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The Negro Speaks of Rivers
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Langston Hughes
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
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4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul
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Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes Langston Hughes, 1942.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

poem by Hughes
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History

The Negro Speaks of Rivers, poem in free verse by Langston Hughes, published in the June 1921 issue of The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It is Hughes’s first acclaimed poem and is a panegyric to people of Black African origin throughout history. It is written in a style derived from Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg as well as from African American spirituals.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by René Ostberg.