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When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes
Age: 66 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 22
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Joplin
Missouri
James Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes
Somebody
Tells
Lines
Unions
Stop
Police
Talking
Trade
Moon
Colonies
Begin
Colony
Poverty
Mention
Color
Poems

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I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
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Money and art are far apart.
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Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
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Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.
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They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.
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I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
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One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.
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Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.
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For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.
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Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.
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For poems are like rainbows they escape you quickly.
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Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on
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This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.
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The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss
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An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
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Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.
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I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
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