The Dream is the Truth

‘Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.’ — first line of Their Eyes Were Watching God

She was part of the Harlem Renaissance at its height. She held a degree in anthropology from Columbia University, published four novels and over fifty short stories, essays and plays and received a Guggenheim Fellowship twice. At one time her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was being taught in seventeen different courses at Yale University, a book she wrote over the course of seven weeks in Haiti. 

Twenty-three years later Zora Neale Hurston died in a Fort Pierce, Florida County Welfare Home, quickly buried among weeds in an unmarked grave and just as quickly forgotten. 

She was born in a small Alabama town in 1891 but grew up in Eatonville, Florida, an all black town located just six miles west of Orlando. She published her first story in 1921 and in 1925 arrived in New York at a time when the Harlem Renaissance was at its peak. Hurston quickly became an integral part of that movement, collaborating with Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman. Over time, Hurston fell out of favor among prominent black writers for her reluctance to take a political stance in her writing and for her use of black dialect for her characters. In 1937 she published her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a work destined to become a classic of African-American literature. Her last novel, Seraph on the Suwanee was published in 1948, but for reasons that remain cloudy, her work more and more went unpublished. An essay, “Why the Negro Won’t Buy Communism” published in American Legion magazine in 1951 was the last work published before her death. 

In 1975, after a research trip to Florida, Alice Walker published the essay, “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” in Ms. The article ignited a revival of interest in Hurston which has continued to flourish with re-printings of her books and stories, biographies, films and PBS documentaries, as well as a resurgence of her place in university classrooms.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, set for the most part in the black Florida community of Eatonville tells the story of Janie Crawford, a black woman in search of true love and her true self. A voice like none other, Janie sparkles with wit, beauty and wisdom as she narrates a life through the trials of poverty, three marriages, repressed ambition and the ultimate and freeing discovery of romantic love. Described by many as an African-American feminist classic, the description is much too bland for a novel both vibrant and achingly human, one that transcends labels. The story follows Janie Crawford’s ripening from a spirited but voiceless teenage girl into a woman with strong convictions about her destiny. Though written in a brief seven weeks, Their Eyes Were Watching God pulses with the blood of rich experience and is possibly the most widely read and highly praised novel in all of African-American literature.

One of the most contentious aspects of Hurston’s writing has always been her unique use of language, specifically a mastery of the rural southern black dialect, criticized as making her characters (and southern blacks in particular) cartoon-like, Brer Rabbit type personalities that support a stereotype. What cannot be missed though is a narrative structure that divides the flow of language between polished literary narration and idiomatic dialogue. In the afterword to modern editions of the book, Henry Louis Gates Jr. suggests that Their Eyes Were Watching God is concerned with ‘…finding a voice, with language as an instrument of injury and salvation, of selfhood and empowerment.’ This is seen in her relations with husband Jody when he stifles her speech and prevents her from talking, a clear suppression of her individuality — “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.” 

The opposite is seen in Janie’s later relationship with Tea Cake, who engages her in conversation, putting her on equal terms with respect for her individuality, and it is from this respect that her great love for him springs. For Janie language is both the source of her identity and her empowerment.

Putting aside the argument that Hurston’s language supports an unflattering stereotype, would it not be better to take Alice Walker’s suggestion and view the writer as an artist and not as the artist-politician that most black writers have been required to be, that in the case of Their Eyes Were Watching God it is a more fulfilling read to see it as a fervent human quest rather than a distinctly black one?

Hurston was often the butt of criticism from fellow black artists who disliked what they saw as a  subservient adoption of the “happy darkie” persona for benefit of a white audience in search of stereotypes. Langston Hughes gave example of that in his autobiography, The Big Sea…

‘…Zora Neale Hurston was certainly the most amusing. Only to reach a wider audience, need she ever write books—because she is a perfect book of entertainment in herself. In her youth she was always getting scholarships and things from white people, some of whom simply paid her just to sit around and represent the Negro race for them, she did it in such a racy fashion. She was full of side-splitting anecdotes, humorous tales, and tragicomic stories, remembered out of her life in the south…She could make you laugh one minute and cry the next. To many of her white friends, no doubt she was a perfect “darkie”, in the nice meaning they gave that term—that is a naive, childlike, sweetly humorous and highly colored Negro.’

