Franz Kafka and Langston Hughes - Masters of Literature

[Rastafari]

I know Milosz didn't evoke anyone, but howabout Franz Kafka and Langston Hughes?
Both were growing up during the same time, but in very different situations. Whereas Franz Kafka was writing in the communities of Germany, Czechislovakia, and Austria where the Scientific Revolution was already causing a paradigm shift; as well as a series of great changes to modern thinking through Relativity (For more details, Read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of a Scientific Revolution), Langston Hughes was part of the Harlem Renaissance trying to restore a black sense of art in the States, as well as a pretty far-left figure for his time.
I think it would great if I could get some of your opinions concerning these two different figures.

[Hampton]

Langston Hughes is a great poet. Poems like

Lament For Dark Peoples
I was a red man one time,
But the white men came.
I was a black man, too,
But the white men cam.
They drove me out of the forest.
They took me away from the jungles.
I lost my trees.
I lost my silver moons.
Now they've caged me
In the circus of civilization.
Now I herd with the many--
Caged in the circus of civilization.

I, Too
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.

Always the Same
...For the wealth of the exploiters
Blood that never comes back to me again.
Better that my blood
Runs into the deep channels of Revolution
Runs into the strong hands of Revolution,
Stains all flags red...

Let America be America Again, Memo to non-white Peoples, Ku Klux, and my favorite Ballad of the Landlord.

There's something about his writing that even if you're not black they put you in the shoes of that era, which sadly, in some shape is still around which makes the poems that are still about social issues, still so prevalent. Even though this may happen and you get treated a certain way by certain people, thru it all, there is still the beauty and pride of being black in America.
It's a shame that writing poems about social situations in America will make you be watched by the FBI and be listed as a security risk.

[Rastafari]

Yeah. Bob Marley and the Wailin' Wailers, James Brown (shoots off a "woo!" James Brown Scream), and several others had that same problem-being watched by US intelligence. It seems that anything artistic is inherantly good to the US, but whatever puts messages that goes a little against some grain they are trying to promote is wrong. I bet you never saw Woodie Gunthrie or John Sousa on a freiking FBI or CIA list, because they did what the patroitic one-wayers wanted them too.
But, aside from that, Hughes was a great poet.

[Panamarisen]

Didn´t know about Langston Hughes -ignorant me!
I will look upon anything written by him. I´m really interested!

¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

[abstractmentality]

Quote: from Panamarisen on 2:01 pm on Feb. 7, 2003
Didn´t know about Langston Hughes -ignorant me!
I will look upon anything written by him. I´m really interested!

¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!
particularly look at Hughes' poetry from the 30's, in which he wrote most of his socialist type poetry. Hughes is a master, and anything by him would be something to look into. one of my favorite poets.

[Rastafari]

Hughes died the same year John Coltrane and Che Guevara did, 2 years after the death of Kerouac