Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

Emily Hughes

September 30, 2014

I absolutely loved this poem. Every word, phrase, and image is elegant and musical. Langston Hughes is able to create a rhythm with his specific, almost minimalist vocabulary choices. He uses short phrases and careful syntax so that each image resonates individually. To emphasize his use of language, Hughes creates a frame with the poem's structural symmetry; this frame gives the reader a distinctive lens through which they can imagine each carefully worded phrase in the center stanza.

In particular, I found the personification of nature especially powerful.  Phrases like "the singing of the Mississippi" and "the Congo [...] lulled me to sleep" incite a uniquely vivid image of nature and landscape. These images allow the reader to share the narrator's intimacy with the rivers. They go beyond description, and assert a much deeper relationship between poet and landscape.