Tag Archives: Langston Hughes

Singin’ the Blues on Labor Day

By Robin Bates | Published: August 31, 2025

Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues” seems an appropriate poem for Labor Day.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2024

As the American election hangs in the balance, Alicia Ostriker holds two contradictory visions of America in balance.

By Robin Bates | Published: April 2, 2024

To grapple with Wilkerson’s understanding of racism as a caste system, I turn to Langston Hughes, Twain, and Arundhati Roy.

By Robin Bates | Published: March 24, 2024

As I revisited the grave of my son for the first time in six years, the concluding paragraphs of “Wuthering Heights” came to mind.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 28, 2024

Sen. Tim Scott’s self-abasement before Donald Trump brings to mind various “Uncle Tom” poems written by Black authors.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 3, 2023

Langston Hughes’s call for us to return to the vision expressed in the “Declaration of Independence” is more timely than ever.

By Robin Bates | Published: May 25, 2023

Buckling to rightwing pressure, a school has banned Amanda Gorman’s “Hill We Climb” from elementary students. My 8-year-old grandson loved it.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 21, 2022

In the 2022 film “The Whale,” and English professor searching for authenticity finds it in a childhood essay on “Moby Dick.”

By Robin Bates | Published: July 18, 2022

When we lose someone we love, we may have feelings that don’t appear laudable. Malraux’s “Man’s Fate” helps us understand them.