Langston Hughes

Video: “Democracy”

Read byAdrian Matejka

DateApril 1, 2021

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) was born in Joplin, Missouri. His first book of poetry, "The Weary Blues," was published in 1926, and his first novel, "Not Without Laughter," was released in 1930 and won the Harmon gold medal for literature. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes created the enormously popular fictional character Jesse B. Semple, and wrote plays, numerous works of prose, and an acclaimed memoir, "The Big Sea" (Knopf, 1940). He loved jazz, wrote about it extensively, and incorporated the rhythms and improvisatory quality of the music into his verse.

Adrian Matejka is the Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry at Indiana University Bloomington and is the author of six books, most recently "Standing on the Verge & Maggot Brain" (Third Man Books, 2021) a mixed-media collection inspired by Funkadelic; and the collection "Somebody Else Sold the World" (Penguin, 2021). His book "The Big Smoke" (Penguin, 2013) was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Among Matejka’s other honors are fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Simon Fellowship from United States Artists. He was poet laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018–19.

Adrian Matejka

“Hughes’s poems are timeless: They refused to make excuses for America’s legacy of oppression.”