Like me, perhaps others find this picture of Hurston not altogether distressing for at the root of it all is Hurston’s desire and problem as a writer to communicate faithfully the cultural wealth of a black folk tradition. She was after all a mix of writer, folklorist and anthropologist.

Sometimes the case with even the biggest names, I came to Zora Neale Hurston late. A name familiar from conversation and books, it is my loss that her stories and novels came to hand only in the past weeks. Frankly, I am astonished at the power of her words and her themes. Much too unsophisticated to set Hurston among African-American feminists and leave it at that, readers will discover in her writing a treasure house of humanity, passion, magical realism, folklore and wisdom. Eight stories and one novel are enough to convince me that the name and writing of Zora Neale Hurston will be around for a long time to come.

Gathered Laughter

Something in the air on Thursday drew my mind suddenly to thoughts of Langston Hughes, one of those mysterious prompts that depend on no logic and connect with nothing at hand. Good timing, since calendar and schedule permitted a long lazy afternoon of thumbing through a collection of Langston Hughes poems and a book of short stories. One of the books on my wish list is the writer’s autobiography, The Big Sea which recounts the writer’s time in Paris where as a young man he worked as a cook and waiter in nightclubs and ‘knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends’ and the years in Harlem where he was a rising young poet at the center of the ‘Harlem Renaissance.’

Born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, Langston Hughes spent a year at Columbia University before hopping a tramp steamer for West Africa and Europe. As a crew member on the ship, he traveled up and down the coast of West Africa for six months, and then settled in Paris for some time. Back in the US, and after earning a degree at Lincoln University, he moved to Harlem in New York City where he remained until his death in 1967.

The two poems below are from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, originally sent by Hughes to the Associated Negro Press in Chicago, which distributed them to African American newspapers throughout the country. Information about which newspaper the poems first appeared in is not available in the volume of collected poems. The first poem is dated July 1943, the second August 1943.

THE BELLS TOLL KINDLY

Many clocks in many towers

Have struck for me delightful hours.

Many cities, many towns

Have gathered laughter,

Scattered frowns.

Many clocks in many towers

Have laughed their hours.

Some day in some higher tower

A clock will strike its final hour.

When it tolls I shall go

Not wishing that the hour be slow.

I shall then remember still

How it struck one gay December

Near the Kremlin white with snow

And the midnight a warm ember

Of love’s glow.

I shall then still sweet recall

How one evening in Les Halles

We walked together arm in arm

Hearing Notre Dame’s grave charm.

Then I shall still realize

How, round the world, the bells are wise,

So when I hear that last bell toll,

Willingly, I’ll bare my soul.

For many clocks in many towers,

Have struck for me delightful hours,

So there shall be no need to fear

The final hour drawing near.

MADAM’S CHRISTMAS (OR MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY)

I forgot

to send a card to Jennie

But the truth about cousins is

There’s too many.

I also forgot

A card for Joe

But I believe I’ll let

The old rascal go.

I disremembered

My old friend Jack

But he’s been evil

Long as he’s been black.

I done bought

Four boxes now,

And I can’t afford

No more nohow.

So MERRY CHRISTMAS

Everybody!

Cards or no cards

Here’s HOWDY!

More poems by Langston Hughes are here and here.

Three American Voices

Black Americans can claim three of America’s finest poets—Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni—as clarion voices of their heritage and experience. They are in many ways dissimilar writers, but their themes and vernacular often have, and naturally so, an echo that is indelible in the experience of growing up black in twentieth century America. Each poet is distinct, each with a clear identity but their voices together make a stirring and resonant impression.

