Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902. On the same day Langston was born, his father was very angry because a new law said that no black person could be a lawyer. Langston's father had studied very hard during his school days to be a lawyer, otherwise, he couldn't get a job. So he left the United States and headed for Mexico. There he started his own business. When Langston went to school, he was the only black student in his class. Since he was black, no one wanted to play with him, so he made friends with characters in his books. When Langston was 8 years old, he went to live with his grandmother because his mother can't afford to pay the rent for their house. He used to listen to stories his grandmother told him. His favorite story was about his grandfather, who was killed when fighting for freedom before Langston was born. When Langston was 12 years old, his grandmother died. By then, his mother had married another man, so Langston went to live with them.

   Langston finished grade school in Lincoln, Illinois. He graduated from Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio in 1920. One day, Langston's father asked Langston to visit him. Langston agreed because he needed help to go to college. On the way to Mexico, Langston wrote a poem called "Negro Speaks Of Rivers". It was published in the Crisis  magazine in 1920. His father sent him to study mining engineering at Columbia University in New York. He lived in a nearby city named Harlem. He loved that city because it was filled with black people. He liked it so much that he wrote a poem called "My People" to show how much he loved being black. Langston liked living there, but he didn't like school. Soon he quit school.

   When he was 21 years old, he joined the crew of S.S. West Hesseltine. He was the only one who brought books. One day, in a sudden attempt to leave his troubled past behind, he threw his books overboard. The only book he kept was Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. When he was in New York again, Langston worked as a busboy in Washington D.C. at a hotel because at that time, Langston's mother was there, and she wanted to be near him, so Langston moved there in 1925. Once, at the hotel, a very famous poet named Vachel Lindsay was staying at the hotel. So, Langston put some of his poems by Lindsay's dinner plate. Later in the night, many people came to hear Vachel Lindsay read his poems. He read Langston's poems too. He said that he had discovered a new poet. Newspapers and magazines throughout the country wrote about Lindsay's reading. Soon everyone knew about the new black poet, Langston Hughes.

   Langston Hughes died at the age of 65 in New York City from complications of cancer-related surgery.

Here are some answers to questions about Langston's poetry:

• Was work published during his lifetime?
  Yes, work was published during their lifetime. The first published work by Langston Hughes was printed in The Crisis magazine in 1921 when Langston was only 19 years old.

• What influenced his poetry?
  What influenced their poetry was because of the fact that his father couldn't find a job in the United States and had to find a job in Mexico because he was a black.

• What poetric devices were often used by this poet?
  Langston Hughes uses a lot of similes in his poems. Sometimes he uses metaphor and personification.

• What is important to remember about Langston Hughes?
  One thing to remember about this poet is that Langston Hughes wrote poems describing how good black people are in a big way by using euphemism. Also, he wanted to tell black people not to be sad and to be proud that they're black.

   What I like about this poem is that he said that he would wrap the dreams in a cloth. I think it means that he would protect the dreams of people who want freedom, from the strict country, and make the dreams come true. I think he used personification on the fourth line because he made a thing not visible to wrap them in a cloth. I think it was written because people wanted freedom, and in this poem Langston kind of made that freedom come true. My opinion is that I think that Langston Hughes was a great poet and showed black people what they can do to stand up for their people and he gave them ideas by writing poems.

Researched and written by Aizat