I've Known Rivers Langston Hughes Poetry Appreciate

LaserWolf

I've known rivers:I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in 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 Hughes

JoeMojo

Lovely.

A friend of mine borrowed my copy of Hughes' "Rhythms of the World" LP on Folkways a few years ago, presumably to find vocals to sample. He returned it because Hughes' reading voice "didn't sound black enough".

Birdman9

Lovely.

A friend of mine borrowed my copy of Hughes' "Rhythms of the World" LP on Folkways a few years ago, presumably to find vocals to sample. He returned it because Hughes' reading voice "didn't sound black enough".

Don't tell him he was gay too!

Langston Hughes is the man.

HarveyCanal

Both highly recommended...

PATX

Both highly recommended...

Both essential. Wow do we have Something In Common Harvey?

macaca

i read this cause of gary bartz.

Mad Drama Teacher

I had to memorize this in 11th grade. Glad I did.

LaserWolf

I had to memorize this in 11th grade. Glad I did.

Very cool.

I am the volunteer coordinator for a literacy program and I finally added some poetry books to the collection. Including Langston Hughes Poems for young people, which includes I've known Rivers. Heavy. I wanted to read 5 poems at the training but it went long. They would have been 2 contemporary children's poem authors Jack Perlutsky and Colin McNaughton plus Changing The Guard At Buckingham Palace AA Milne, Jabberwocky Lewis Carol and I've Known Rivers.

Mad Drama Teacher

Every poetry unit for students should start out with Billy Collins's "Introduction to Poetry"

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.



His Poetry 180 is the project he did as Poet Laureate -- something you could check out online.


On the Langston Hughes theme, I like "A Dream Deferred" the best.

BreakSelf

On the Langston Hughes theme, I like "A Dream Deferred" the best.

Beat me to it.

LaserWolf

Every poetry unit for students should start out with Billy Collins's "Introduction to Poetry"

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.



His Poetry 180 is the project he did as Poet Laureate -- something you could check out online.


On the Langston Hughes theme, I like "A Dream Deferred" the best.

Billy Collins is a favorite. I would have his books in my room. I wonder if anyone has collected Billy Collins for young people?