Langston Hughes: An old school Harlem Baller

It is worth noting before I begin this post that I do not feel very familiar with Langston Hughes. He is still a stranger to me, and to full understand him I think I’d need to read a book about him. Nonetheless, here we go.

1. Animal – Elephant. Hughes would be an elephant because male elephants generally stay away from the elephant pack and their families. This is representative of Hughes’ poor relationship with his father.
2. Plant – White Bear Poppy. Hughes would be a White Bear Poppy because the flower blooms in the desert; and being a black man, he faced many difficulties “blooming” into a poet.
3. Article of Clothing – Flamboyant shirt. Hughes was supposedly gay and flamboyant shirts are stereotypical of gay men at this point in time.
4. Day of the Week – Sunday. A few of his poems are directly tied to religious things, and he makes religious references in his poems.
5. Food – Soup Kitchen. Hughes lived during the Great Depression, and I’m sure he saw many of these.
6. Color – Red. He was drawn to the idea of communism for a while and even one of his poems is thought to be about communism (Red is the color of communism).
7. Geometric Shape – An irregular 13-gon not fully closed. Hughes was an anomaly of his time and irregular 13-gons not fully closed are also anomalies.
8. Fragrance – Hugo Boss cologne. He stayed classy even in America.
9. Type of Building – Bar. Bars are places of happiness and fun but also struggle. Hughes’ poems focused on the lives of the black working class which had these three aspects.
10. Word – Patriotic. Not patriotic to America but patriotic to his race. He had a very strong sense of racial pride.
11. Musical Instrument – Saxophone. The saxophone is one of the key instruments of jazz music. He was fascinated with jazz music thus he’d be a saxophone.
12. Season of the Year – Summer. Many people feel inspired by the warm weather to go out and improve themselves. Hughes worked to help empower young black citizens of America just like summer inspires humans.
13. Appliance / Machinery – Rudder. The rudder of the boat helps keep the boat sailing in the right direction. He was like a rudder, because he tried to steer America back on course.
14. Natural Phenomenon – Hughes is represented by erosion. Over the course of his life, his poems slowly worked to change the stigma of black people in America.
15. Literary Character – Hermione Granger. Langston Hughes was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance and brought about a rebirth of African-American culture. Like Hughes, Hermione (attempted) to bring about a rebirth of caring for house elves; however, Hughes was much more successful.