Blues in Stereo

by Langston Hughes

Genres: African American Historical

Synopsis

Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes was most well-known for his poems, novels, and plays that highlight Black American life in post-slavery America. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri and began writing poetry when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University. During this time, he worked as an assistant cook, a launderer, and a busboy. He also traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman before finishing his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later.
 
Setting the stage for an enduring and genre-defining career, Hughes wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language, alongside their suffering. He began writing short pieces in his personal notebooks before seeking a home for his resonant verse. Over the course of his four-decade career, Hughes published his first book of poetry with Knopf in 1926 as well as poems with Yale University and small, grassroots literary magazines. Today, he stands as one of the greatest literary innovators.
 
But how did this literary giant rise to such heights? Blues in Stereo zooms in on Hughes’s early work (1919-1929). National Book Award finalist Danez Smith joins as curator for this work, offering an introduction on Hughes’s lyrical, evocative, and award-winning poetry and notes on the formation of his signature style and craft. Collected from libraries and little-known publications across the country, Blues in Stereo features some of Hughes’s earliest undiscovered writings; the collection of his poems published in The Crisis, a monthly publication form the NAACP edited by W.E.B. DuBois from 1910-1934; and even an original unreleased play co-written with DuBois, complete with a full score. This beautifully rendered collection of Hughes’s early works is sure to become a bookshelf staple.
 

Release date: November 19, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 192

Sample

My pockets may be (is) empty,

There are be holes in my shoes,

But I gets rainbow round my shoulder

And a knockout for the blues.

I’m Cocko’ the World, that’s me!

I never has no money

But I always has a girl.

I’ll tell everybody I’m

Cocko’ The World! Cocko the World, that’s me!

I ain’t no duke for king.

I surely ain’t no earl.

I’m just a high-steppin’ papa named

Cocko’ the World! Cocko’ the World, that’s me!

My skin ain’t white

And my hair’s too short to curl—

But I got what it takes

To make me Cocko’ the World.

My Face is (black as) just like midnight.

Each tooth is like a pearl—

But my lighthouse smile makes me

Cocko’ The World! Cocko’ the World, that’s me!

I’m a southern sweet potato,

XXX Clark Gable to my girl,

Joe Louis to the men folks,

Called Cocko’ the World! Cocko the World, that’s me!

I’m a African prince, I’m a dusk. . .