April 18: Langston Hughes's "Black Workers" and "Black Dancers"

Two by Langston Hughes.

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Black Workers

The bees work.
Their work is taken from them.
We are like the bees—
But it won’t last
Forever.

Black Dancers

We
Who have nothing to lose
Must sing and dance
Before the riches
Of the world
Overcome
Us.

We
Who have nothing to lose
Must laugh and dance
Lest our laughter
Goes from
Us.

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Reflecting on the powerful “we” in Hughes’s poems, we chose the following audio clip from Poetry in Person: James Merrill on not using the first person in poetry.Audio

Read more from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes