The Weary Blues

Author  Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues

This celebratory edition of the classic poetry collection reminds us of Hughes's stunning achievement, speaking directly, intimately, and powerfully of Black experiences at a time when Black voices were newly being heard in American literature. • With an introduction by poet Kevin Young.

Beginning with the opening “Proem” (prologue poem) Huges writes, “I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa."

As the legendary Carl Van Vechten wrote in a brief introduction to the original 1926 edition, “His cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race...Always, however, his stanzas are subjective, personal,” and, he concludes, they are…