Langston Hughes The Weary Blues

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In his poem "The Weary Blues," Langston Hughes conforms to and deviates from the conventions of lyric poetry in order to publicly showcase jazz music ─ which had its origins in the African-American culture ─ all in the pursuit of proving African-American humanity and demanding equality in society during the Harlem Renaissance.

To a certain degree, "The Weary Blues" adheres to the rules of lyric poetry because it incorporates several rhyming couplets, generating a musical tone. In the beginning of the poem, Hughes writes:
"Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light"
The words, "tune," "croon," and "night," "light" are rhyming couplets ─ reinforcing the poem's similarity to the conventions of lyric poetry.

Hughes, again, conforms to the conventions of lyric poetry because he …show more content…
By definition, jazz poetry is a genre in which the poet may respond to or write about jazz and blues. By using two very different dialects of the English language in his poem, readers will notice the response to jazz and blues when parts of the musician's song are quoted within the poem. The narrator's language juxtaposes with the musician's language in the poem. The former mostly conforms to the style of standard American English, while the latter makes use of African-American Vernacular English, otherwise known as Ebonics. For example, the indented line, "I's gwine to quit ma frownin," is a phrase containing the features of slang, and the African-American dialect used by the singer. "Gwine," for instance, is an alteration of the word "going." The fact that Hughes writes about a jazz and blues musician and responds to his "drowsy syncopated" tunes is what makes "The Weary Blues" a jazz poem instead of a traditional lyric

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Langston Hughes is a famous poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, autobiographer, and writer of children's books. He was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri but grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas. Langston Hughes was known as one of the most prominent and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, a rebirth movement of African Americans in the arts during the 1920s. Through his writing, “he has enriched our lives”(1) with a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. The main theme of…

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