Tag: Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes poem/Sealey Challenge

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone. Molly is a teacher, and last week she shared a charming interaction she had at a Staples store with a boy who was soon to enter kindergarten. He expressed in an adorable way the excitement and uncertainty about this new beginning. The end of Summer is an exiting time of year for many.

This week I decided to participate in the Sealey challenge. I wanted to make a commitment that I could actually keep, and I pulled this book off my shelf: 100 Poems To Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch.

As we all know, poems have layers of meaning. Hirsh has chosen 100 poems, great poems old and new, and in two or three pages tells us the history of the poem and the author’s craft. I am reading at least one a day. Today I read this poem written in 1927 by Langston Hughes, about a time many Americans want to forget: the Jim Crow era.

history:

SONG FOR A DARK GIRL
by Langston Hughes

Way Down South in Dixie
     (Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
     To a cross roads tree.

Way Down South in Dixie
     (Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
     What was the use of prayer.

Way Down South in Dixie
     (Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
     On a gnarled and naked tree.

This is a short poem, three quatrains. The language is direct but complex in terms of meaning. I’ll mention some of what I learned. First “Way Down South in Dixie” refers to a popular song from the segregated South. We all know this song. It was written to be song by someone in black face who, playing a slave, longs for a return to the South that is so dear to him. This is placed in contrast to the reality of lynching, in a place and time of cruelty that few black folks would long to return to. The song was propaganda..

Also in contrast are the phrases “black young lover”in the first stanza and “White lord Jesus,” in the second. What god, white or otherwise, worthy of worship would allow lynching to happen, and is this white god or the young black lover, more worthy of praise?

Anyone reading this poem will understand, if they didn’t quite before, why book banning and revision of history is taking place in America. Our true history, involving such crimes as slavery and lynching, and the hijacking of Christianity, are all true, facts to remember, as teachers and librarians understand.

I look forward to exploring more of the poems in this Hirsch’s book.

On a different note, more I can share this week. First, I have been trying out water color painting. It’s fun to try and I’ve found some books to get me started.

I love the painter Wayne Thiebaud, who painted cupcakes and gum ball machines among many other things. This spring I saw a Thiebaud exhibit at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. He wrote about being a thief, an artist stealing ideas from other artists. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I painted a donut as he might. In a book entitled, WATERCOLOR: Success in Four Steps, by Marina Bakasova, I found instructions on how to draw a donut.

It’s not hard to paint pastries or veggies, it just requires some patience. Faces and landscapes, well, that takes more study. Still it was fun sending this postcard to my sister.

I also happened upon and snapped a picture of a red tailed hawk this week, in a grassy area, enjoying a tasty catch.

I think I’ll try to draw him soon. Not sure about drawing feathers but will try. His tail was a deep and bright brick red. He was gorgeous and let me watch him for a while.

Red Tailed Hawk

Enjoy the rest of summer. Thank you Molly Hogan for hosting! Best wishes to all those returning to school classrooms and libraries soon..

POETRY FRIDAY IS HERE: Clouds, Rain, and Thunder

Welcome! Welcome to Poetry Friday and today I have the honor of hosting. It’s a busy weekend for me with family visiting but over the weekend read and comment on everyone’s post. Please check in with Mr. Linky at the end to add your name to share your blog.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here.

I have been thinking about storms this week. I love watching a storm in progress, the changes in the sky, the air and the trees. I love the sound of rain and wind as long as I feel safe. I know I’m not the only one who likes to think about storms. Many writers have written and write about dramatic weather. I’ll recommend a picture book and a few poems out the very many that have been inspired by weather.

CLAP! CLAP! BOOM!: The Story of a Thunderstorm, by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Elly Mackay, takes us into the heart of a storm, the sights and terrific sounds. It is written in rhyming verse that will definitely appeal to kids. It would also be fun for parents to read aloud.

We learn of a storm from it’s suspenseful onset, where we feel something is about to happen. Below, three children sense a storm is coming when they see clouds, just as we all do. We hear what they see in Purdie Salas’ lyrical verse. . . and the storm builds.

Starting low,
they grow
and grow--
white above,
now gray below.

Rustling, 
murmuring
rush begins
or whispering leaves
in newborn 
winds.

The climax of the storm is shown inside the book and also on the cover of the book, seen above, featuring the roiling sea and lightening bolts lighting up a craggy mountain. It’s a lovely illustration.

The storm ends with the world quiet and “shining.” Storms have satisfying arcs.

ZAP! CLAP! BOOM! is a wonderful picture book capturing stormy excitement that all humans, young and old, can share.

Besides ZAP! CLAP! BOOM!, I bought another book, a new poetry collection, with gentle rhymes and lovely art work.

I enjoy the humor and voice in THE FATHER GOOSE COLLECTION OF POETRY, by Charles Ghingha and illustrated by Sara Brezzi. I love the subtle humor, for instance, in the following short fun poem. 

THUNDER BUGS
By Charles Ghigna

On stormy nights
I often wonder,
Do Lightning bugs
Make the Thunder?

What a wonderful question!

In books new or old, there is an endless number of poems for those charmed by weather. Here’s a gentler poem by Langston Hughes:

Langston Hughes 1901-1967

April Rain Song
By Langston Hughes.

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby

(The rest HERE)

And other by Elizabeth Coatsworth who was born the same year as my grandmother:

Elizabeth Coatsworth 1893-1986

SUMMER RAIN

by Elizabeth Coatsworth

What could be lovelier than to hear the summer rain
cutting across the heat as scythes cutting across grain?
Falling upon the steaming roof with sweet uproar,
Tapping and rapping wildly at the door?

(The Rest HERE)

Even with the inconvenience, I love the changes in weather within each week and within each day.

Below is a poem I wrote last year. An earlier version was published in an on line journal. But that version seemed overdone to me. I really didn’t like it. I have since cut most of it, eighty percent!, realizing that shorter is in this case much better. 

AFTER THE RAINSTORM MATINEE

We stand in the quiet,
shivering, awed, 

as high in the balcony
rainbows applaud.


© Janice Scully (draft)

Have a wonderful weekend!