LANGSTON HUGHES was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902. He spent some time at Columbia University before taking work on a tramp steamer headed to West Africa and Europe. The ship traveled up and down the coast of West Africa for several months before Hughes left the ship, settling in Paris for an extended time. Back in the US, he earned a degree at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, then moved to Harlem in New York City where he remained until his death in 1967. Other work by the poet is posted here; his collected poetry here.

MAYA ANGELOU was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1928. She started out as an actress and dancer in New York, became a journalist in Africa, and later worked extensively in drama, television and films. She speaks five languages and has published over thirty books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction since her 1969 bestselling autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ms Angelou is lifetime Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. I Shall Not Be Moved.

NIKKI GIOVANNI was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1943. She has published sixteen collections of her poetry and teaches writing and literature at Virginia Tech. Collected poetry.

MOTHER TO SON (Langston Hughes)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

ME AND MY WORK (Maya Angelou)

I got a piece of a job on the waterfront.

Three days ain’t hardly a grind.

It buys some beans and collard greens

and pays the rent on time.

Course the wife works, too.

Got three big children to keep in school,

need clothes and shoes on their feet,

give them enough of the things they want

and keep them out of the street.

They’ve always been good.

My story ain’t news and it ain’t all sad.

There’s plenty worse off than me.

Yet the only thing I really don’t need

is strangers’ sympathy.

That’s somebody else’s word for

caring.

QUILTS (Nikki Giovanni)

Like a fading piece of cloth

I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able

To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days

When just woven I could keep water

From seeping through

Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave

Dazzled the sunlight with my

Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories

The tasks I can no longer complete

Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only

this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to

Will hear my whispers

And cuddle

near

I Dream of Rivers

Poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, essayist and columnist, Langston Hughes, was unfortunately for me, a long time coming to my attention. The name was familiar, as was his great stature as a spokesman for the African American, but I did not begin reading his work until six or seven years ago. It didn’t take me long to realize that Langston Hughes was a spokesman for much, much more than the people of his own race.

Born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, Langston Hughes spent a year at Columbia University before hopping a tramp steamer for West Africa and Europe. As a crew member on the ship, he traveled up and down the coast of West Africa for six months, and then settled in Paris for some time. Back in the US, and after earning a degree at Lincoln University, he moved to Harlem in New York City where he remained until his death in 1967.

He lived in New York during the period of years known as the Harlem Renaissance, spread across the decade of the 1920s. This was a time and a movement that ultimately redefined how America and the world viewed African Americans. In short, the Harlem Renaissance created a new black identity. One concern of the poet at this time was racial pride and the creation of what could be called purely African American poetry. Jazz was an important part of Harlem culture during those years and Hughes sought to adapt that musical genre to his poetry. He used the syncopated rhythms and repetitive phrases common to blues music and jazz. From his work and the work of other black writers of the time emerged what came to called jazz poetry.

The following five poems are not necessarily what one might call classic examples of jazz poetry, but rather a representative selection of poems over a span of twenty-six years in the work of Langston Hughes.

I Dream a World

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn.

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom’s way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white,

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind—

Of such I dream, my world!

(February 1945)

Birth

Oh, fields of wonder

Out of which

Stars are born,

And moon and sun

And me as well,

Like stroke

Of lightning

In the night

Some mark

To make

Some word

To tell.

(May 1947)

Blues on a Box

Play your guitar, boy,

Till yesterday’s

Black cat

Runs out tomorrow’s

Back door

And evil old

Hard luck

Ain’t no more!

(February 1947)

Feet o’ Jesus

At the feet o’ Jesus,

Sorrow like a sea.

Lordy, let yo’ mercy

Come driftin’ down on me.

At the feet o’ Jesus

At yo’ feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus,

Please reach out yo’ hand.

(October 1926)

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

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 danced in the Nile when I was old
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.

(June 1921)

Five poems from: The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes