Celebrating Langston Hughes

On this day in 1902, James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin Missouri. He began writing poetry in the 8th grade. He dropped out of a degree program at Columbia University to pursue his writing. He was prolific in his work. He wrote sixteen books of poems, two novels, three collections of short stories, four volumes of "editorial" and "documentary" fiction, twenty plays, children's poetry, musicals and operas, three autobiographies, a dozen radio and television scripts and dozens of magazine articles. In addition, he edited seven anthologies.*

Here is one of my favorite Langston Hughes poems.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

*Information on the work of Langston Hughes from Poemhunter.com.