American Literature II

Langston Hughes is a poet whose timeless words continue to speak volumes from the start of the Jazz era, which was soaked in the blues of the deep south, to today’s African diaspora. His poems are filled with a creative truth. Within the selection of poems that we had to read for class, “Song for a Dark Girl”, really stood out to me. Most of his work focuses on the perceptions and thoughts of the black men and women who endured the hardship of racism at the time. This poem is of no exception as it seemingly tells the story of a young woman who has lost her “black young lover”, most likely to lynching which was a common occurrence at the time. The poem was short, yet powerful. What stood out even more was when I read his poem, “Silhouette”, and immediately felt a connection with the two.

I started to wonder if this poem was another perspective of the event. Also, when the speaker says, “How Dixie protects its white womanhood, Southern gentle lady, Be good! Be good!”, I began to question if the lady was a white woman in “Songs for a Dark Girl”, and although the song should be for a black girl given the views at the time, that it was potentially from a young white southern lady who was in love with a young black man. Reading this poem completely threw me off into different possible scenarios of the relationship between the two poems. “Silhouette” could possibly still be about the black girl, but why mention white womanhood? Hughes poems are powerful nonetheless, as its deep words expose the soul within his work and shows how it “has grown deep like rivers.”