Langston Hughes on a Holiday
Another music break
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As today is July 4th and most people will be out in the world making loud noises, I figured I would keep this one short. Though, if you feel you must read one blog on a day like today, I suggest historian Heather Cox Richardson’s piece on the Declaration of Independence. (Her piece from the day before, on Thomas Paine, is also worth it.)
Me? I’ve always had mixed feelings about the 4th, not so much what it stands for, but how, during my lived experience, we celebrate. Instead, I will rely on my favorite thing: poetry. Here’s a take on freedom—Langston Hughes’s “Dream Variations,” set to music. The background sample throughout is Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues.”
When thinking of freedom, this is an interesting pairing in some ways. Langston Hughes wrote openly about freedom and the realities of living as a black American, though his more radical edges have been softened by classroom teaching—as if this deeply radical poet (formally as well, not just in his content) is somehow warm and snuggly. Conversely, there’s Louis Armstrong, who often presented himself as warm and snuggly, but he blazed a trail as radical as it was genre creating.
Enjoy.
This was fabulous! What a great idea and execution. You really make this poem come to life. I would buy and listen to an album of this kind of thing!