, in Harlem, for most of the rest of his life working as a playwright, novelist and poet. He was a central figure in the "Harlem Renaissance" associated with Jazz and The Blues. He has even been called a "Jazz Poet".