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Langston Hughes published 860 poems during his life. He also wrote humor, drama, history, columns and short stories. The poem featured on this page was written in 1921 and published in The Crisis. Hughes was only nineteen years old. To learn more, click below:

Langston Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

I've known rivers.

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood through human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers.

Ancient dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughe's poem is my all time favorite, but I also like current poems. Here's one by Jill Scott:

When the Women Gather

Ever watch the women?

How they laugh?

bend from the waist

Like

wind make wheat do.

They listen chile

deep

all up in they whole selves.

They be smilin"

All them molars and wisdoms showin"

Like Cheshire cats

They be cookin' too

Season fish

fry

serve fresh squeezed lemonade

Legs wide for best air

bras relaxed on the floors

"Rules...sit out on that porch and wait!"

they say

"We busy"

Yep they be busy too

Sewin' highlights

Makin' quilts of days to come and gone gone

They be singin' too chile

'Bout all them good convulsions

those sweet sweats

those screamin' yeses

th lacks of yep.

They be cryin' too

hand holdin'

doctorin'

sewin' raggedy edges

It's beautiful chile

Truly"But don't rush"

They say

Don't rush

Gone head on outside

You'll know fo yo own self soon enough

Here is a gem by Naomi Long Madgett

Out of Time

It wasn't ready for the frost,

That small improbable bud that didn't ask.

The season's limitations

But dared to be bright

Anyhow.

Full of delight as a puppy,

Or a new poem,

It took the sun for granted,

Accepted Indian Summer for the real thing

And went on exuding sweetness

Even after its brown-edged petals fell.

(Nobody bothered to tell her

She wasn't a summer rose.)

Here's one by Haki Madhubuti called "my brothers"

my brothers

my brothers i will not tell you

who to love or not love

i will only say to you

that

Black women have not been

loved enough.

i will say to you

that

we are at war & that

Black men in america are

being removed from the

earth

like loose sand in a wind storm

and that the women Black are

three to each of us.

no

my brothers i will not tell you

who to love or not love

but

i will make you aware of our

self hating and hurting ways.

make you aware of whose bellies

you dropped from.

i will glue your ears to those images

you reflect which are not being

loved.

For Poems by Nikki Giovanni click here

2008 Black Hertitage Series Postal Stamp

Charles W. Chesnutt 1858 - 1932

Below: Picture of Jill Scott promoting her book

Below: Picture of Haki Madhubuti

Nikki Giovanni

Below, Naomi Long Madgett

Anna Julia Cooper

2009 African American History Stamp

I am not so easily killed as you thought: So firmly am I a part of you. -Alice Walker