Langston Hughes Reads His Poetry Book

A Rare and Exceptional Recording of Langston Hughes Reading His Own Poetry.

"Langston Hughes belongs to whoever is listening. A possession in common, like the sights and sounds of a streetcorner hangout or the barbershop debate over pretty girls' legs and baseball players; open your ears and your heart if you've got one, Langston will walk right in and do the rest. Always public, his poems have no front door; not fully alive in the unspoken state; never quite satisfied unless they are talking to somebody. His thoughts come naked, conceived in the open only at home in the public domain. Free, without charge, like water, like air—like salted peanuts at a Harlem rent party. Come in, have one on me—that's Langston's style; a great host; a perfect bartender; profligate—not of pigs' feet but of poetry—dishing it up, iambic pentameter, on the rocks and on the house, fresh wrote this morning. Dead now, but still alive. Ol' Langston in the corners of my mind."

— Ossie Davis

Contents:

• One Way Ticket
• The Negro Speaks of Rivers
• Puzzled
• Trumpet Player
• Ballad of the Gypsy
• Kid Sleepy
• Southern Mammy Songs
• Migrant
• Mama and Daughter
• Sylvester's Dying Bed
• Intern at Provident Hospital
• Merry-Go-Round
• Ku Klux Klan
• The South
• Mulatto
• Out of Work
• The Explanation of Our Times
• Dinner Guest: Me